The Clockwork Mansion

((here we go, here's hoping all turns out okay.))

Kate, like many others, she'd assumed, had received an invitation... a recognisation of her abilities and prowess as rebel and defier of the law. She'd snorted at the offer, but after a long night of curiosity over this strange offer, she'd decided to give it a try.

Now the small woman found herself staring down the door to the building she'd been told to meet in, as if willing it to open of it's own accord- things were strange and tended to do that sometimes, she'd learned. Figuring that no, it was just a simple door, she walked in, and was promptly greeted by several, almost robotic- in fact, almost definately robotic- little... servants? Minions? Was that the proper  term? They bustled around, pushing at the backs of her leather-clad legs, moving the ever-more aggravated woman into the elevator, going so far as to push the buttons for her, and pushing her into a door leading into a large conference room, where they bowed to some unseen presense(Which Kate was not happy to have made such a less-than graceful entry before) and left the room hurriedly.

"Welcome, Kate... Please, have a seat." The unsees voice required, and the small woman obliged, as far from the shadows at the end of the dimly-lit table as possible.
Sure had a flair for the dramatic, whoever this guy was...

((Let me kow if you think I'm doing anything wrong. >> ))

A large crocodillian man enters with a slightly shorter companion. A metallic arm is dangleing from his mouth and his craw looks like it has something in it. "Did you really have to EAT it?" inquired Dile Lass in a less than thrilled voice. Then it moved. Croc swallowed it. "*Belch* Mmmm" were the only sounds out of him. They both sat near, but not beside, the cat lady.

Kate rolled her eyes at the two newcomers. Amateurs. She thought simply. He looks strong, but obviously none too bright, and the girl looks like she'd rather be back in college. She gave an obviously dissaproving look, and settled down further into her chair, glaring.

"So how many more are expected? The faster we get started, the faster we can get out of this god-forsaken place." She said, sharply, each word pronounced clearly, quickly, and with a definite sting.
The unseen presence simply laughed to itself, which, of course, only angered Kate even more.
"Fine if you're not going to answer even that, you can count me out." She got up, walked quickly over to the door, and opened it, only to find the small robotic creatures pointing what must have been some form of firearm at the small woman. She turned, and reluctantly closed the door behind her, going back to her seat, mumbling things entirely not fit for polite company.

"...Don't worry Crystal, I'm just going to finance them... yes, I'll try to avoid killing anyone... I'll call you whenever I can...love you too. Bye."

Liz snapped his cell phone shut and walked up to the door. He had never seen this building before, but he had received an invitation asking him to come here. All he knew was that whoever had asked knew he was less-than-moral, and that was fine with him. Crystal was fine with it, too, so long as he didn't die and called her once a week.

He entered the building, only to be greeted by odd mechanical creatures. Stepping around the robots, and twirling once to bat them away with his tail, he stepped into the elevator and only allowed them in to press the buttons for him. How else would he know where to go?

Then he was shooed into the conference hall, and after sticking out his tongue at the leaving robots, he turned and smirked at the three others in the hall.

"So you're the people I'm working with, hm?" he said, tugging at the lapels of his coat.

"Apparently." Kate said, without looking up. When she did, she gave him a quick once-over, sizing him up. He seemed a little too much of a joker at first glance, though he seemed as if he knew what he was doing. The way he held himself suggested a little more to him than what met the eye originally, but she shrugged it off.

"Let's just hope we can get things done. From what I've seen of them-" She nodded her head in their direction "- it's unlikely." She said quickly, not giving a whit for how rude she was sounding, or the obvious strength of the man she was insulting. She was faster, that was just about certain, and she doubted their unseen host would tolerate anything he'd try to stir.

Liz did a once-over on the three in the room. The human didn't look like she wanted to be there, or if she did, she was itching with impatience, waiting for something to happen already and unable to leave. The crocodile creature had a dull look on his face, but he looked like he could knock you through the wall if he wanted. Best be careful of him. The last girl looked a little too bubblegum to be really evil. She was most likely a tagalong.

"Careful, m'dear. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that no-one can be judged by looks alone, no matter how incompetent they might look," he smirked to the human, walking up to the table and pulling out a chair two seats from her. But before he sat, he looked to the shadowy end of the table. No doubt someone was there - the darkness was too cliché for someone who wanted to stay hidden. The smirk faded from Liz's face.

"Who's over there?" he called to the shadows.

"Damned if I know. I think he's the guy that told us to get here. He won't answer any questions now though. He just laughs."

As if on cue, the voice chuckled.

"I'm not worried about the muscleman over there. Very few reptilians are at all fast enough to catch me." She smirked, obviously too confident in herself.

Anastasia entered followed by a similar entourage of the mechanical minions. She despirately wanted to take one apart, but there would be time for such things later. The genius looked over the rooms occupants and sighed.
Great. she rolled her eyes with a level of contempt that suggested that she practiced it every morning, Anger issues, dumb muscle, ditz, rich boy with nice toys, and of course the mysterious employer. Why is it always so cliche? She simply took a seat fairly far from the others in the room and waited. Presumably, this person had work for her. And that, eventually, translated to having money for her.

There was a slight shuffling and a cough from the side of the large room, and then, from the shadows stepped a handsome, though somewhat flustered-looking man, looking somewhere in his late twenties, dressed in an immaculate white suit, black shirt and white tie, and carrying a briefcase of the flat, slim kind that most often holds full-size documents or perhaps larger laptops. He looked them all over curiously from behind slimmed glasses, hidden slightly under the bangs of hair not put up into the tidy pale golden ponytail that fell down the back of his neck and shoulders, and then turned toward the figure in the shadows.
   "Was that... really necessary?" he said, gesturing with one large, long-fingered hand toward the little machines now tailing him. Though it seemed that they had only turned their attention toward him just a few moments ago.

"They got you here, didn't they?" the voice responded, still sounding very amused.

"Any chance of us getting to business now?" Kate asked, getting more and more cross by the moment. But, of course, it's not like she could really leave.

"Oh, no... Don't rush things, never rush things... I want all of you dears to get to know each other, socialize for a while longer... Some more should still be coming, and I want you all to get to know your colleagues." The voice had a smooth, almost musical quality, and was very androgynous- the speaker could either be male or female, and it's up to anyone's guess which.

"Oh, brilliant." Kate muttered. "First he looks to hire me, then he goes about it so.. so.. unprofessionally." She rolled her eyes. "At least have a little professionalism in your profession!"

Liz sat down at last and rolled his blue eyes lazily. "I should at least get to know my employer..." he muttered, eyeing the newcomers: a rabbit in a lab coat and a jittery, well-dressed human. Not too fishy-looking, but still, Liz noticed a few things about them. For one, the bunny looked even less happy to be there than the human next to him, and much more disdainful than even Liz himself could ever be. The 'human' had some odd-looking scars, which made the gecko wonder if his shyness was an act.

But hey. The shadow-guy had said they should get to know each other. He leaned back in his chair.

"Well, why not introduce ourselves, if that's what you want," Liz said aloud, glancing to the shadows. He looked back at the others. "Call me Liz," he said, scanning the room once with uncharacteristically cold eyes to make sure no-one was giggling at his name. Why his parents hadn't named him Scott or Bill, he'd never know. "I'm here as a kind of...unlimited financial aid," he explained, wondering if he should show off what he could do just yet.

"if you insist. I'm Kate. most likely here for these." a quick shing as her long claws slid out of one clenched fist, which, after a few moments, she opened, and the claws slid back in. "Working with other people is going to be a new thing for me. But so long as work gets done, and you all have some semblance of an IQ, which I'm beginning to doubt, There should be no problems with me." She said all of this as quickly and sharply as anything else that had come from her mouth this meeting. It led one to think if she ever relaxed, even for sleep.

The blond man eyed the newcomer, and then sat down, putting his briefcase down next to his chair and pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, before taking out a Longines pocketwatch from within the pitch-black lining of his white jacket, inspecting it, and then putting it back. He looked settled in enough, but upon the next comment from the small woman he turned his head toward her and eyed her somewhat confusedly.
   "You're a quick one to make judgement, aren't you?" he said, cocking his head to the side a bit, and then looking toward Liz with somewhat more of a pleased tone to his face and voice. "And thank you. It's nice to know. Though I don't think I would be quite comfortable drawing on those assets. I don't take being indebted well." He smiled, and leaned back somewhat.
   "I'm here because I am the best at what I do, or so I have heard," he said, with an intonation upon the latter part that said clearly it was not his opinion.

"Oh. Well if we're all expected to be such great pals then," Anastasia added snidely, adjusting her lab coat, "By the way, spoken properly that sentence would be 'if any of you have any semblance of intelligence.' An IQ score is just a measurement of intelligence; technically, a banana has one. Apparently, what I'm here for is to add an," and even with her lab coat covering the lower half of her face, one got the impression of a smirk, "IQ."
"But enough about me," she turned to look at the comparatively better dressed reptile in the room with what could only be called a predatory look in her eye, "Unlimited financial aid, you say?"

Kate couldn't suppress a smirk at the small Lapine's comment which, had she been just about anyone else, likely would have left them sputtering for a recovery. But no, a smirk, and a quiet noise of approval.
"Thank you for the correction." She nodded her head towards Anastasia. "I should have caught myself, but... I suppose my genius should keep itself where it continues to act as genius, and allow the others to keep superiority where it falls short." She said, laying on the sarcasm almost enough to feel. More and more verbose for a woman who simply wanted business started, but now she had a reason to drop her normal businesslike manner- her overconfidence led to a want to prove herself as what she perceived herself to be, instead of what the others seemes to be seeing her as.

The unseen Host remained silent, though it couldn't be heped but seem as if they were smirking, and moments away from laughter.

Liz smiled genially at the blond human with the fancy watch. "No need to pay me back. To say the least, I have too much money. So I'm glad to help out. No charge."
  When Kate spoke up, he looked over at the smaller woman calmly. "Glad to see you're warming up." Then he felt hungry eyes on him when Anastasia asked her question. He looked nervously at the bunny, who was eyeing him as if he were a big pile of cash - which, in a sense, he was.

"Will you quit looking at me like that?!" he finally cried indignantly. "I'm not a cheeseburger! I'm just a living ATM!"

"Stick with waving the claws around, kid. So, a living ATM?" said Lapine didn't take her eyes off of Liz for a second. He wasn't completely out of luck though. She would have to blink eventually. Hopefully, "I don't suppose I could get a demonstration?"

Liz paused. He had intended the "living ATM" thing to be a metaphor, but clearly, it worked either way regardless of what he meant. After enduring about 15 seconds of Anastasia's curious gaze, he slouched, a little resigned, but secretly excited. He had considered hiding his power for an opportune moment, but this surely counted. If he didn't, Anastasia might threaten him.

"...All right. I'll give you a taste. Nothing more." He smirked and removed his suit jacket, gesturing to his short-sleeved arms.

"Nothing up my sleeves..." he said quietly, with a little singsong to his tone. He held his hand palm down over the table, curling it into a fist. With inborn ease, he thought of diamonds. Lots and lots of tiny, earring-sized diamonds.

"....And...presto." He opened his fist, and sure enough, scores of little diamonds fell out of his hand and skittered over the surface of the table.

Croc reached out to shake Liz's hand. "Hey there, you're a little too clean cut for this kind of work arn't you?"As if realizeing some sort of faux pas he started to correct himself. "I'm sorry I mean you look like one of those preppy kids back in school." Dile Lass was glareing at him as if he'd forgotten something. One would guess as to some sort of social training between the two. "I mean I'm sorry I shouldn't be one to judge." Dile lass sort of nodded and turned away to greet kate. Croc sort of started to withdraw like a shy person on a full ampithetere stage. Croc started "Oh uhhh so tell me about your self."
Dile lass adressing Kate started "I'm Dile Lass pleased to meet you. You'll have to excuse my partner, but I don't know what I would do without him. It seems im a sort of disasterous genious. He has to carry out my plans for me, but he does a DAMNED good job at it."

An Undisclosed Island:

The Inner Sanctum

The soft hiss and whirr of the bulkhead announced the arrival of Sheridanna's second in command, a wolf morph somewhere in his 30s named Langdon. She glanced up at him and nodded.

"Ma'am? Another one of those invitations arrived." Langdon held up a letter disdainfully.
"Another? They're getting persistant, huh?"
"This one seemed a little more... urgent than the last, ma'am." Langdon gives it another glance, muttering under his breath.
"Very well. I will leave in half an hour."
"By which route, ma'am?"
"Helicopter, I think. I want four with me and..."
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Find the others something to... acquire for me. They seem to be getting bored."
"At once, m'lady."

Langdon salutes smartly and walks out, the door shutting behind him. Sheridanna prepares for her departure...

~

Helipad

Fully suited up, Sheridanna boards the helicopter with her four guards, looking out at Langdon. She raises her voice in a yell over the noise of the rotors.

"I'll be back soon enough! You know how to find me if I'm not!"

Langdon flashes a thumbs up. "Don't worry, I'm sure those four will protect you, ma'am!"

"They bloody well better!"

The helicopter lifts off and heads away from the island to...

~~

Undisclosed Location:

Rooftop

The four soldiers go first, then Sheridanna herself hops off of the Helicopter, which soon takes off and departs once more, back to the island. They quickly make their way inside the building via the roof access stairwell, and down into the meeting room. The soldiers take up positions around the room, holding their assault rifles and watching the occupants as Sheridanna selects a chair, preferably one in a good vantage point.

"My apologies, my transport got held up by a thunderstorm over the channel and we had to divert to avoid flying through it." She straightens out her labcoat and takes out her clipboard, starting to take notes already. "Are we all here?"

Liz looked surprised at the croc-human, who had remained silent for much of the time. But he smiled and shook his hand nonetheless. "Don't worry about it, I get that reaction a lot." He released the croc-man's hand and rested his elbows on the table, brushing a few diamonds away and facing him and Dile lass. "And there's not much more to tell about myself than what I mentioned. I grew up normally, I live with my girlfriend Crystal, and my work is to act as invisible funding for people like you." He gestured to the table at large. "What about you and your friend?"

Then the feline with the clipboard entered, and Liz glanced at her once to see what she was like. Another lab-coat. But this one seems more attentive than Anastasia. Then he looked back to the table.

"I like money....and power, I guess thats why i do it. Dile lass is new to the game but I'll learn her a thing ot two heh." Croc stood up a bit un easily and looked everyone over. Everyone seemed to be smart. He knew he was none too bright and being the dimist bulb in the pack generally comes with embarassment and mockery. If he was going to get any respect he would have to come of as a military genious or an unstoppable force to be reckoned with....or both. This liz person could be useful as finance but even more useful as an ally. all this was going through his head like a crowded room of polititions debateing diffrent topics and haveing diffrent personal views on each one. however one thought was amazeingly clear. I'm diffrent and need to seem like one of them.

Anastasia snatched up a few of the diamonds and looked at them closely, and then pocketed the stones.
"Just gonna check these out later. Wouldn't do if the goose only laid pyrite eggs," she snickered. Then, finally, Croc stepped forward.
Huh. Talks well, for a brute. Wonder how he manages to speak normally with all those huge teeth and the oddly shaped jaws? He seemed more nervous than dangerous, really. She nodded to the both of them.
"Croc and Dile Lass. Got it," it took nearly every bone in her body to resist the urge to raise an eyebrow and say 'Dile Lass?' incredulously. They sounded almost like a comic book superhero and sidekick team.

It seemed like it would be just another day, another day through the endless grind, another day of rising above this seemingly endless opposition, these people and their sad excuse for existence. Yes, to Daemon, it seemed like it would be just another day, atleast it would have been had he not found a letter nailed to his door. It was an invitation, an offer of support with the promise of all of our ends being met. Daemon was skeptical about accepting this offering, but if they could prove useful he figured it wouldn't hurt to find out what this was all about.

To that end, he later made his way to the building described in the letter and opened the door. It seemed kind of run down, yet he was greeted by a score of small robotic men. Daemon held up the letter and they began to scramble and urged Daemon onto an elevator down the hall. As he got on the elevator he heard a voice coming from the built-in intercom.

"You are late, although I suppose late is better then never. It would have been a shame, but I'm glad you made the right choice. Within moments all will be made clear.",the mysterious voice said. As the elevator slowed to a stop Daemon took off his helmet and the doors opened. Everyone stared at him as he entered the room.

Sensing the awkwardness of the situation seeing as he was the only one in a suit of armor he broke the silence as he took a seat,"My apologizes for being late, it couldn't be helped. So, I take each of you have received some kind of an invite as well?"

Looking around with a face demonstrating an emotion somewhere in between skepticism, surprise and dislike, the blond white-suit followed each and every new arrival in with his eyes, all in turn, eying them all head to toe quickly and clinically. Then, he made a nearly inaudible sigh, as his expression turned into one of resignation. He seemed to disapprove somewhat of the situation, to put it mildly, and the weary sideway glints he continued to give hinted that this was most likely due to the behavior of the company.
   "Professionalism..." he muttered to himself, reaching into his jacket again, and taking out a pack of cigarettes, doffing it slightly and slipping a slim, white roll into his mouth.
   "You don't mind, do you?" the blond said, already flicking open a golden lighter. He lit his smoke, and breathed deeply, exhaling a long, wispy cloud. "And yes, we did receive an invitation, us too." By the sound of that, likely he wasn't speaking of the others in the room.

Seeing the stranger light up was like an invatatiopn for Croc. He pulled out a slim tin of Tatiana's high end cigars. These were the kind that cost almost 100$ a tin. Croc opened it and a smell of honey dipped cigars filled the room. He put one in his mouth and pulled out a box of matches. He struck one and the fine flame burnt clean as he lit his cigar. he took a long drag and let the smoke bellow from his nostrils. Hey there he said looks like we have something in common. The name's Croc."

Liz shot a look at Anastasia. "They're quite real, I assure you," he said, with a faint edge to his voice. Perhaps the golden goose reference had struck a nerve, because he continued. "In fact, any precious stone or metal I produce is real. And don't think I'm just here to provide money. I can make basic weapons, and I'm pretty good at armed combat." The vague threat was unnecessary, but it felt good.

He sniffed once when Croc and the male human lit up. He didn't approve of smoking so much, but he didn't mind the smell. And the well-dressed human was definitely worth keeping an eye on. When he had said "us", something hadn't sounded right. He couldn't place what, but he knew it was there. Croc seemed a little less nervous than before, which, in a weird way, comforted Liz. Seeing the brawniest guy at the table act jumpy had made him a bit worried.

When the armored figure entered, Liz turned his head to face the newcomer. "Well, you'll probably end up being the best prepared person here. And I'm pretty sure we all got invitations."

Daemon cracked a smile as he heard the gecko's comment, although he was fairly sure he was being sarcastic. It looked as if the feline in the lab coat was the one who brought the entourage of soldiers. If things got out of hand he was sure they would open fire on everyone in here. The other scientist seemed more concerned with the diamonds spread out on the table. She didn't look very well armed, although he was sure she had something up her sleeve.

"Never hurts to make sure. I'm not entirely convinced that this isn't some kind of setup, but I'll play along for now.", Daemon replied as he let out a sigh. More or less though the others in the room seemed to be on the level and Daemon wasn't interested in picking a fight.

"There is a time for everything.", he thought to himself as he reclined in his chair. "For now I'll let the meeting decide whether anyone will leave this room." With that final thought Daemon rested his eyes, he figured showing false weakness was better for now then letting one of them find a real one.

Dile Lass saw that Kate looked slightly preoccupied, so she left her to her ponderings to meet friendlier faces. She strode up to Liz. "Hi Dile Lass pleased to meet you, I saw you talking with Croc. I hope he didn't offend you. His schooling wasn't too good as he grew up in a very under funded district, and being magicly mutated into a crocodile anthromorph in your formitive years can put the kabash on anyone's social life. Suffice it to say he's a bit behind socially too. I'm trying to correct that though."

As the crocodile-man lit up and spoke, the white-suit raised an eyebrow, and then made a little smile. An amused one, hardly interpretable as sardonic. Even if it actually was.
   "Honestly, I think we are quite dissimilar, for obvious reasons. Nothing ill intended," he said, still smiling. "As for the precious items, I'd be hesitant to ever use that. Useful sometimes, perhaps, but hardly good for interest." Creating gold and diamonds out of thin air would be every industryman's amazement, and every market economist's horror.
   Still breathing streams of smoke, the man sat back and allowed himself to study the armored fellow more openly. Patience, temperance, wit, purpose and professionalism, and now subtlety. These people were throwing all virtues out the window as they went, it seemed. He wondered very plainly if this was going to be worth taking time with, or whether if he should just take a few of those diamonds and then leave the place very messily.
   "The name's Sebastian, by the way," he said in a friendly fashion, not hinting at his thoughts the slightest.

Liz smiled at Dile Lass, deciding that maybe she wasn't as ditzy as he thought earlier. "Good to meet you, miss. And Croc didn't offend me at all. Like I said, a lot of people think I look too preppy to be a threat." His smile lessened a little. "Sorry to hear about his past, though. That would be rough."

Once he was sure it was polite to do so, he turned his attention to Sebastian, arching an eyebrow at his earlier comment. Liz was rarely so obvious about his power as he had just been, for safety reasons. He had a sneaking suspicion that most people, upon discovering his power, would lock him in a cage and milk his ability for all it was worth. Usually, it was the better-dressed people who made him the most paranoid about this. And yet, here was someone he would've expected to treat him that way, and he was actually reluctant to use Liz's ability; not only that, but his reason was perfectly sound, not simple fear of the unknown.

"You know something, Sebastian? You just might be the first truly intelligent person I've worked with." Liz smiled a genuine smile. "Thank you. It's nice to not be treated like a bank for once."

"Hay you!" Croc pointed at kate "I don't like the way you've been ignoreing my assso- asot- asso- associt!" He walked up to her and wrapped his gigantic mitt areound her heas so that her face was in his palm. Then he started to squeeze.

Kate, her mind occupied, hadn't even noticed the large man in front of her until her face was already in his palm, and he'd already begund to squeeze.
Well. This is uncomfortable. She thought, simply, and shrugged.
She was about to bring out the claws, and simply dig them as far into his arm as possible, but was interrupted, as the voice in tha back of the room had spoken up.

"Please, please... Calm down. Violence is not needed now."

Croc dropped her back in her seat. "Maybe if the brooding emo chick would be nicer to DL, I wouldn't have to make her." Croc looked upset but Dile Lass looked like she were about to die of embarassment. She litteraly ran over and pulled Croc into a corner and had a very heated talk with him.

Kate looked as if she were going to spit something back at him, but was cut off by a buzz from her pocket. She jumped, took the phone out from her pocket, and quirked an eyebrow.

"I thought I fired you, what is it?" a long pause, and a slow grin grew on her face. "Wonderful." She sounded so immature and delighted here, it was hard to beleive it was even the same person. She hung up, the same grin on her face, and stood.

"Well, it was.... uh.... I have some other business to attend to. A certain old friend of mine is back at home, and I beleive I owe her a little something." She laughed here, sure that just about everyone in the room would pick up on it, before walking to the door. The robotic servants that had threatened to fire on her earlier, now just milled about, leaving a path for her to leave, as told by some silent command from their host. One ran into the room, and up to the host, and began whispering.
"Yes, yes... I want her replaced. Oh? Well, what are you waiting for, bring her up here!" the robot saluted, bowed to the rest of the room, and sped back out.

Their fight could be heard by people a good deal away but it was faint and they had to listen.
What!? Croc said defenceivly.
Even villians have some manners! Ego drives most of these people you can go around exposeing weakness otherwise we'll be booted out of her in a hurry! DL ment buisness and Croc could tell.
C'mon DL she deserved it!
most of the people in here deserved it at one point in their career! The key word here is restraint! what have i taught you?!
first impressions are everything. ok ill try to keep it down Croc said hanging his head.
*sigh* good now c'mon you're going to apoll- They noticed Kate was gone so they tried to play it off and started talking to people again. DL went over and introduced herself to the man in armor Croc tried to intoduce himself to the scientist rabbit.

"My name is Daemon, lass. Although sometimes my enemies curse me as The Morning Star, and other times as The Black Knight, probably on account of the armor.", Daemon chuckled as he acknowledged her introduction, then went into a low whisper as he got closer to her. ,"I overheard your associate as I was resting, he probably made the right decision. I knew something wasn't right when I entered here."

There was something wrong here, but it wasn't the soul who was just allowed to leave. Daemon could feel it, but he wanted to show approval for the lass and her compadre to get them on his side should things go awry, or atleast ensure that he wouldn't have to take unnecessary action. The man in the white suit's gaze had been fixed on Daemon as he exchanged pleasantries with the lass. He expected some bafflement of his appearance upon arrival, but that time had gone and passed.

"He can feel it too. Although he is just as blind as I am at the moment.", thought Daemon as the lass went back over to Croc. Daemon was now starting to get annoyed, and began staring at the ceiling as he reclined again. ,"Two mad scientists, a kremlin and the ivory to his ebony, a hitman, a knight, and an ATM. I really wonder how much of a character this replacement will be. It's like I'm in some kind of Grand Theft Auto game at the moment, except its the Timesplitters/Donkey Kong Country version.",  Daemon thought as he let out a yawn. Then again the world is already full of enough bizarrities and he wasn't really an exception.

A shadow demon chatter and waved for the silver haired human looking boy with a glowing crystal embedded in his forehead to follow it. the two came to a familiar looking door and the  shadow demon chatter then slunk away vanishing in the shadows disappearing form sight. the boy sighs and  ran a hand through his hair.

On his back was a weapon called the  Arc Edge (http://www.rpgamer.com/games/other/psx/tof/art/g01.jpg) special. like the original are edge it had flip action attack capability.  with some trepidation he knocks on the door. Rue wonder what DarkE was thinking when he sent him here. was there really a point? and how had DarkE even found out about this ? He could feel a few aura's of power coming from the room on the other side of the door. had they invited his boss to this meet or had the boss merely chosen to crash the party by sending him there? oh well such thoughts had to wait as the door began to stir and open.

Putting his fingers to his temple, the white suit made a look of wanting to fast-forward the whole conversation, but as he couldn't, he promptly skipped further chatter and looked at the shadowed figure meaningfully, ignoring the others' messing about.
   "I hope there's a point to this assembly. My employer is patient, but not one who likes idling," he said, casually.

"Patience, patience..." The voice said in a calming, but as always, amused voice, to the blond in the white suit who was  obviously getting impatient.
"We're just waiting on one more for now..."

As if on cue, a giggle can be heard from the door, barely cracked open, followed by a loud bang as the door was flung open.
"And here i thought you'd never bother!" Another giggle. "I mean come on... to tell me you were having this meeting, and then not invite me?" Roulette's voice was high pitched and raspy, and sunded constantly as if she were going to burst out laughing.

"Yes, well..." The host was beginning to seem exasperated- and it was easy to tell why.

"I mean come on, I thought you liked me!" another giggle.

"Yes, Roulette, well-"

"Oh, who are these people?" She asked, acting as if she'd just now noticed the others in the room. "oh, oh! Are these my new friends?"

"Friends. Right."

[More for the madhouse.] Sheridanna thought, idly taking notes and occasionally drawing small schematics for new gadgets. She glances over at the new entry, then at the diamonds on the table, before going back to her clipboard.

The soldiers, on the other hand, stay silent and still as rocks, faces hidden behind their helmets.

Rue follows the boisterous girl that had brushed past him inside.. the mention of the meeting confirmed what he';s been told and looking around he began to take stock other there others here for once glace that DarkE insists on him keeps church coins on him at all time.  stepping off the the side he looks at the expression on the faces of the people already in the room and wonders if it is he ore the the girl that preceded him that caused the stir among the inhabits of the room.

Anastasia gave the Croc another mental once over. Big, from the sounds of that little hushed argument not the brightest bulb on the tree, big, kinda nervous and apparently easily bullied, big, overprotective of his partner, big... Beneath the collar of her lab coat she grinned, Big is useful.
"A pleasure, Croc," she replied, shaking his hand warmly, "I look forward to working with you."
Which may have been more than could be said of the next two. Both demonic looking, one with the posture of a noble or someone else used to barking orders (the instant he tried to do so with her she'd see to it that he was the most regal person in the room with a chemically-induced limp) and another who seemed obviously deranged (and yet sort of reminded her of one of the apprentices of a villain she did a lot of work for. Girl with a lot of spunk, a lot of potential. Probably the horns, that's how they resembled each other. That and the crazy). Curiouser and curiouser...
"Don't suppose you're familiar with those already here?" she asked Croc, a thought occurring to her. You're the dumb muscle, yeah, but dumb muscle is first and foremost untrained and nonspecific labor; they usually get around in the biz with a bunch of different contractors. You don't ignore the distinguished grunts, because everybody else probably has at some point.

Liz looked to Daemon. "Interesting set of names..." he said bemusedly. "Wish mine was half as menacing as those. I'm Liz, and it's nice to be working with you."

He was interrupted, though, and watched in slight amazement as Kate's demeanor changed entirely before she left the room, and as she was replaced with...

Oh, you've GOT to be kidding, Liz almost said out loud, stopping himself. It was a purple-skinned, rainbow-haired... thing of no discernible age, with pointy teeth and creepy eyes. In a weird way, she reminded him of a much older Crystal, but she was ditzy enough to make Crystal seem like a hard-assed law school graduate. Then he noticed the boy with the gem on his head. Seemed like the moody type, but that weapon on his back was interesting.

"You can sit, y'know," Liz called to the boy.

Rue nods and pulls out a chair sitting. removes his arc edge he places it on the side of the chair. "pleased to meet you. I am Rue." introduction said Rue sits. and wonders just who all  came with out  adequate briefing like himself.( there is a meeting taking place tomorrow. get ready and take some coin's.) that was the extent of his briefing. before the shadow demon lead him there today.

Most of these people are news to me. but I've met Liz, He seems to be genuine. I know you see me as nothing more than muscle, I really don't have a problem with that. Maybe after this is over we could work out a partnership or something. Just don't think it makes you better than me. That pisses me off. As Croc cast eyes on Roulette his eyes went big and he looked as if he saw the most disturbing thing on the planet(and that's saying alot).
....buhhuh? in a hushed voice to Anastasia Croc wispered That has got to be the Weirdist girl i have EVER seen. As if something clicked he reached out his hand Croc my name's Croc where is my head today?

nearby Dile Lass was heard to say Up your ass I'd venture. *giggle*......sorry i though maybe...

she could feel Croc stareing her down so she turned her attention back to the matter at hand.

She said to Anastasia And I'm Dile Lass

Rue nods taking in name and appearance. he wonders if Croc is as strong in a fight as he looks. He reminds him of a weapons smith that he fights on occasion. a powerful guy almost as strong as a dragon with out the easy to hit advantage. still such thoughts were for later. chances are they had some major plan or project in the works.

Tapping his cheek with his head in his hand and leaning back, still seething smoke, Sebastian, as he had introduced himself, muttered something but straightened his face immediately.
   "Fine, fine. I guess there's no harm..." he said in a low tone, and then turned to study the new entries. He quirked his eyebrows both curiously and disbelievingly at them both. For a moment or two he mused over a mental image of putting on a circus act with all these figures. He stopped just about before the juicy parts, and instead pondered the lab-coated girl's sudden interest and expression against Croc. Then he shot a glance toward the bejeweled spectacle's weapon. Stranger and stranger, he was starting to think that he might stay just for the heck of it, even if the oddness of the company might make them nigh-useless for certain purposes.

Anastasia resisted the urge to raise an eyebrow. She considered herself better than most people and was fairly certain that he would be acting only as muscle, true, but what had made him bring it up? A complex? It would fit the profile, but even so. If it was a textbook machismo situation, he probably wouldn't have mentioned it. Interesting... Either way you'll be a useful one, wont you? You always need some muscle around, if only as a guard while you set up; extra security never hurt. She simply studied Rue as Croc introduced himself to him, noting how the man's gaze lingered on various points on Croc's frame such as the teeth, bicep, trunk... A serious fighter, probably some manner of martial artist. Or maybe just a fight junkie. That weird weapon means that I'm probably looking at someone with some serious (and thereby probably obscure; some temple full of monks who think oneness with the universe can be attained by punching things or something) training.
And then she noticed the man across the room keeping an eye on her.
Human, probably rich, looks like a Professional, she thought to herself, mentally adding the capital P that separated a major hitman from a thug, Fairly rich and shows it, to the point of looking somewhat like a snob, an effect he either doesn't notice or doesn't care about. Not giving much away... and that made him dangerous to have focusing on her. Giving no outward sign of noticing him at all, Anastasia turned an ear slightly to focus her hearing on him a bit more. She was jerked out of her own thoughts by Dile Lass.
"A pleasure," the collar of Anastasia's lab coat wrinkled slightly, in a manner that was easy to take for a smile. Whether or not it was, there was no way of checking for oneself, "I take it you come with this big lug?" She jerked a thumb at Croc.

Rue could feel others reading him even as he read them what did they think of him? where they right? there were humans here as well as non humans . this made  fitting in a lot easier.  still he itched to know what was going on here.. uncertainty was always so had to bare. still he spent five years on one quest so he was sure he had the patients to wait this one out to find out what there goal was at least..

Speaking of bizarrities....this "replacement's" brash entrance reminded Daemon of the totality of just how free we really are. If our actions define us then this "girl" is ignorant bliss incarnate. Daemon pitied her, yet he also envied her for unlike him she is completely in the present. "This one holds promise.", thought Daemon after going over the possibilities and eyeing the lab coats again in new light. "The only thing lacking is direction, I have a feeling that won't be a problem."

Just as there was chaos there also entered order. Order comes at the price though just the same. Daemon could sense though that he was sent here by a higher power, his appearance and his weapon gave it away, as did his demeanor. The luminous crystal infused in his head tipped him off that he was under somebody's influence, but unlike a simple peon this very defined weapon in his possesion hinted to Daemon that this guy was probably a commanding entity for whoever he served. The longer Daemon gazed upon him though he began to feel himself overcome with inner rage, he could feel a burning sensation emanating from the scars on his back, and the dim radiance in his eye's began to rise in intensity. He quickly took his gaze off him; his eyes became dim, the sensation faded. He couldn't understand this new animosity to this man he just met. It was as if he was consumed by an ancient rage so powerful that the entirity of his being began to burn. Not one to make a scene though unlike Roulette, Daemon quickly regained his composure and began his staring contest with the ceiling once more.

"Whats happening to me.", thought Daemon. If the conclusion of this meeting was as Daemon suspected, he didn't know how he would be able to work with this man.    

Liz listened patiently to the conversations around him, tossing a tiny diamond lazily into the air and watching the light glint off of it. Then he heard something very quiet, and glanced at Sebastian. The human had muttered something under his breath. Probably didn't deserve concern, but still...

He observed the others, just to get an idea about them. The cat with the clipboard and soldiers was scribbling something; obviously an analyst about everything she did, but what were the soldiers for? We wouldn't try and kill her yet... Liz thought. She hasn't done anything even remotely irritating. So why the unnecessary muscle when it's probably costly? He walked over to the feline.

"Any particular reason you're being so quiet?"

Sheridanna glances up at Liz, then over at her soldiers, then looks back up at Liz.

"Just minding my own business for now." She smirks. "Why do you ask?"

She then gives him a look that says [Try anything funny and they'll be picking bits of you off of the walls.]

"Yes, and you're lucky he didn't hear you call him dumb. Anyway I'm looking forward to working with you." Dile Lass said with a smug grin as Croc wandered off to sit down alone.

Rue was getting a bad feeling about the aimlessness of the meeting so far. there was more sizing up and semi posturing then talk of goals and strengthens. he touched his forehead gem and could almost hear Mint saying. ( "what these fools need is leadership.  give me 20 minutes and my magic would whip them into shape. then maybe  we could concur the world" ). That mint was never one to give up on her goals. he doubt that she really wanted the world anymore but since it had been her dread she would never let it go. but mint was gone at least for now.

he watched Croc go sit off the the side alone. he seems to have something on his mind. Was the Warrior troubled or board. he somehow doubt it was boredom the look was too thoughtful as is considering something.

Rue then looked at the demon or was he a daemon? (it was an important distinction as most daemons from his experience  were once human) who's power had been flaring earlier and wonted what the heat had  felt so ominousness. had it been directed or was he merely losing temper with the lack of direction?

He saw the business man waiting as though he was both board and used to this kind of thing

The  woman in the lab coat 'Anastasia' he believes she introduced her self as seems to be talking the a woman called Dile Lass about Croc.  Dile Lass seems defensive of the warrior.

Waiting for direction he glandes around and for a moment he saw a set of  black eyes reflecting  light in a shadow then the were gone. he had not felt any energy form the shadows but still it was probably a shadow demon. that or he was getting paranoid.

( sorry tired to clean it up for clarification)

Liz smirked back. "No reason, just curious. Hell, I haven't even learned your name yet." Then again, those soldiers made it a bit difficult to ask without getting a little nervous. And that look wasn't any more inviting. He couldn't speak telepathically, but he found himself thinking to her: Look, I'm not going to hurt you, and I already have a girlfriend, so please stop looking at me like that.

"I'm not gonna get shot if I ask your name, right?" His tone suggested he was only half-joking.

"Oh, no. You only get shot if you ask me what my last name is." She grins in a very Florence Ambrose (http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff500/fv00419.htm)-esque fashion. (http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff600/fv00562.htm)

Liz laughed quietly and nervously, and willed himself not to shudder. Pointy... very pointy. He shook this thought away and regained his composure, smirking as if nothing had happened.

"Okay then. I don't use my last name either. What's your -first- name?" he asked, trying not to seem too rattled. Easy, Liz... you can make spikes out of silver, remember? he mentally reassured himself.

Still leaning on his palm, the white-clad man pulled in the last centimeter on his slim smoke, and then took it out, smothering it between his index finger and thumb and idly dropping it next to his suitcase on the plain floor. He let out a long, even sigh, and then reached into his suit jacket and took out a little notebook. Spinning out a pen that seemed to appear between his fingers from out of thin air, he began skritsching down notes and then sketching, something he was apparently quite good at.
   "Those are some intimidating-looking fellows you have there," he said to no one in particular, but somehow still managing to make Sheridanna feel that his attention and speech were both precisely directed at her.

"Sheridanna." She smiles - without the teeth this time - at Liz. "And you are?"

"Call me Liz," he said, bowing a little, a pleasant expression on his face now that Sheridanna was smiling normally. "And i have to agree with Sebastian. What do you need all the soldiers for?" Couldn't hurt to ask, but I doubt she'll answer. Best not press it much further than that.

"Let's just say I have my fair share of people who want me dead." She smirks. "I maintain a healthy level of paranoia, whilst they turn anyone who threatens me into swiss cheese. I designed and tested the rifles myself. The microexplosive projectiles pack quite a punch." She does the grin-with-teeth again.

Anastasia laughed pleasantly at Dile Lass' comment and found a seat to collapse into. Alright, done socializing. Now, perhaps we can see a bit less of him expecting us to act like grade schoolers and a bit more of him telling us why we're here. She turned her attention back to their employer.

Dile lass looked to the employer. "Ummm....mister big shadowy mesterious man are we done talking like school kids or do you maybe think we can ummmm......"

"She wants to get our asses in gear." Croc said in a matter of fact fashion.

Rue noticed that everyone was looking toward a certain person from time to time and decided that that person  either  A . was the one who called this meeting or B. was out of place but respected enough not to be challenged unit the time came. either way it was something to keep his eye's open for.

In frustration Daemon picked up his helmet and looked down to the shadowy figure at the otherside of the table. "With all honesty, Croc is right the time of exchanging pleasantries is well over with. You will tell us why we are here, and you will do it now.",  Daemon coldly uttered to the figure. Like everyone else he assumed, Daemon was tired of waiting. He wanted to know why he had to take time out of his day for this charade. Clearly the time wasted could have been spent better then this. Daemon then donned his helmet once more, got out of his seat, and pulled out the weapon sheathed on his back. A pitch black weapon, it was as if the space it occupied was a void, the blade itself nearly as long as Daemon and about a third as wide. Even though the weapon seemed to assume a complete shadow, the blade had a dim white radiance around it, a kin to the color of Daemon's dark eyes.

He directed his zweihandler towards the dark figure and spoke once more, "If the whole point of all of this was to find purpose for yourself, I'll be happy to end your suffering on the edge of my blade."
"This charade has gone on long enough. The time to act is now, the next move is yours.", thought Daemon. If nothing would get done now, then nothing ever will. He was ready to fight his way out of here if necessary.

Even Croc knew better than to threaten someone he knew nothing about. He stood up and in an effort to save the knight a lot of hassle he wrapped his large hand around his helmet and cleanly pulled it off as he shoved BK into his seat. Croc said "If you know whats good for you you will be nice to the man WE KNOW NOTHING about, and who's building we are currently in, and who probably has precautions to ensure his safety. But I won't stop ya next time if ya do." Croc sat down in his original seat calmly.

Rue slowly eased the grip on his Arc edge special. he'd been worried that a small scale war was about to erupt but not it seemed that Croc had headed it off for now. but at what cost? the daemon did not look like the forgiving kind even if he took the heavy handed advice.

Daemon was surprised by Croc's actions. Of all the people in the room who would try to quell Daemon's apparent fervor he didn't expect it from him. Daemon grinned at Croc and quietly explained his reasoning to him and the others listening, "Yes we may know next to nothing about this guy, but here's the thing. He isn't doing anything! We could end up staying here for eternity at the rate we're going at the moment! And while I have no problem waiting that long in your interest and the interests of the other here it would be best to speed things up. Now I'll admit I may have been a bit brash, but I am tired of waiting. As are the rest of you I am sure."

Daemon could here a pious muffled laughter coming from the shadowy host as he made his statement to the others. "These people are fools. Of all the things this pointless meeting was called for one thing is very apparent. This man seeks to control us. I'll bet right now we look like children to him."

The shadowy man then spoke with a small chuckle of amusement in his tone, "Now now! Croc is correct there is no need for unwanted violence here. Not when I am providing this offer of promise to all of you. Relax my friend! Don't worry all will be made clear."

"Daemon you saw how many floors this building has. How much money does a building like this take to build? Are you willing to take the chance that any number of those floors hold loyal to the death minions?" Croc said in the characteristic hiss his kind makes. "Croc calm down!" Dile Lass chimed in "If he wants to die so badly let him." Dile Lass's voice started to show her true unsure about herself colors.

Daemon got up again and grabbed his helmet, he seemed ready to leave. As he did that though the shadowy figure spoke up again, "Perhaps you need some air yes?" As he said that a robotic guardsman came up to Daemon. "Go ahead, make yourself at home. We're all friends here now aren't we? He will show you around don't worry!"

Daemon didn't know whether to trust the man or not. This could have been his own death warrant he was signing in making this decision, but he figured for now anything was better then staying in that room any longer. "Alright then pal. Perhaps he can show me where the bathroom is then.", Daemon said as he walked out of the room onto the elevator casually waving goodbye to his other would-be compatriots. The doors closed and the elevator began to move down further. After a few minutes it came to a stop. The doors didn't open though.

"Heh, this isn't the lavatory floor isn't it.", Daemon joked to the metallic belhop. The robot stood there cold and did not respond. "Didn't think so......"

Just as Daemon said that though the doors opened. Behind them Daemon saw a fiery landscape, a volcanic realm laid before his eyes. It was as if the doors to hell itself had opened before him. The robot then spoke up, "You'll find the lavatory approximately one hundred paces to the north and seven hundred paces to the east. Follow the path and you should arrive within an interval of ten minutes, don't worry the Master has sent special intructions to us. Make yourself at home sir Daemon." The robot then bowed and moved Daemon out of the elevator closing the doors behind him. Daemon quickly turned around, but to his surprise the doors had vanished and he was standing alone in an seemingly endless fiery plain, dotted with volcanoes and lava flows here and there. At his feet he saw a clearly defined steel path that seperated itself from the ash of his surroundings. He had no choice, but to follow the path to where ever it leads.

"Well this was a great idea.....hehe.", Daemon kidded with himself as he went along the path. More and more he began to get the feeling he wasn't on earth anymore.

The suited figure shook his head and sat back, fingering the rim of his pocket idly as he slipped the notebook into it.
   'I don't see what could possibly be so terribly hard about telling us what to do here. However, if we must go on like this, interesting as it is, I'd much appreciate a drink or a cup of coffee,' he said sarcastically.

"Got wiskey?" Croc says hopefully.

"I apologize for taking so long, but yes, let's get started, shall we?"

Roulette finally sat down, fanged smile glued on her face, staring towards the shadow at the end of the room.

"Now... I'm sure you all know that I am in complete control of this area- but not much more. I want more land, more space, more people- to be able to continue all that I've been working on. However, I, myself lack the rescources to do this myself thus far, and require your help. Now, not too much more land is required- Europe will be quite sufficient. However, I want no resistance. Any threat to our enterprise must be taken down! And that leaves us with nor much that we aren't taking over." he paused for a moment to let this sink in.
"Now, what most of you will be doing is going through and creating chaos for the threats- make them turn a blind eye on the rest of the world, so I can move."

"You mean blow shit up?" Croc said happily "Can do!" Dile Lass looked sort of puzzled. "How is this chaos supposed to enable you get get more land?" Croc snapped at her "Shhh! So long as we get paid who cares?!"

There was a quick smile across the suited man's face, one that flashed a pair of fangs that were perhaps just a tad bit bigger than they should have been. It was very quick though, changing into a smirk as he talked.
   'Taken down. Got it. Though all of Europe...' he mused. 'Ive been asked to clear areas before, but that's a bit big. Still, if it's not too subtle a job, then I think I've got the firepower.'
   Slowly, he slipped a hand down and let his fingers rest on the lock to the briefcase. Good, he thought. Let them think that the real threat for now. And then I'll show them...

Liz had just headed back to his chair and sat down when the voice spoke up at last. Liz listened carefully to the mysterious employer's plan, going over details carefully in his mind. He slipped his jacket on and tapped his fingers on the table, thinking all the while.

Take over Europe... it had been tried before - multiple times, in fact - and hadn't worked. Even America, Europe's bratty, independent teenager, hadn't shunned its parent completely. And the plan sounded halfway familiar...When Dile Lass voiced her question, he was reminded of his world history classes, and the plan began to make sense.

"It's one of the basics of fascism...," Liz said, not looking anywhere in particular. "Come to power during a time of chaos. The difference is, the dictators were trying to get people to trust them as an end to the chaos. What we will be trying to accomplish is more like a diversion. While the gendarmerie, Scotland Yard, and Interpol are busy with most of us, the rest of us will be trying to overtake crime rings, businesses, governments, whatever source of power could stop us."

It wasn't completely foolproof, but if the right person was pulling the strings, it could work. "I'll help however I can," he stated. He guessed that assassinations would be the best distraction for Interpol, but something less quiet would be needed for smaller groups of law enforcers. "If all you need from me is to buy weaponry and bribe local police, that's no problem. But making weaponry would be more difficult - the ones I can make aren't very refined." Making a sheet of pure platinum was easy, but someone else would need to shape it into a gun.

That might not be a problem, though, with guys like Sebastian and Croc around. Liz was sure he'd seen a sizable pair of fangs on the former...

'Sounds like a plan if you know the relations and the ropes from the start, yes,' Sebastian said. 'Sounds like a solid plan. But it also sounds like an affiliation with terror cells in all the area of interest. And if anyone catches sniff of the business... We don't want to attract attention. I'd say we should incapacitate two key points first; leaders, and informers.' He chuckled to himself. 'We'll scare both sides stiff and put a whole lot of good tools searching...'
   He slipped out a cigarette again, out of nowhere, and that lighter, then lit up and took a pull. 'Then we just heave them in, get rid of the lowbies and reap the... rewards,' he continued, with a pointed look toward the shady figure. 'But that's assuming you can do that too.'

"So, wait..." Anastasia raised an eyebrow, bemused, "Your plan is essentially 'go cause trouble while I take over Europe'?" she chuckled, "Well, at least it shouldn't be too difficult. Do you have a particular base of operations in mind? Any targets in particular we should avoid that we don't already know about?"

"America should be going into chaos first." Roulette mused, her raspy voice only really audible if you were paying attention to it. One finger tapped at her lower lip.
"But not all at once. Act random- don't establish a pattern. Avoid trends in the method. Make the people suspecting seem crazy." She stopped her muttering here. Apparently insanity was one of the few things she could think rationally about. "Chaos in causing chaos." She said, this louder than the rest, but stopped her sudden seriousness and giggled. "Sounds like fun."

"Take out the infrastructure and everything falls to it's knees." Sheridanna smirks, then starts pondering. "I trust you gentlemen can handle the quieter details... I'll make sure my men cause plenty of noise."

Hearing Roulette speak up at last prompted more thoughts from Liz on what to do. If they were working in the US, things would be very different.

"Random murders would be the best distraction, but if it's too obvious, the police will start to notice, and if it's too simple, they'll pass the killer off as some random junkie." His expression was thoughtful, even though his eyes were still staring very hard at nothing at all. "It should be a big enough case to distract the FBI, but how do we keep more than a few people from becoming witnesses? Too many, and the police will be very cautious and might catch on to us. Too few, and the police won't bother listening to them, leaving them open to catch us anyway."

One could almost see Liz's brain working out details furiously. And then another problem struck him. "How do we keep aspiring vigilantes from tailing us? I mean, this is America we're talking about." A bored literary couple had cracked Zodiac's code, and despite the fact that comics weren't always accurate, there were plenty of people willing to take the law into their own hands. He shuddered all of a sudden, imagining himself avoiding a shower of bullets in Texas, or PTA members with pepper spray in New England.

Roulette looked up at Liz , her grin widening ever-so-slightly. "Make the methods bizarre. The people doing them even more so." She shrugged. "Make any witnesses doubt what they saw. Make any evidence go to the tabloids." she let out a quiet hum, thinking. "But I'm willing to bet even tabloids is too much publicity for some of your tastes." Another shrug.

"I think I'm gonna LIKE this job," again, it was hard to tell when Anastasia grinned. It could be assumed, however, that underneath that collar she was displaying quite a few teeth, "I figure some of my creations have some shore leave coming to them, mebbe test my latest performance enhancers in the local prison water systems, bomb something..." she leaned forward, arms on her knees, "When do we start, Mr...?"

"I'm willing to set as long as it takes as a time window, be it months, years, decades... however long it takes, I want success." The host's playful voice hardened here, to prove his point. "I'm willing to allow all of you as much of a window to start and finish. But first, can I assume that you all are interested, or shall I allow a time frame to think, or discuss with your employers, or...?"

Roulette's smile faded slightly, but that only lasted a moment. "You don't give me much of a choice." she said, for some reason, still bright.

As the host finished his last comment the elevator doors in the room opened up. "Well I suppose the fact that I am still here means I'm interested, it sounds like it'll be alot of fun.... Nice bathroom by the way.", Daemon said with a grin on his face as he made his way back to his seat. He was covered with ash and parts of his armor have been shattered and his cloak singed. After witnessing what this host is capable of Daemon became convinced it would be best not to try and cross him......now. On his return trip via the elevator Daemon heard most of the important details of the plan this host had via the intercom, so he was up to speed.

"So, are there any other continents we should keep our eyes on at the moment or should we all focus on one at a time?",  Daemon asked half-heartedly. 

'We accept,' the suit said. His voice had suddenly turned just as hard, and his face was solid. 'Might be a bit of a challenge to avoid the authorities if we stay together though...'

"I'm my own employer; S.M.A.S.H is more a loose collective of people like me who watch each other's backs than an overarching organization." - which was blatant misdirection, S.M.A.S.H was far more powerful than it pretended to be.

Sheridanna grins and stands up, gesturing to one of her goons, who throws her his rifle. She catches it easily and quickly checks everything is in order, unloading and reloading the rifle, then checking again before throwing it back. The soldier catches it and returns to his previous stance. "But it's hard to resist such a generous offer, I must say. No holds barred assault on U.S. Infrastructure? Significant sized donations to my scientific advancement projects...?" She strikes up a bout of evil laughter, grinning again. "Plus whatever spoils of war my men can liberate from the governments..." She starts walking for the door, soldiers following.

"You already know my answer. Now, unless anyone has anything else to add... I have plans to make."

"I have no employer, but there is someone I need to.... well, protect," Liz explained. This was a complication he had hoped wouldn't come into play.

"If I accept, can you guarantee that she'll be left out of this?" He stared into the shadows, trying not to look or sound soft. Yes, it sounded like something a hero would say, but he was serious. He loved Crystal and didn't want to see her get hurt by something he had helped to start.

Daemon raised an eyebrow as he heard Liz' conditions, then he spoke up, "Well I can't speak for the rest of us, but I'll honor your request provided you show a picture of her and describe the location of her current residence."

"Oh yeah, if your providing unlimited financial aid for this endeavor. Would a couple billion's worth of diamonds and/or gold be too much to ask? I suppose I could always go rob a few banks, but this way would be much more subtle. Don't want to draw too much attention.", Daemon asked with slight embarassment. He knew it was a bit rude to ask so soon before Liz even agreed to completely be a part of the plan.

Rue wondered how this would fit in to his bosses plan but figures it would be bust to join up. as long as the goals wee clear then his boss had skill at steering things in the directions necessary  to meet his own goals. a planetary war and the chaos shrouding it seemed like it would suite him. Granted it was a bit  more then he's expected when he fist met his coworkers but it seems like it would be fun. " I'm in and i'm sure that my boss will agree to help support this planetary shift in power"

Rue how every agreed with Mint. no not Mint  Roulette " bizarre methods would only help so much. the non specific targets should also be linked to things people dislike or hate. that could bread more irrational  hate and mistrust in those who would stand against us."

Liz nodded gratefully at Daemon. "Thank you. I know it's a strange request. I think I have her picture on here somewhere...," he said, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket and flicking through the picture section. "The billions won't be a problem. I'll need a less crowded room than this, but I can do it. Ah, here she is." He showed the picture on the phone to Daemon.

The picture was of a yellow-green, white-blonde gecko with light brown eyes, wearing a pink shirt and white capris, smiling at the camera from her workbench.

"Her name is Crystal, and I can give you our address later. But I could just call her and tell her to lie low for a few days. If that's acceptable," he remarked, looking pointedly at the employer.

"I understand, Liz." The employer said, and one got the distinct impression that he was nodding. "Whatever you wish to do to keep her safe. Even keep her here, with me, if need be."

Roulette looked as though she was going to protest, but decided it would be best to shut her mouth.

"so when do I get to blow shit up?" croc asked slighly anxious. "Quiet please! w we'll get our chance to cause a comotion....right?"

"Thank you very much, but I doubt Crystal will need to stay here," Liz replied to the shadowy figure, setting down his phone. "I'll call her later and warn her to be careful. Your hospitality does you credit, though."

He looked over at Rue. "What do you mean, 'things people dislike or hate'? Do you mean we should target... criminals?" In a strange way, the boy was right. Killing other criminals would confuse everyone, and maybe even pull more people over to their side. The thinking went a little like this: Killing is wrong, but if someone's a bad person, they deserve to die, right? So why are we still upset? And wannabe heroes going after them wouldn't be sure whether to kill them or not.

"That could work even better than random chaos. Blur the line between good and bad." Liz grinned toothily for the first time. This was amusing.

Rue turned his head to the side thinking about it. " that would definitely work if they are violent criminals to begin with but i was thing  more alone the likes of people in the fur trade and abortion clinics. not matter what the issue you will always fine that there are people that hate something. attacked those that the majority hates would not only  put off suspicion for a while but it would also help to eliminate competition. "

Mainland:

Meeting Hall

And with that, Sheridanna makes her exit, guards following as she makes her way back up to the roof and into the returned helicopter, goons jumping aboard after her. It again takes off and returns to the island.

~~

An Undisclosed Island:

Helipad

The helicopter slowly touches down at the pad, and Sheridanna and the soldiers alight from the vehicle, quickly heading back inside. From there, Sheridanna makes her way to her own lair, whilst the soldiers head to the cafeteria.

The Inner Sanctum

"Good to be home," she remarks, moving over to the desk and settling into the seat, "...at least if nothing else I can get some peace and quiet in here, unless.."

The bulkhead hissed open as Langdon entered.

"Unless you show up."

"Ma'am?"

"Nevermind. What is it?"

"I've located several prime targets - scientific, mineral and other assets that would be ideal for expanding your current developments."

"Ahh, good. Send me the list later, would you? The meeting went fairly well, we should have plenty of work in the States this year or so."

"Yes ma'am."

"Dismissed."

Langdon walks out again, the bulkhead closing...

Someone you're looking out for? Anastasia raised her eyebrows when Liz even brought out a picture of the girl, Getting the impression that he hasn't done this too often. Telling us what she looks like...
"Those the majority hates? And you suggest abortion clinics?" she scoffed at Rue's idea, "The vote's fairly split on that one; so long as it's legal, we'll still be looked at badly. Going by your logic, our best bet would be an assault on the white house. Majority hates, right? We'd be better off orchastrating our own trouble; attack, and then when we're done have somebody show up and make a big display of 'driving the bad guys off.' We create all the pandimonium we need, and meanwhile are able to hide in plain sight. I suggest Croc. So long as he can keep from smiling with his teeth and not scare anybody he'd probably be best for that sort of thing. The whole 'guy you can have a beer with' sorta thing. Hell, from there we can mess with politics on a pretty large scale too."

Daemon nodded as he saw the visage of the she-gecko on Liz' iphone. It was kind of hard for him to see the beauty beyond her outward appearance, but it was not to him to judge, it would be hers should THAT day ever come. For now though Daemon was confident he could secure trust between him and Liz, for he played a crucial role in the plan that was beginning to unravel in Daemon's mind. To escalate his plan to a grand scale though he would need an ample amount of capital to buy the time he needed, this plan of chaos that the host has will put a drain on the nations of the world and Daemon wanted to be able to get some use out of their corrupt systems before they fall into anarchy, ripe for the insurrection orchestrated by this dark man.

"The stage is set.", Daemon thought as he came to grim realization, "Already I can feel the lost hours of the Apocalypse slipping through my fingers."

"Yes we can secure that end later I'm sure, as you can see I kind of need to clean up a bit myself.", Daemon said to Liz with a light hearted chuckle. ,"My reasonings for wanting to know her location are so that she does not become a casualty of collateral damage that may occur from this.....plan. I'm sure you can agree."

As Daemon overheard the strategies being shot across the floor he had an epiphany and letted out a suggestion of his own ,"Man is his own worst enemy. At the moment I'd say it's fair that the power infrastructure of the U.S. is basically hanging on by a thread. If we take out America's power and other important utilities we'll be able to cause all the pandemonium required, using America's own citizens no less. They won't have anyone to blame, but the government for it is their responsibility to ensure that the country readily has all of these conveniences online, and with the recent memories of rolling blackouts in New York and California its safe to assume the simple minded American will think that this is the one that broke the camels back and assume that the end is nigh."

"I have an idea." Dile Lass said. "How about a power shift through legal routes? If one of us were to become president... war with europe for not 'aiding in the war on terrorism' namely france then attention would be signifigently diverted. all the flag waveing hicks in america would over rule the more intellegent portion. and the same would happen in europe. when all eyes are on the 'new cold war' we strike......if thats ok with everyone."

"The man did say to leave Europe alone," Anastasia pointed out, "Although I was thinking that the legal routes wouldn't be a bad idea. An inside man, so to speak."

"Like i said," Dile Lass continued. "This would be a cold war. not a drop of blood shed....Like with the soviets it would be more a dance of ploicies and paper work with the proper amount of WMD to keep a presance but not use them....uh....am i makeing sense or am i not putting it correctly?"

Liz looked back at Daemon carefully. "I understand your reasons. Though it's still a bit strange to give my girlfriend's address to someone I've known for less than two hours."

He shook his head at Dile Lass when she voiced her ideas. "I get what you're trying to say, but I'm not entirely sure if it would work. Other new leaders would rise up and try to take control amid all the chaos. And politicians are far scarier and more manipulative than most of us when it comes to wartime coups. I agree with you and Anastasia, though. Having plants in the government could be a serious asset."

Croc had been noteably absent for a while when the elevator open he came in toteing beer and energy drings and plenty bottled water. "Hey guys. I miss anythin'?

Dile Lass tried her best to keep what composure she could as  sh was rapidly returning to her natural state. that "insecure kansas girl fresh out of James E. Shavez Collage" as she had on the dateing service site Croc found her on. Croc wasn't looking for love mind you. Just some one to make him look better and to come up with "brain gems".

"Croc,.....What are you doing with beer energy drinks and bottled water?"

"Well DL I figured if this were to go any later we would need the energy drinks for 'brain storming', the beer for entertainment."

"And the water?"

"Do you really like hangovers that much DL?"

"And just how did you get it without money?"  DL was on to something... she always kept the money because it was Croc buying stuff like that that made their bank accounts overdraw every other week.

"Well DL I AM a villian ya' know."


Dile Lass looked embarassed as he put it all down on the center of the table.

"Dig in guys."

Daemon grabbed one of the water bottles and emptied it over himself in an attempt to wash away the ash he was covered in, he then cracked open one of the beer bottles with his teeth and kicked back in his chair.

"Not a bad. Perhaps the stir you caused will draw out the authorities and we can get this party really started, hehe.", Daemon grinned, although he had his doubts of any authoritarian figure showing up. Convenience stores are robbed every day, and to think the police would take a call that a store was robbed by King K. Rool was just not something Daemon could fathom them taking seriously. No, if anyone was going to be the would-be hero here it would probably be some young desperate fool or an eccentric billionaire with too much free time on his/her hands and a troubled past which compelled him/her to become a crime fighter to in some way avenge the loss of a loved one. 

Daemon shrugged and then spoke, "Speaking of which, you didn't happen to notice anyone following you back here did you?"   

Anastasia already had a bottle opened and halfway drained. Somebody must have blinked. Probably for the best; some of her better work was accomplished drunk.
"Alright, so, politics. What else? Mass attacks, sure, but lets avoid anything too obvious. To be quite frank, New York City has a high population of skilled vigilantes and I don't wanna tempt fate right off the bat. But we should start with some big city. Mebbe Chicago, San Fransisco, something like that."

Anastasia had a point "rue admitted to himself. there was no telling how many back to back battled there would be once started. and red tape was one of the best wast to stop motes so called government special forces. he listed to there places for war learning more about " is their and organization called Green peace here?" He asked.

Rue didn't know why but he was  thinking they could vandalized some  production factories and causes chaos then blames the chaos of grass roots organizations that were known to have violent scions. of the ones he knew Green peaces stood on in his mind for sinking whaling ships and burning fur factories. it would raise a ruckus and generates mixed support and opportunities  in the right setting.

"I'd like to see Tampa in flames.... and just how many heros were these to help ME out? NONE!" Croc said with his big grin. "All those people who were being assholes will PAY hehheh."

"Dosen't anything motivate you besides those bullies?" DL said



"Food?" Croc said sheepishly

Liz snagged a water bottle. He didn't feel like getting drunk yet, and he preferred wine to beer anyway. "Thanks, Croc," he said.

As he twisted off the cap to the bottle, he raised an eyebrow at Rue. "Greenpeace? Well, if we piss them off, the world gets pissed off. But if we stage some sort of destruction that looks like it could've been Greenpeace, it might work."

Rue nods. "my thinking exactly. we could have it look like a rouge cell of green peace is behind some of the sabotage." he smiled" and while the cities deal with the destruction the population divide themselves and Greenpeace gets disorganized by trying to track down their rogue cells cells that we will have set up prior to committing the act's those of us with more political influence and suave can work to keep the general population off balance. That is not something i can do but I'll be happily to go on some of the raiders to discredit the companies and start the havoc brewing."

Liz smiled at Rue. "I like the way you think. I'm pretty sure making rogue cells of Greenpeace wouldn't be too hard, what with Sheridanna's soldiers and the amount of crazies willing to blow up ships for a price." He drank some of his water, then he had an idea.

"You think we'd be able to get a few planted agents in the media?" If anyone knew how to spread and skew rumors and stories, it was newshounds. A few well-placed liars could be substantially helpful to get people to their side.

"It would seem we have this thing down....so do we have any ideas for who does what? if not it will....uh.....but utter chaos for nothing and when....the.......uh....heros swoop in and clean up if they can the worlds resolve will be stronger than ever before." Dile Lass pondered out loud.

"I'll be running armaments, technology, all that good stuff. Also, while I may not come with my own brute squad like Sheridinna, I have a few things working for me. Methinks I can orcastrate a few disasters," again Anastasia gave that impression of grinning with her mouth covered, "And since Liz is already on cash cow duty, I think we should try to keep him near whatever base of operations we'll be using."

Rue smiled and sipped his drink. " as for placing the false evidence my Employer has agents that are very good at getting into  places to place to copy things. they are part of a force or  general inventory spies. if you have some false records that we can use to justify our attacks on the targets companies. there papers can be leaked to the agents in the press create a viable paper trail and and excuse to keep green peaces of the backs of the rogue cells long enough to case some real chaos"

Liz shot a half-hearted glare at Anastasia. "I think you mean cash lizard, my dear," he corrected her lightly. "And I don't have to just be a credit card. I can lend a hand to the destruction-with-seemingly-insane-witnesses part if necessary. I mean, what sounds crazier than a gecko shooting gold spikes into every window of a building at once?" Unlike his previous statements to Anastasia, there was no intentional vague threat in his words. Liz didn't want to just sit around and make diamonds all day. That was boring.

When Dile Lass spoke her piece, he smiled at her. "Good. I'm not the only one here who knows comic books are right sometimes. But organized chaos isn't that easy to clean up when it's successful."

"Either way, my point stands. Capable of a good deal of destruction you may be, you're also a valuable resource that we should risk as little as possible. If you are to go out into the field, I say you have someone backing you up and stay where we can get you out of trouble fast. Which means no rampages far from home," Anastasia replied to Liz, "Which brings us back to 'where do we start?' I heard one vote for Tampa, and I'm offering one against New York. Any others?"

"New York here.", Daemon replied. "Or if necessary I can provide Liz with some back up, I doubt he really needs it though."

Daemon then reclined and went into deep thought, "If this....man is capable of firing spikes akin to bullets he really shouldn't have a problem. Heck if he's captured he can probably buy his way out or...improvise.  The main issue is probably his own mortality.....he's useless to us dead... Although those scales....they're probably more resiliant then normal flesh.....and if he's talented he can probably use his gift to stop bullets with some kind of diamond shield or something.....yeah. Even if something happens I bet he can hold his own until relief arrives...."

"Or...if you want I could run for President." , Daemon laughed. "We got enough funding for a campaign and as long as I preach what the public wants to hear and we make the message shiny enough I'd probably win. Heck we could probably just buy a trained monkey and he'd win at this point."

"If y...yy..you don't mind I'd run f...for president....With all due respect i belive i could p..pass my term off as m...m...mmore...legit." Dile Lass was dieing under her skin but for once sehe actually seemed to present some real confidence.

"Atta girl I KNEW you had it in ya!" Croc seemed genuinly impressed with the "balls" she just showed as he would put it.

Liz pouted at Anastasia. "Yes Mom," he muttered. The worst part was, she was right. Doctors had tested his blood, his DNA, everything, and physically, Liz was completely normal. Like the golden goose, once you cut him open, the gift was gone. So he had to stay alive and not risk himself too much.

He smirked admiringly at Dile Lass when she offered to run for president. Although she was smart, she seemed awfully shy when it came to promoting her own abilities. Especially over someone like Daemon, he thought, impressed. "Hm. Well, you have a point. Anyone else got an opinion?" he asked the table at large.

"Are any of us actual candidates for presidency?" Roulette pondered. "Money or no, There are requirements that need to be met." She said, sounding, for once, something near her age, but that illusion broke down in a moment as she whined impatiently. "Besides, that takes too long!"

"The best plans time time to execute, mi'dear." Their host sighed.

"As much as I hate to say it. I'm no polititititition.....on" Croc added an extra "on" and quite a few "ti"s just to be safe. "If Dl will be bounceing out that baboon they have in office now she'll need support, money, and a vice president with enough confidence to carry them both."

low and behold Croc put forth a semi intellegent tidbit.


"how about Liz? I'm sure you would have fun running an entire country further into the crapper than it already is."


DL looked at Liz and said "I'd be happy to have you as a running mate." DL was obviously becomeing more infatuated with him from the way she said it.

Roulette was right this couldn't be done unless someone here had the "requirements". Daemon pondered for a moment, then he pulled out an iphone of his own that he "acquired" a few days ago. He then did a Google search on the requirements for U.S. presidential candidacy.

"Hmm, in order to do this the candidate must be a natural-born citizen, have lived here for atleast 14 years, and be atleast of the age of thirty-five. Sorry to rain on your parade lass, but you don't look thirty-five and I mean that in a good way.", Daemon explained. "The paper trail of citizenship and residency can be dealt with, the problem is that you need the age, or atleast look the age. That shouldn't be too much of a problem with some good cosmetics, although I admit it would be the first time I'd see a woman trying to make herself look older, hehe."

Daemon then raised an eyebrow as he made another discovery, "Hmm, it appears that the vice-president must also meet the same requirements as the president himself in order to run. I'm not exactly sure how to gauge the age of someone of your nature, Liz."

"What do they mean, natural-born?" Roulette wondered, one long finger resting on her lower lip. "Do they mean we can't have a clone president?" She nodded at Daemon. "Yeh, you're right. DL, you look like yeh've just graduated. Actually... Who here actually is over? I lost count at 50." She nodded, sending brightly-colored strands of hair into her face.

Rue shrugs. he was not born in this place and despite being over the age requirement he was not technically naturally born. "well if we have some candidates i'm sure that they can uses the actions  of the distraction groups as a political  catalyse to gain notoriety and  public approval"

Rue wonders how they would run all of these  distractions and still keep hidden in the shadows.  maybe a red herring would work if the planted it deep enough. some groups that it could be trailed to that does not necessarily exist like form the movies. it could also sever as a warning  just in case some one was digging in too close to their objections.  after thinking about it a bit more he broaches the topic of a "shell organizations" for decoy and alerting purposes."

Daemon paused, then sighed and reclined.

Staring at the ceiling Daemon replied, "I don't remember......I can't remember how old I am..."

His voice was cold, piercing, and true. He felt no reason to lie about his age, that not even he himself knew. The oldest images Daemon could recall to himself were of him waking up on an alaskan fishing vessel surrounded by the mangled and sheared bodies of its former crew. This was about five years ago, going from that "awakening" he certainly wasn't within the requirements.

Age, citizenship, residency. These were just numbers and words, numbers and words subjected to the same manipulation any talented individual could impose on them to pass as truth. Being alone for so long had its advantages and disadvantages. Daemon had no one to be the wiser of his origins as long as he performed as an "American", but by the same token appearing out of the blue can lead to suspicion. If Daemon had anything going for him it was his charismatic appearance. Although he looked to be within his twenties, he was built, and could pass for thirty-five with the mindset that he has kept himself fit throughout his life and had a healthy lifestyle. People are living longer today then ever before, so it wasn't that much of a stretch, for him atleast.

"If someone does end up doing this, it'd be wise to be relentless in this endeavor. We can't let any rivals find out about our true past, but by the same token we must also formulate an "American" backstory for said candidate. We will need to keep media focus on the faults of our enemies, not fixated on us. Once again though, money can speak volumes. I'm sure with proper "persuasion" we can keep them on our side, since our resources are nigh-limitless. That said I have my doubts about Liz running in this. If anybody found out about your "gift" we would be done for. Of course we could plant candidates running from both the left and the right, with either outcome we'd still win so if one of the candidates was sabotaged somehow by a devious disgruntled party member we'd still have the other to fall back on for ultimate victory.", Daemon pointed out to the table.

"I'm thirty, thanks for the reminder Roulette," Anastasia said caustically, "And Dile Lass, looking the right age isn't too big an issue. You'd be amazed at what can be done with synthetics and a bit of glue these days. The issue is the act," she leaned back in her chair, "You'd have to act the right age, and preferable not too bright. The U.S. public in general takes badly to people who seem too smart; they don't trust their government and don't want it getting too clever. It's why they keep getting leaders like the aforementioned baboon. You'd probably be a great politician, yeah, but in terms of getting actual votes you kinda lack the 'can sit down and get a beer with' quality. However, you're more qualified than most here," she raised an eyebrow at Daemon. Can't even remember your own age, going around in body armor? Real subtle there, slick.

"With all due respect doctor...." Dile Lass started,"I happen to be very good at acting....you know like good ole Bill C." Dile Lass was bright and tactful, two things that normally lead a villin back to the light. However Croc was nice enough to instill into her the "get it done by any means necessary" ideal. If she did become president after the plan worked it's self out she might actually try to rebuild America on the ideals she learned as a child. For some reason though she couldn't help but smile at the thought of being the first female president and being the one to prove wemon actually do run things better. Croc just poped open a beer and watched.

Liz had been taking a sip of water when Croc suggested that he run alongside Dile Lass for presidency. Without really thinking, Liz gasped and started choking on a water droplet.

Once he regained his composure, he shook his head. "Sorry. As much as I love chaos, I'm not good with politics. Last time I tried my hand at it was in second grade." His speech had run like this: "I promise to be a responsible, dependable class president, and to give you all free ice cream." His opponent, Brian, on the other hand, had threatened to throw a couch at anyone who didn't vote for him. Liz didn't even get the sympathy vote. "Besides, politicians are the sort of people who'd lock me up and drain me of anything valuable I could make."

When Daemon went over the requirements for presidency, and mentioned that Liz's age was difficult to tell, the gecko sighed in relief. "Nope. Not old enough to run for the next eleven years, and I think I'd end up coming across as too condescending to the Red States. I'm not sure about the legality of clone presidency, Roulette, but you might not get the Catholic vote if they figure that out about you." So far, it was either Dile Lass or Daemon if they decided to try for presidency. Liz awaited the outcome patiently.

Dile Lass gigled at Liz's reaction. Croc knew what was up and that he had to qush it in order to remain successful.

"I never said I was a clone." She pointed out. "Was just curious. Though, on second thought, I forget. I might be. Hey, am I a clone?" She turned to look up the table and look into the shadows at the end of it.

"No, Roulette, you're not." The voice sighed, exasperated.

"'Sides, they wouldn't have had the technology back then anyways. I said I lost count at 50, but it's been a good number of years since then. But anyway, it's not like I'd ever get the vote." She giggled. "I can see it sow- Madam president, please, don't set your clothes on  fire!" She giggled, but paused after a moment.
"What? It's a problem! I can't help it!" She exclaimed, quickly.
..By now, people should have realised that paying the girl much mind was probably rather idiotic.

"Ah geez!!!", Daemon shouted as his chair collapsed under him. Listening on to Roulette's rambling caused Daemon to lose his balance making him fall backwards onto the floor.

"Well that was just wonderful. I might as well just lie here...", Daemon thought as he lied there somewhat embarassed. Then he spoke up, "Hehe, whoops...kinda saw that one coming."

Daemon then got himself up and regained his composure. "Alright then. As I proposed a few minutes ago I think it's best we send two candidates, one coming from the left and one from the right, this way we will still win no matter the outcome. Dile Lass I suggest that you be the candidate coming from the left, I myself will be the right wing candidate provided no one has any objections. While the lass and I are working our way up through the inside though have we come to an understanding on what you guys will be doing throughout this endeavor? It already seems Sheridanna has something in mind since she left."

"I've got a couple objections to you being our other candidate," Anastasia interjected, "No offense intended, but you strike me as having all the campaign skills and subtlety as a sledgehammer with fireworks on it. You stomp around in armor, you're a big guy, even your voice is a bit too out there. I say if we have to have another politician we just buy one. They're pretty cheap these days, if you know the right channels to bribe them by."

Having only caught on to Dile Lass's crush on him a few minutes ago, Liz felt a bit guilty, seeing as he'd have to end it.

Was she really that oblivious to all my talk about Crystal? he wondered. He'd made his dating status pretty clear. He glanced at Croc, trying to convey that he knew this had to stop, but he'd need help.

When Roulette spoke, Liz shrugged an apology for thinking she was a clone. Somehow, it seemed like a plausible explanation for her behavior, but he wasn't sure why. Then again, any kind of explanation would be believable at this point. And how did Mr. Shadowy know her, anyway?

This train of thought was derailed when Daemon fell over. Liz hadn't even noticed him tipping his chair or anything. He stifled a laugh, watched to make sure he was okay, then went back to listening to Anastasia counter Daemon's suggestion of running.

"Hm. You might be right. Unless we bribed periodicals and TV stations not to interview Daemon, they'd probably catch us. And that would have to include MAD, People, Time, Newsweek, maybe even Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart." He paused. "And if no-one was reporting on him, people would get too curious. Bribing some right-winger would be safer."

Daemon rolled his eyes, "It's just a suit of armor...I can take it off you know. I wear the armor mostly when I know I'm going to be in a fire fight. Plus my definition actually works to benefit here, since I doubt most conservatives would back someone who looked like a weakling or didn't have a strong resolve. I can play the part I assure you."

"No faith whatsoever..... They have no idea what they are getting themselves into and the cost of their folly will be their bane.", Daemon silently condemned as he gazed past them. He then lamented, "Well, if this is too much for you I'll just go back to my original plan."

Finally, after having sat and just somehow blended into the shadowy background by means of silence or some uncanny skill of anonymity, the white-clad man spoke again.
   'If I may say, I could easily do what you ask for. I do come off as respectable, is that not right?' he asked, looking around. 'I could even tidy up. And while I may not be a citizen, I could easily "become" one. I've got the age too.' He certainly didn't look it, but that could easily be helped.
   'Of course, if you ask me, I certainly wouldn't want to candidate. I'm more fond of more direct ways of running things into the ground,' he then casually stated, making a little gesture and a smile. He certainly wouldn't give up his favorite pastime, just because he'd become president.

"Well, we don't have too good an idea as to what else you can do. Don't want to tie up our best resources in red tape," Anastasia shrugged, "Either way, politics is what you'd call a long term plan, we may not have to make a decision on it quite yet. Besides Daemon, you strike me as being more helpful on the 'hitting people' end of things. It's not a particular part to play, just a degree of relatability. Perhaps if we needed to get at the 'ancient saurian' or 'infernal' demographics you'd be a good idea, but I honestly think that having you involved in that, with or without the armor, would go badly. Again, if I can bring us back to the matter of a starting point and base of operations? Politics or otherwise, everything else really spirals off of where we begin."

Liz glanced at Anastasia once when she mentioned a base, then began narrowing down choices in his mind. "We'll probably have to be in America. Now, where could we go in America where no-one would notice us?" This was probably the hardest question Liz had ever considered in his life. On the one hand, if they chose an uncrowded state like Nebraska, there'd be fewer people to notice them. On the other hand, if they chose an extremely crowded place like New York City, and chose a sufficiently inconspicuous building, people would be too busy with their own lives and more interesting places to care about them.

Yawning a little to himself, Daemon became convinced that he wasn't going to get anywhere deliberating his point further. Yes his strongest asset was his unrelenting resolve in "hitting stuff with large objects" catagory, but the impression he left upon entering was what defined him to the others and he knew now that the only way he'd be able to show his "finer" abilities would be through example. That would be for another time though.

"Hmmm, how about we have around four forward command posts, stationed across the country. One on the east coast, another on the west, one near Alaska to keep an eye on them and Canada, and one on Oahu, Hawaii. Having a presence everywhere will give us the edge in that some Americans can't just resign themselves to the idea that what's happening in N.Y.C matters little to them if they are on the other side of the country.", Daemon suggested. The only problem with having four seperate bases though would be lack of mobility since the forces would be spread thin. That probably could be circumvented though Daemon thought. Especially after considering the ride he had on the elevator to the "lavatory".

Rue finds himself becoming distant. this discussion was dragon one and planing was more of of his bosses forte then his own. he boss always said that he was responsible and reliable because of his planning complimented hits physical power but that was not it. all he did was try to be prepared for any problems that might show up.  he remembers the first time someone ran into whom he cone not predict or understand. it was right after he ran into that girl and her family at the alter. ...

"Not too far on the coasts." Roulette pointed out, raising a long, thin finger, and pointing at Daemon. "Too far out, and there's the people in the midwest that don't even hear about crap that happens on the coasts. So.. Some midpoint. If the issue is having more of a presence, then you cover more ground a bit further in." She nodded.
"Though, i'm not sure how we went from 'hidden' to 'having a presence'." She giggled, yet again.

"Well its not so much as having a presense, but making it more convenient to operate over the country if we have resources spread nearby. You know, something like safehouses.", shrugged Daemon. He then cracked a smile and gestured, "I'm going to go ahead and get my original plan in motion now. It seems everything that needed to be said here has been said so there's no need to drag this out longer."

Daemon then gave the host his iphone number, then said, "You got my number, if you need me for anything else let me know. Otherwise, I'm heading to Florida. I got some...plans...."

Daemon began to laugh as he got onto the elevator and rode it to the surface. He then left the building into the city. It was all too clear to him now what needed to be done for this plan. To further facilitate this he went to a motorcycle dealership and bought a Kawasaki Ninja-zx14 (http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb222/xeksue86/mcninja.jpg) to get himself out of the city with haste. If what he read about in the news was true as he bought his bike, he had only three days left.

Nodding as Daemon left, Liz turned back to the table. "Yeah, I think I've worn out my strategy muscle. The basics are down, at least." He stood up, putting his blazer back on. Almost as an afterthought, he wrote down his cellphone number quickly on the back of an old business card and slid it across the table to the host. "Call me if anything changes or if I'm needed. Otherwise..." He bowed to the table, only a little mockingly. "I'd best take my leave. Thank you for letting me help."

He walked to the elevator, allowing one robot to press the right buttons so he'd head upstairs. Once he reached the lobby, he walked out of the building, dialing a number on his phone.

"Hello, Crystal? It's me. ... Yeah, didn't last as long as I thought... listen, this whole thing's a bit bigger than I thought, and the guys I'm working with seem pretty competent... no, they won't hurt you, I made sure of that. But still, you might want to be careful these next few days. ... We can talk about this when I get home, 'kay?"

"Bad DL!" Croc said as he waited patiently  for Liz to be out of ear shot. "He has a girl!"


"Well I never! I....it wasn't too obvious was it? Oh i know he has a girl friend but *giggle*" Dile Lass was lost in her crush when Croc whaped her a good one on the back of the noggin.

"Ok OK im sorree."

Sebastian took off and pretended to clean and then idly play with his glasses, while he listened to the others and saw them beginning to leave. He'd got his priorities down, and from watching them all he was fairly certain of which ones would be most useful. Liz had left and was off on his own, and somehow 'Daemon', the dangerous loner, had taken an interest in him. Those looks and questions were not without meaning. 'Croc' and his girl were a pair of thugs, and Roulette was a nutcase to be regarded and aimed like a gun, but not an unfriendly one. And as for Anastasia...
   'Well, I'm all for New York or San Fran,' he said. 'But I can move anywhere. It helps.' He smiled another of those smiles he seemed so good with, and then shifted in his chair a bit. So quick it looked like a magic trick, he made a card appear between his fingers, and then spun it through the air so it landed at the end of the table. It read simply 'Sebastian Hart,' and a number.
   'Now, something which I've always appreciated, and which is much more vital to work, is good equipment,' he then said, and turned to Anastasia. 'So what do you say we have a... casual talk? Over dinner. My treat.'

"P-I-M-P...." Croc said with a big grin on his face. Then he looked to Ana, "You know he's going to get the better end of the deal...." Croc stood up "Whelp I'm off to go get richer....those cigars don't pay for them selves. C'mon DL" Croc walked for the door.


"Pleasure to meet you all." Dile Lass looked worried and rushed. "I hope well work together soon. Sorry for those rather untasteful comments." She gathered up all her things and ran off after Croc.

Anastasia rolled her eyes at Croc's comment, Didn't know it was possible to verbally vent testosterone.
"Good to see someone else knows what's important in this business," she reached for the business card, Nice design. Elegance in simplicity. She wasn't too much for simplicity herself, but still. "Sounds like a plan, Mr. Hart. Tomorrow at seven good? I have a few things of my own to see to before this whole project starts."

Croc and Dile Lass rode the elevator to ground floor in silence. They got out and started going home to prepare for their part in the delicate balance of destruction and reclamation. "Hay DL you've been rather flirty with most men lately....something wrong or...er...what i mean is..."

Dile Lass reaced the car first and hopped in the drivers seat. "You recruited me off a dateing site....I was hopeing to have found someone by now....Ya know the rich doctor type, to help in my charities and such...Ah to dream is to let you hopes float upon the air never to be seen nor granted." She started the car. "C'mon change in plans we're going to take over a small asian country. That will give us some play room....and as leaders diplomatic immunity."

Croc got in. "Well DL you know if you really want someone you probably already know them. All you need to do is make the move."

Dile Lass remained silent but floored it. The rest of the motly crew remained unaware of their plans and watched them speed off in a Shelby Mustang.

'Tomorrow at seven sounds wonderful. I know a great place,' Sebastian replied and smiled. He too would need the night for himself. Just for comfort.
   As things seemed done, and Sebastian then stood up, picked up his briefcase, and bowed slightly toward the shadowed figure. He looked genuinely proper in that suit, though the wicked smile seemed misplaced on his beautiful face.
   'Right then. You know where to call. I will make myself available from tomorrow and forth,' he said, then turned and exited by means of the same way as the others had. Well outside he walked a while, before getting into a low, metallic black Audi with toned windows and rolling off.

Anastasia waited for the other to leave the room. It occurred to her that he was possibly the only one she didn't really have pegged yet. He hadn't offered much in terms of his own abilities. Might be nothing to worry about... But then, I wouldn't be where I was if I didn't keep all the variables in mind. Best keep the subject of that 'casual talk' off of any of my more interesting projects, Then there was Sheridinna. Daemon, he didn't seem like someone to write off. And in order to accomplish anything she'd probably have to go through Liz for cash.
With that, she pocketed the card and turned to look at their employer. She had to look up a bit, which meant he was probably the first in a long time to see her grin without it being obscured by her coat. For the purposes of this narrative, you shall not know what that looks like.
"What interesting circles you travel in."
And with that she walked out the door, got into a van that looked (on the outside) as though it should have been sent to the junkyard (or, if you'd seen the inside, sealed in a mile of lead and blasted into space) ages ago. It really was impressive what one could do with a test tube, some donors for materials, basic neurosurgery skills and patience these days.
"Mommy says we're heading to our nearest hide-away. Hop to it." With a crooning noise audible to only the driver, the van sped off.

Croc and Dile Lass arrived in Laos without much trouble. Sure they got a notice that their car was being held up in costums and they nearly lost their luggage but that soon would not matter. Not in the slightest.

"DL. What's the plan? You goin all politicals and stuff?"

"No Croc, America may have required us to play the game of cat and mouse but this is a small country and reletively not noticed...By the time people think to send aid...we'll have taken over and have an army ready to mobilize against them. there by createing the kind of diversion that the "Boss" needs."


"Uhhhhh.....Does that mean i get to smash sh*t?"

"Huh? OH yes Croc we get to smash sh*t."

Roulette stayed in the room after all of the others had left, remaining mostly silent- except to wave and say a quick farewell to those leaving.  After a few moments, those odd eyes turned to the emplyer, narrowed slightly.

"I've never understood you, sir." She said, cocking her head to one side.

"I thought I would be the one saying that, my dear." The shadowed figure's voice lost any of the majesty it had previously had when addressing the others, though keeping the air of amusement.

"You act like you hate me. I've been locked up since I was 50. I don't even know how many years have passed since you've done this. You've made me worse. And here you are, sending me out to help you?" She scoffed. "I should really just kill you one of these days." She muttered darkly.

"You'd like to do that, wouldn't you, my dear?" He asked, chuckling. "You'd never be able to, and we both know it. Now please, I'm giving you a second chance, dear! And you'd better use it wisely if there's still anything like a brain left in that head of yours."

There was a long pause before Roulette stood from her chair, her strangely colored hair falling into her face. "yes sir."

It hadn't taken more than a week. Croc and Dile Lass had taken over Laos completely. The people didn't resist because Dile Lass was going to make their country powerful and rich. Dile Lass called up the "Boss". "Hello Boss? Yes I just got myself a power chip here. I want to make an offer to you. If I help you take over Europe then you would help me with Asia. We could be a powerful alliance you and I."

DarkE sat in at his desk as a shadow demon appeared behind him. "whats is it?" he asked as he went over the  reports. "has he now? send him in " Rue entered.  and set down his weapon. Dark he  turned to view his General. setting aside his weapon was both a sign of truce and respect. the ARC edge special. infused with the magic both ancient and new it was one of the few weapons of this world that could inflict considerable damage on him others such as Excalibur, majour and the sword of Eliander were lost to time or in good hands. he gestured and Rue sat. " what is you plan?"

Rue sighed. " using our organising i shall set up several rouge cells of Greenpeace. this done we shall enter and sabotage several important  industrise in the country that you've expressed an interest in" 

"what will this gain me and at what risk?"

"we will coordinate our efforts with those in the group that you sent me the. the risk are minimal but for the sake of being prepared i have already outlined a false train that with dead end with and imagery group. this group will take the blame.  form this effort we shall gain a foot hold in this country if not the entire country and also gain workable allies for future endeavors."

DarkE nodded pleased. as usual Rue had done excellent work. indeed  Rue's power though less thin his own were growing quickly and  faster this his own. in their first battles his defeat of rue had been total but aster that Rue's grown had made it harder. after accepting him into his organization Rue's power had grown even more. Still Rue's honer would keep him in line much like his own promise he looked over the planes and status of the work. using what he had it would take him 10 more year's to make good on his deal with Rue but is he could just get his hands on... ah well no need to worry about that. " Baika"

She appeared at once in her kitten form her wings were not evident thong he knew she understood him. " go with Rue and help his set this plan in motion.." Baika mew and turned to Rue. " one more thing Baika., Rue "  they both looked at him. " i want a list of the companies you plan to hit before you hit them. after all i may own stock in some of them and well list just say i have a little list of acceptable losses in them as well" the both nodded and were gone. DarkE sight and returned this his work taking only a moment to listen to a report from a shadow demon about yet another emergence  group of powered entities on this world."

Well one thing was certin Croc thought it weird how the people loved him so. Dile Lass was makeing great strides in improveing liveing conditions and economy. The people saw him not as an invader but an acolyte of change good change. Men wanted to be him and weman wanted him to sire their children. Croc felt so out of place he considered leaveing for Boss's building. At least there he felt normal. He walked into a store

He grabbed a nice box of cigars and some instant noodles. As he walked to the reister the man was greeting him in his native tongue but Dile Lass taught him most of the language but he remembered two words above all else, free and hero. Croc thanked the man and left the store.  maybe I can finally give up robbery He smiled to himself. I'm going to like being a hero.

Liz returned home, to a quiet little neighborhood in Michigan. After tipping the cab driver, he walked up to the house he shared with Crystal, greeting his neighbors politely and planning out what to do. He regretted not giving more people his number so he'd know who needed money and when, but hopefully the boss would call him soon and he'd be able to see the others. He reminded himself to call Daemon first, if he got the chance.

He walked up to the door, and knocked. He heard music playing as Crystal opened the door and shot into his arms, hugging him very tightly.

"Hi, Liz!" she greeted him enthusiastically. The male gecko just smiled and hugged her back.

"Hey, Cryssie. How'd you do while I was gone?"

She eased up her grip and looked at him. "Well, I made a pair of penny loafers for you, watched an episode of Scrubs, and basically did whatever I could to distract myself. So, what about these people you're working with and you telling them about me?"

Liz rolled his eyes and walked in with his girlfriend. "Well, they'll be causing random destruction throughout the U.S., and I didn't want them to hurt you in the crossfire. So I told them I'd accept the job as long as they left you out of it. They all understood, from what I could tell, so when I see them again, I'll tell them our address. Okay?" He hoped she wouldn't be upset about this. Telling people you barely know what your girlfriend looks like is bad enough, but to give out your address...

Crystal smiled again. "That's not as bad as I thought! I thought they'd forced you into it, or I'd have to live with them or something! Now c'mon, I taped House for you!"

He sighed in relief and followed her. He hoped to get a call soon, if the others had already started...

Anastasia was never very tidy about packing.
"Alright, bring those cages over there. I advise against rattling them too much," the rabbit gestured from atop a large crate. A huge creature that looked like it may have, at some point long ago, been human shuffled over on its chitinous legs and lifted up aforementioned cages in its large, three fingered lobsterlike claws, "Good boy, Peotr. Now come over here and help mommy down," the creature eagerly clattered over to obey, offering the tip of one enormous claw to hold as Anastasia clambered down. "What a good boy, Peotr." She reached up and scritched at the area between its neck guard and its shoulder, producing a clicking purr (which was testament to the rabbit's skill in and of itself, because that sort of combination of human and crustation mouthparts shouldn't have been able to produce that sort of sound at all). "Now, back to work." The beast shuffled off to continue packing as Anastasia continued looking over what she would bother to bring for this job. The Business Suit, absolutely. Never know when you'll need something like that. Most of the weaponry, the Van, the Sub... Most of the pet projects I can abandon, but I better hang on to the Dragon and the Native. She smirked to herself. If she was correct about the native, she was going to soon be the most hated person in the eyes of organized religion and the most loved by evangelical atheists. And, coincidentially, go down in history as disproving the existence of God, but she was more interested in the social experiment.
But, in the short term, which safe house would she be going to? For the time being, San Francisco looked like a good plan. Better than her current place in Ireland, anyway.
She saw Peotr carrying the device housing the Native over to the boat. "Careful with that! Mommy doesn't know what it is yet..."

Dile Lass was a Great ruler indeed but even she wasn't about to straighten out and fly right. she called up ana. "Come on pick up.... I know it's your number. At least it better be I payed a grand for it!" Dile Lass said quietly to herself.

Croc walked into Dile Lass' office. He kept saying "free" and "Hero" in the local dialect. He then started to eat the instant noodles dry.
"mmmmmmm*crunch* Dif suff if gud!"

DarkE surveyed the reports. Rue and Baika were  doing well but what really caught his eye was some of the associates he's been told to keep and eye on. it seems that Rue's Estimate on their abilities and likely pattern of movement was right thong they had struck a city that was not one his  list of targets. their effectiveness was also to  be considered. yes they could be helpful in his grand scheme later. that is assuming there first project the distraction of America and much of the world lead to the conquest of Europe as planned.

Right, so, my stuff will be moved in by noon, gonna have to put off some of that setting up if I'm gonna be meeting with Stygian... And then, of course, her phone rang. Now, Anastasia was bright enough to have made her phone untrackable. However, she also never gave anyone the number.
"Whoever this is, you have twelve seconds to give me a good reason as to why you know this number before I hit one of these buttons labeled 'consequences' over here..."

Dile Lass stifled a quiet snicker. "Guess who has her own country? Word on the street is you need a nice place to stay. what do ya say to a nice lab in Laos? And hay, if we get bored we can always bomb Hollywood."

Croc swallowed his mouthful of instanoodles. "Who ya talkin to, DL?"


"Hush Croc this could be an important conversation! Ah uh sorry about that. So you interested?"

It's been some time, some time since the meeting, some time since Daemon made his charge for the cape. Unfortunately he never made it. Somewhere through North Carolina he lost control and was sent careening into the underbrush next to the highway. To those who may have witnessed his crash it was presumed he died in on impact when the bike lit up into a hellish fireball of death. The ambulances arrived, he was pronounced dead on the scene although his body had remained intact. It was assumed that the shattered armor surrounding the wreckage saved his body from physical damage, but that the shockwave from the explosion ended him immediately.

And now, Daemon awoke a few weeks later, to the sweet pitch black of the void. Or so it would seem. He was actually in a coffer, in the basement of the morgue his lifeless body was taken to after the crash. He kicked and forced the coffer open and collapsed onto the floor. He looked himself over, everything seemed intact and functioning to much his surprise. There was a conversation going on upstairs, probably between the poor souls who made a living working with the dead brought here. Daemon quietly worked his way up the stairway until he came to the door, he stopped and listened on to the conversation.

"Hmmm, so has anyone called in to claim that yet? You could probably make some good money pawning it, haha!", the voice of an elderly man laughed. Then a younger man's voice responded, "Nah to hell with that, it'd be worth more on e-bay. It's truely remarkable, and you know some eccentric billionaire would be willing to pay a heck of alot more for it then any two-bit pawn shop would. Hell the poor sod was probably one of them. To each his own though eh am I right? Hehehe."

Daemon had heard all he needed to hear, there was no point in delaying it any longer. With that Daemon kicked the door off its hinges and like lightning he bolted out towards the younger fellow, grabbed his head and ripped it clean off from the force of his charge. He then jumped up as he was speeding toward the wall and kicked off it landing on top of the old man's chest, crushing it on impact. Daemon then squated down and took a good look at the poor soul who had mere seconds left and coldly uttered,"Where is it...."

The elderly man coughing up blood lifted his right hand and pointed towards the table behind Daemon. "Thank you." , Daemon grimfully acknowledged, he then snapped the poor man's neck to put him out of his misery. Daemon grabbed his sword from the table and swong it onto his back. He then searched the persons of the immediate deceased for anything of value and to his surprise he found his iphone. Once he found some reasonable clothes to wear he went into a nearby closet and found a kerosene lamp. He spread the oil from the lamp all over the floor and took the lighter from the younger man's person, lit their funeral pyre, and quietly strode to the man's car and drove off. Daemon had only one thing set on his mind at that point. Returning to the scene of his accident. In his mind he wanted to make full assessment of what happened to him before going further.

Anastasia was speechless for a few seconds. This was not necisarily a good thing.
"Dile, pardon me if I miss details, but what does Laos, a country on the same continent of all those things our employer wanted left alone, have to do with your becoming president?" she leaned against a nearby crate, resisting the urge to call Peotr over so that she could slam her head against his armored carapace in frustration, "Points for working fast, I'll give you that, but having that sort of distance between us and the real targets seems inadvisable..."

"I realized that persons of my nature can't win an election. Even if i did the citizens would not be on my side....Laos was a far better option to open up doors to do what i need to do. And the citizens are all too happy to help. The plus side is that you can't be arrested or foiled by heros because I control this place so I get to make the rules. Unlike the U.S. and it's pesky constitution."

"Sir?" Roulette opened the door to the very same room they'd met in not too long before, though now it seemed so different than the last time she'd been there.
The lights weren't dimmed, it'd been cleaned since, and the area at the back of the room wasn't cut off in shadows, hiding the "boss".

It wasn't surprising at all that the boss hid his appearance from the people he was hiring- he wasn't really the type to inspire fear, or even respect- he tended to be laughed out of things such as what he'd orchestrated. He couldn't have been more than 3 feet tall, with a slight, almost wraith-like build, and a narrow, sharply-featured face with almond-shaped eyes that would have been quite large if he hadn't had them narrowed most of the time. Brown hair was rather sadly in an attempt to look good and presetable, with a pair of pointed ears, tufted with the same shade of hair as on his head. A dark grey suit- obviously tailored to fit his exact needs, and accomadating for the long tail curling around his legs- graced the small bdy as he glanced up from his book.

"Ah, Roulette, I'm glad you were able to come up."

"You don't give me much choice, sir."

"So you continually remind me. Now, things are going well, I trust?"

"I don't know."

"I specifically asked you to check in with our participants, Roulette." His tone grew dangerous, as those narrow, muddy eyes were turned on her finally.

"And never gave me the contacts?"

"Well, if you needed them, you should have asked that, shouldn't you? I thought it might be something you... things could do."

"No, sir." She barely hid the contempt sneaking in her voice.

"Either way. Croc and his bubbly consort contacted me not so long ago... They've seized Laos, congratulate them on that, and are proposing an alliance. I beleive that yes, as he said, we could be quite a powerful allaince, but he could pose a threat in the long run."

"Yes, sir. Why are you telling me this, sir?"

"Because you're the one working with them! Change of plan, I think. I'd like you to pay a visit to our dear friends in Laos, and make sure they're not up to anything that could be potentially dangerous."

"Yes sir." Roulette nodded, and left the room, knowing that he'd have all of the arrangements set up for her to leave within the hour, and set to packing what little belongings she had.

Liz was bored.

He hadn't had much to do these past few weeks, save for screwing up the stock market and bribing a few crime lords. He had decided to avoid any vulgar displays of power, considering what the others had said about him needing to stay alive and not arrested. Not that getting out of prison would be that hard, it'd just be a hassle.

It was midnight, and out of pure laziness, he was watching the news, chewing on a tiny gold toothpick and hoping for opportunity to strike. There was a little filler episode on a power shift in Laos, but Liz was half falling asleep out of boredom.

He barely paid attention, until he saw Croc.

Crystal burst into the living room when she heard Liz swearing and exclaiming at the top of his lungs. "Liz, honey, what is it, what happened?!"

He barely heard her. "Three weeks - not EVEN - since we met and he's already ruling a COUNTRY?!?!? WHAT THE HELL!!" Liz stormed into the mudroom and grabbed his blazer and a pair of shades, glowering. "I need to go break something." If all else failed, mindless destruction helped him feel better.

"Liz, no! They said to be careful!"
"It's dark. No-one'll notice me. And I'm not gonna do anything really big - something small, but noticeable." Seeing Crystal's frantic face, he calmed down a little. "It's okay. No-one's gonna catch me; I guarantee it. Everyone's asleep." He stroked her hair. "I'll be back in an hour and a half." With that, he kissed her on the cheek and left.
-----
An hour later, Crystal was watching the front door carefully, worrying about a cop car showing up, but then she heard someone knock at the back door. She ran over and opened it to find Liz, looking a little rushed, but satisfied. They hugged tightly, then she let him in.

"What did you do?"

Liz smiled. "Shot metal darts into two traffic lights. One in Detroit, one in Ann Arbor. I used aluminum, since traffic lights use a lot of that already." He walked into the kitchen and sat down, hanging his coat up on the back of a chair. "And the darts I used are tiny, so it'd take a genius to figure out it was done on purpose."

Crystal poured two cups of coffee she'd made while waiting, handing one to Liz. "But what do we do if someone does start asking? I don't want you to get arrested, Liz!"

"I'll be fine. I've already paid off the local police, and if I do get arrested, I'll just break out of prison." He smiled wider. "No regrets here, though. I feel better."

It was just when Croc was finishing talking that there was a slight crackle, and then a short, extremely high-frequency tone in the phone for just a second or two. Then, suddenly, came another voice. Sebastian's.
   'You haven't helped us ruin that constitution yet, so thus far I don't think you've assisted our cause much,' he said, his tone slightly droll. Before either of them could get a word in, he quickly changed the subject. 'Sorry for butting in like this, Anastasia, but you haven't called. And I could use a bit of help right now, as a matter of fact.'

Anastasia smirked impercievably. Resourceful little fellow, aren't we?
"Sorry about that Sebastion, so much to do. You know how these things can be. As for your offer Dile, he has a point. Better to stay near the target where we can throw aforementioned laws into disarray. Now then, Stygian, what's this about needing help?"

"O.K. but when I'm have the fun of invadeing the U.S. all alone we'll see who makes the bigger state of panic. good bye anastasia, i look forward to the point when we might actually work together." Dile Lass said with censarity<sp? and hung up the phone.

Crocs room was a bachlors heaven. it came with everything a personal bar, bar games (such as pool, air hocky and darts), big screen TV video games (though it costs extra to buy and have them shipped from english speaking countries), and sat TV. Croc was curious as to what was still makeing the news in america so he flipped to Fox.

"YO DL?! Didn't I tell you the reportes wern't to even enter the country?!?"

Dile Lass enterd the room. "Yes but it is in our best interest to make our presance known. What better way to intill the fear into the world than a quick take over of a country and rapid expansion?"

".....Smaller words please."

"We are quickly takeing over much of Asia and when we have enough power we'll turn on the us."

"Thank you very much. I think i see where you're going now.

It took about twenty minutes for Daemon to find his crash site. He knew he wasn't far from Charlotte on I-77 before it happened, somewhere around Bells Crossroads. He drove up to the side of the road where the shoulder seemed scorched from the fire, he knew this was it. There were still pieces of the bike scattered about, most of it though seemed to have been cleaned up. Daemon got out of the car and lent against it in deep thought.

"This doesn't make any sense." , thought Daemon as he went through images in his mind. He can remember himself driving up to a few ways up, then the memory just blurs and fades. He couldn't think of anything that he might have done to himself to set this up, he knew he was fine. Was someone on to him? On to us? A pre-emptive strike? Could they have gone after the others as well? These thoughts circulated through his mind, it was not impossible. Just then though Daemon heard voices coming from the underbrush further from the highway that wasn't scorched. From what he could make it sounded like there were two boys, not much older then twelve. Daemon quietly walked up until he got behind them, apparently they found his armor and were trying to take off with it. Unfortunately for them they could barely move the heavy armor.

"What are you two doing out here.....its dangerous here one of you could get hurt." , Daemon spoke up, startling them both onto the ground. They struggled to back away from Daemon trying to make distance. One of them then shouted, "Get away, we dun nuttin wrong! We found this he're loot fair and square!"

Daemon began to laugh, he then bent down and picked up the left gauntlet and put it on. "Even together both of you aren't strong enough to carry this. You should head home now while you still can. Trust me.",  Daemon said as his expression became that much darker. Taking his advice the two kids ran off into the woods scared out of their wits. With that Daemon loaded up the rest of his armor into the car. Once that was done he contemplated on his next move. His original plan couldn't be done anymore due to the time he lost from this whole "incident". He then figured he should probably get in contact with Liz so they could finally make their transaction. If he couldn't hitch a ride he was going to have to just buy his own. Then it dawned on him, he never got Liz's number. A stupid error on Daemon's part, though it could be circumvented. Using his iphone Daemon did a Google search on Liz's girlfriend Crystal and found her home address number.

"Mabye she can tell me where I can find him, I doubt she'll co-operate with someone she never met on a completely random phone call....",  Daemon sighed as he dialed the number on the roadside.

Roulette sat on the table in that same room they'd met in, humming to herself as she waited for Croc or DL to pick up the phone.
If she was going to be taking the time to go and pay them a visit, might as well at least let them know first- though this was the Boss' idea, not hers. She would have been fine with showing up one day at their doorstep and ask to be shown to a room, but...
Croc was big. Not a good idea.
Granted, if push came to shove, him taking advantage of his brute force could have led to quite a lot of burning, and no-one wanted that.

The man still on the other end of the line coughed.
   'Well, see, I've just killed senator Goldstein, and I need an alibi for a bit,' he said, calmly. 'I don't want to intrude, but could we meet back at your place in... say... fifteen minutes?'

Anastasia groaned. "Of course. First our big political plan goes to hell while I'm setting up, and now you need a hiding place when I'm barely moved into my new safehouse," she gestured Peotr away from what he was setting up and muttered something to him about getting the security systems ready, "You need directions, or did my current address come with the number?"

Sebastian's voice grew still for a moment.
   'I said that I don't want to intrude. I'm sorry. I just thought that, what with you seemingly being the most sensible of all those people, I should talk to you first. It won't be long,' he said, hurtfully. 'And you can throw me out as soon as you like. But, for your own good, hold on the security. I don't want to cause unnecessary expenses.'
   The line clicked, and went dead.

Anastasia turned the phone off and rolled her eyes. Prideful little fellow. However, one thing he said does ring true...
"Peotr, don't leave the security systems on too high a setting. Just the grapplers and stunners. Stopping whatever follows him here won't be nearly so satisfying if we waste an ally. Oh," she smirked to herself. Someone who took offense that quickly would be slow to let said offense go, "Also, set up the dining room for guests, and escort dear Sebastion there when he arrives. I get the distinct impression that an ego like that is going to require mollifying before anything else happens." The creature lumbered off to do as asked, leaving Anastasia alone with her machines and her musings."

"Roulette what a pleasant surprise. What interest do you have in our cozy little corner of the world?" Dile Lass was always the one to deal with politics, Croc was just there to provide moral guidence, support muscle, and tactics.

"As a reply to your request of an alliance with The Boss, he's requested that I be flown out to hang with you guys for a bit- Aren't you exited, huh?" She giggled, her raspy voice reaching a point people must wonder how anywone ever listens to her.
"he's got the big flying plane-thing all set up an everything! So make sure you'd got a room ready for me when i do show! Bye-bye!" She hung up without giving them a chance to respond, before running off to pack her bags.

The morning after Liz's temper tantrum, the phone next to his bed rang. He groaned and rolled over to check the time. 8:45 AM. Obviously, whoever was calling didn't know Liz or Crystal very well. Her friends always waited till after 9:30 to call, and Liz's friends waited till noon. That way, they'd be sure to catch them awake.

But the number didn't look familiar anyway. It was probably a business call, but Crystal's business calls all went to her shop. Liz decided it was probably for him, whether it was safe or not. So he picked up the phone after its third ring.

"Liz speaking," he mumbled. God, I hate being woken up.

"Dae whan!" Dile Lass called her house keeper. "I have a friend comeing over. Make sure you have a nice room ready, then when she gets here show her to it. After that contact me so I can properly greet out guest please."

"Yes mad'm President." Dae walked off to prepare for roulette's arriveal. Dile Lass just hoped he was ready for her appearnce.

"Hello Liz, this is Daemon. Sorry for calling you on this number, but I need our transaction finalized and for some reason your other number wasn't getting through.", Daemon said as he looked up into the morning sky. He could hear sirens off in the distance through the morning air. Daemon didn't think much of it, he then said, "If you can specify a good time and location I'll be out of your hair. You sound like you just woke up."  

"Yeah, I did," Liz sighed, propping himself up on his elbows. "Where are you, exactly? Just so I have an idea of a convenient place." He could smell coffee brewing in the kitchen, so he was waking up a little more.

"North Carolina I believe, a little ways north of Charlotte." ,  Daemon replied. A thick fog was beginning to roll over the highway; the sirens faded. Looking up once more at the sky it appeared that it was going to rain, he could see dark clouds gathering overhead. It struck as kind of odd that the weather would change so quickly, and that there was absolutely nobody out here. He already scared the boys off, but he figured he would have atleast seen a car go by since then. It just seemed so desolate out here.

Liz let out a surprised laugh. He wasn't amused, just dumbfounded at the distance between them. "I'm in Michigan, Daemon. We're at least nine hours apart by car." He got his iphone off the nightstand and fiddled around on Mapquest for a minute. "Hang on... let me try and find a good halfway point so neither of us has to waste a whole day hitching rides." There was a pause as Liz scrolled around, looking at city names. "Hmm. Parkersburg, West Virginia. It'd take us each about five hours to drive there. Any ideas on a faster way?"

"Hmmm, yea I got one. I could fly up there. I can buy a private jet, and since I'll have the money later, it should be alright. An ordeal like that should only take three to four hours or so. As for getting a pilot license I can come up with something quick for this to work.",  Daemon suggested, "This way you can finish waking up and set up a more suitable meeting point since I'm sure you'd be more comfortable working in a familiar area."

Daemon's phone then started beeping, he looked down at it. The battery power was low. "The charger was probably destroyed during the motorcycle crash.....god damn it.", Daemon grimly thought.

"I'll give you a call when I arrive. I have to go now, later." He hanged up. Daemon then looked over himself, this wasn't the appearance of someone who would buy anything as extravagant like a jet. "Heh, alright.....this is gonna be a challenge. I suppose I'll head down to Charlotte, go to a Men's warehouse, then the airfield and get out of here." , Daemon concluded as he got into the car. The weather seemed to disagree though, he could hear rumbling in the distance, and the fog still hadn't lifted. It didn't matter though, nothing was gonna stop him. The engine revved to life and he drove off.

Liz hung up a second after Daemon did, finally getting the incentive to get up. After throwing on a pair of jeans and a short-sleeve black button-down shirt, he went into the kitchen and greeted Crystal.

"Whoa. You're up before eleven?" she smiled, kissing Liz on the cheek as she set out some plates. "Who was that on the phone?"

He wilted a little, not wanting to tell her. "Let's save it for after breakfast. Is that pancake mix on the counter?" he added eagerly. Business has no place in the morning. Tell her later.

Roulette had barely gotten off the phone before jumping straight on the plane "the boss" had prepared, and was on her way to Laos.
Upon arriving, she wandered through the streets, a small pount on her face.
Everyone seemed so terrified of her, it was truly a pity... She loved people so much, but they all seemed so afraid of her. if it would have made things easier, she could have worn a cloak or soemthing to cover herself, but... Having fabric combut when it touches the parts you want covered... doesn't add up well.
Eventually finding the building the Boss had pointed out for her, she walked up, set her best smile on her face, and knocked on the door.

Rue was called int to his bosses office. the stack of paper on DarkE's desk never really seemed to change. as the boss turned to face him Rue wondered what was going on. so far 3 corporations had been shut down due to repeated  sabotage. that and allowed the boss to take control of their niches.  but this was something Else.

Rue said the boss putting down a report. have you been keeping tabs on what the others are doing?

yes. i have.

then you know it's time to step up to the next part of the plan. i'm requisition a meeting with a representative  of  the origination of this being held in a city called Lockport in a sate called Pennsylvania. i assume you know what i'm requesting this meeting?



Rue nodded. "yes sir"

very well be on you way and be warned the Government   is becoming  suspicious of the actions of ones Randolph Ulysses Elliot so i recommend you act with caution.

Rue nodded and  made a note to shift the power in his main group to a background member while Randolph took a leave of absence. "i'll leave this afternoon to set everything up sir." the boss nodded and waved him off returned to his seeming endless about of pater work. as Rue turned to lead  he was called again.

" take a few shadows with you. and let Neko chan look after the  corporate sabotage for now."

"but sir." Rue said feeling that he was being pushed aside

you can't do everything and do it well rue. that's one lesson you still have to learn. now get going and focus on your task at hand.

with that rue left and  DarkE sighed. some times he had to step in or else Rue would lose focus. a good sense of administration yes but with little to no sense of delegation he tried to directly handle too much and that's when he began to make mistakes such as loosing track of when it was time to move to the next step of the plan. with any luck he would have a meeting in one weeks time and Rue could further their involvement in the downfall of Europe but deprive it one one of their more powerful allies. and should that allies fall into his hands while there were doing such more the better. now if only there was a way to sabotage that computer hack but his contract with him prevent him for sending any one to directly sabotage his company. ah well all in due time

Dae Whan answered the door. "On behalf of the ma'dam president welcome! I will show you to your room." He seemed genuinely upbeat and happy. one would wonder why but if they looked at Laos' involvement in world affairs and the way their new regime was running things it became obvious.

Later that day, Liz walked into Crystal's workroom. He had to tell her. Granted, the setting was an odd one, since Crystal was using welding tools to make a pair of metal-lined boots, but he still had to tell her. He cleared his throat and flickered the light switch to get her attention.

"Hey Liz. Something wrong?" Crystal asked, turning off the torch and removing her mask. She set the torch aside and gazed evenly at her boyfriend.

"Well, Cryssie, one of my coworkers is coming to Michigan for a transaction. He needs money to do what he's going to do. I have to go meet him and tell him our address. I just wanted to be sure this was all okay with you." God, this was awkward. Why did she put up with him, Liz wondered.

She responded by walking up to him and staring into his blue eyes. "Liz. If telling him our address will keep us safe, I'm happy to tell him that. I trust you, you know. You'll keep us both safe. Even if your work means destruction, as long as we're safe, I'll be happy." She smirked apologetically. "Does that make me evil?"

Liz smiled gratefully and kissed her. "Hardly." Even if she was a little insane at times, she was the greatest thing he could've asked for.

"I'd better wait for him to call again so we can figure out where we'll meet." He hoped his eyes said everything else he wanted to say, then turned and went back upstairs.

The fog had drawn thicker, it was up to the point that it was blocking the meager sunlight that every once in awhile broke through the cloud cover and that even though it was eleven a.m. it still seemed like night. It didn't even seem like the car was moving anymore. Just as Daemon noticed that his vision began to blur, he immediately stopped the car and gripped his skull, trying to maintain consciousness. He could feel that he wasn't alone anymore.

"Not bad, you didn't black out this time....I have to admit I didn't think much of you a few weeks ago, but you've proven far more resiliant then your file gives you credit for. You should feel proud." Daemon's vision then came into focus and he looked to the passenger seat next to him, it was one of the boys from earlier, he looked behind him and he saw the other one sitting in the back seat smiling at him with a sadistic grin. "What the...How the hell...I thought they ran off...this isn't right..",  thought Daemon. He was shocked, confused, and angered all at once.

"I did run off, but only to confirm with that you were still alive. In light of this I am obligated to offer you an opportunity to forsake whatever prior allegiences you have, and give yourself over to us. I'm not going to offer this again, if you refuse I will have to destroy you.", said the boy in the seat next to Daemon, his mouth didn't even move as he spoke, it seemed as though his voice was coming from inside Daemon's head. "And yeah I can read your mind, so don't fool yourself into thinking there is another way out of this."

Daemon didn't know what to think, he then said, "Alright....have it your way. Give me a second though I need to get my gear. Then we'll go." As Daemon said that he cleared his mind, only permeating thoughts of aligning with these....boys. He got up and out of the car and popped the trunk. He looked down, equiped both of his gauntlets, and swong his zweihander onto his back. He looked down to his side and he saw the other boy staring up at him, still ever smiling. They were seeing right through his charade. "That's enough. You made your decision."

The other boy darted out of the car and jumped up, the kid next to Daemon jumped up to meet him and tossed the boy straight at Daemon. In a split second Daemon unsheathed his blade and deflected the boy with the broadside of his sword, he then springed up towards the other boy and drove his blade through the kid's neck, Daemon landed a few feet away and turned to look upon the kid. He was laughing, but more then that he didn't even have a scratch on him. "Foolish..."  Daemon then felt a sharp pain in his right leg, he looked down behind him; it was the other kid. He had drove a dagger through it. Daemon blinked, and instantly the two appeared on top of the car next to each other, one of them holding the dagger. Their sadistic grin gone, both of them staring coldly at their wounded prey. "Just accept it. It'll make things easier."

Daemon's hands ignited in dark flame, he was furious, yet he was trying desperately to maintain his focus. Something just didn't seem right about these two. He then noticed that the dagger the boy was holding had no blood on it, just as he realized this though the dagger became drawn with blood and was dripping. There was a faint line of red in the air seemingly correcting this minor detail, and it stretched directly up from the dagger into the sky. "A projection?", Daemon thought, just as quickly though he heard a screaming from within his mind, "The end has come!!"

The two were darting straight for him at breakneck speed. Daemon jumped up and threw his sword up into the air, he was then blasted by the shockwave of an explosion from above and landed on the road. He could see a burning wreckage slowly descending upon him, and with no time to spare he quickly rolled out of the way. He then got up, the boys were gone, and the veil around the area was dissipating. The wreckage was that of a helicopter, the make of a CH-53 (http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/ch-53e/), there were no markings on it though. Daemon walked up and spotted his zweihander. He reached down to grip the hilt, then the voice once again echoed in his mind, it was faint, but the hostility was gone. "Th...thank you....it was good....to see you again....for now though take thissss....as a parting...gift........next....ti..time....I...I...won't.....be holding back..."

The fire within the broken chopper vanished, Daemon's vision blurred again. He stumbled backward onto the ground, and looked up. To his amazement the chopper was restored. "Alright.....next time I won't either....whoever you are.", Daemon quietly kidded himself, but in actuality it was by a stroke of luck that he came out of this incident alive.

Daemon loaded the chopper with everything and took off for Michigan. For the next few hours Daemon kept trying to figure out what just happened, and he was also trying to figure out why he knew how to fly a helicopter. Daemon could see a huge lake out in the distance, he knew he was closing in. With that he pulled out his phone and called Liz's number again. He was gonna have to make this quick, the battery on his phone was nearly dead.

As Dae Whan brought roulette to her room Croc wandered over. He had a beer in his hand and a remote in the other, looking like a typical american. "Long time no see. Da boss have a problem with us ot somthin?"

"Hiya!" She giggled, waving.
"No, the boss doesn't have any problems with you. You meantioned being a powerful alliance, and he sent me to check it out!" She put her hands up behind her head, grinning to show a row of very sharp teeth. "Nice deal you've got goin' on here. Tryin' for Asia?" She asked conversationally, looking around with wide eyes.
"You guys sure work fast!"

"Yeah it helps to know what the people want....Appearntly dictatiors get groupies around here. Asia would be nice. I think I'll take a home in Japan if we can take it when this is all over. Learnin' another language will suck though." Croc took a relaxed position. "DL would be the one to talk to about intle... inel...smart stuff."

Liz was upstairs, calmly waiting by the phone. It rang after about six minutes. The caller ID had Daemon's phone number on it. He picked up.

"Hello?" he said, hearing some sort of noise in the background, like wind whooshing or a plane going by. Guess he got his "faster way" after all.

"Intellectual?" She offered up for him, giggling again. He was funny.
"Ooh, I've always wanted to go to Japan! Granted, I can't really go much of anywhere, but..." She laughed again.
"That's not the point. The Boss said that your offer for an alliance was a very tempting one And sent me to check it out, see how you've been doing." She walking to him, and would have been nudging him with her elbow if it weren't for the overheated spike coming out of it.
"So, so! Any nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction, Anything fun, huh?"

"Hey Liz, gonna have to make this quick I'm running out of power on my phone. I've reached Michigan airspace, but I need a location on the ground to land, any ideas?", shouted Daemon over the constant noise of the rotor blades. "When I land I got to tell you something impor......"

The phone died.....

"Oh god damn it!!!", Daemon growled as he threw the phone onto the floor, before it hit though a mini parachute deployed out of the iphone slowing it down before impact. He then sighed, "......stupid phone......hey wait a minute....oh...of course this helicopter should have some sort of GPS locator or something!!"

Daemon looked over the control console, at the moment there were no waypaths or missions preprogrammed into it. He realized if he entered in the co-ordinates of Liz' residence it would show the path on the console. After he entered in the address the console lit up and began cycling through a digital map-out of the earth. It then slowed down to a stop over the supposed location in Michigan, showing distance and direction needed to reach the target. Daemon was surprised, he was closer then he realized. He followed the guidance system down from the stratosphere until he could see the house on the ground.

"Hmmm....the backyard is probably the best spot to land, its flat enough and no telephone or power lines seem to be arcing through it. He's probably gonna be pissed...heh...", thought Daemon as he lowered the landing gear. Once he landed he powered down the chopper, lowered the back door, and walked out towards the house. He then leaned casually on the fuselage of the chopper and waited for someone to come out.

Croc smiled one of those smiles you get when you think of something so utterly destructive it fills you with joy. These smiles made him famous. "You'd be surprised how hard these guys work for such low pay! We're catching up to many of the leading nations and noone knows a damn thing! DL wants to piss off the US to keep everyone in the dark about what ever methods of continental domination you guys would like."

Dile Lass came from around a corner. "Roulette! so glad you made it here in one piece! So..." Dile Lass seemed like she was waiting for approveal. "How do you like what we uh... did with the place?"

"DL! Nice to see you!" She bounded forward to the younger girl, and would have smothered her in a hug- well, almost did, but stopped short.
"Ack, burny. Bad idea." She stopped herself, and rocked back onto her heels.
"It's great! The people here seem so happy, it's almost bizarre!"

Liz listened carefully to Daemon until the connection broke.

"Daemon?....Daemon?" His eyes widened a little, but he hung up. What had all that noise been? Daemon had probably stolen a plane, or a chopper, but Liz's driveway wasn't nearly long enough for a runway, and even though his neighbors didn't live very close by, someone was bound to notice. Also, the helicopter landing pad was still waiting on approval from the FAA. Maybe I should wait around and see if the news reports any-

At that moment, a blast of noise outside interrupted Liz's thoughts. Whirring rotor blades, coming from Liz's backyard. He looked out the window, then slapped himself in the face once to make sure he wasn't going crazy.

Nope. He was sane. Daemon had stolen a chopper and landed in his backyard.

Liz stormed out the back door, across the deck and toward the relaxed-looking Daemon. "WHAT THE %&$#, YOU IDIOT! ARE YOU REALLY THIS STUPID?! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!"

Crystal ran out after Liz. "LIZ! What was that - OHMYGOD!!" She stopped at the steps of the deck when she saw the helicopter. "I thought you said the landing pad wasn't approved yet!"

He turned back for a minute, his eyes still blazing, but his voice calmed down about a quarter of the way. "No, Crystal, the chopper we ordered is blue. And this - " he gestured to the scary-looking armored fellow - " - is Daemon, the guy I mentioned earlier." He turned his head back towards Daemon, an odd look in his eyes. "And if the police show up, then he will have to have copious amounts of bronze removed from his eye sockets."

Daemon stared at Liz flipping out for a few seconds quietly laughing to himself, when he calmed down Daemon walked up and began explaining himself. "I know what your thinking. How the hell did this guy steal a helicopter, and manage to fly through five different states without a military scouter threatening to shoot him down if he didn't land immediately. To be quite honest I really have no explanation for that, they should have noticed something the minute I left the ground out back near Charlotte. BUT I can assure you that I wasn't followed here, and I didn't steal the chopper."

Liz looked very distressed, Daemon sighed and then said, "Mabye we should sit down for a bit, there are some things I think you need to know which may explain some of what's going on. Don't worry I won't let anything happen to you guys, if anything happens just say you were being held hostage and I'll get out of here as quick as possible. I'm fairly sure I haven't been followed here though and since it's the middle of the day I don't think any 9-5ers out here saw my landing."

"It helps to know what the people want. If you want loyalty throwing a dog a bone once and a while will have a better effect than beating it. A folly most dictateors like to make." Dile Lass smiled pleasntly and tilted her head slightly. "When this evil plan is said and done feel free to visit any time, oh prestigious diplomat of the mighty west."

Liz stared angrily at Daemon for a moment, nostrils flaring and eyes burning. How could he have NOT stolen the chopper? It obviously wasn't so easy to purchase one, or else the gecko wouldn't have had to go through so much paperwork just to get a pilot's license. Daemon's solution for the fuzz arriving was pretty close to what Liz himself had had in mind, and he was right about all their neighbors having day jobs. 

Daemon seemed to be telling the truth about needing to tell him something, though. After another minute of getting over his seething, Liz sighed and turned toward the deck.

"...All right. Come on in, we've got fresh coffee if you want it."

Daemon left his gear by the deck and walked on in with Liz. He then helped himself to a cup of coffee and sat down at the table. He then began, "Some of this may seem a bit strange, I really can't explain most it. I do know that after that meeting we were at a few weeks ago I headed for Florida. I was passing through North Carolina........something happened......it seemed like I blacked out as I was heading down the highway and crashed into the side of the road going up in flames. The next thing I know I'm lying naked in a coffer in the basement of a morgue, and to my surprise it had been a few weeks since that incident."

Daemon took a sip of his coffee, he seemed to be looking past Liz into the beyond. He then continued, "Well naturally I broke out of the morgue and went back to the scene of the crash. That's when I called you around 8:45. I gathered all of my gear scattered about the wreckage and headed out to Charlotte as per my original idea. As I was driving though.......I was attacked....two boys, or atleast that's what it looked like. They revealed themselves to be the ones who originally caused my crash, and demanded that I go with them or that they would destroy me. The rest.......well the rest was what really got to me. They were some kind of projection, or like an artificial visage. I found the source, and destroyed it. Then the will behind them revealed himself, he made material the helicopter you see outside. I can't explain why, but it seemed like he knew me. That pretty much sums it up to right where we are now."

Daemon got up and walked toward the window and stared at the chopper in the yard, letting Liz take in what he just said. "I guess it's safe to assume the reason no one detected my approach here is because.......errr....",  Daemon said, he then went into a pause. The helicopter outside was disintegrating into the wind, within seconds it was gone. "Ummm.....wow.......it just vanished...."

"You really can't say thigs like that to me." Roulette giggled once more. "I'm hell to get rid of. I mean the Boss has had me around for at least 20, 30 years, so..." She shook her head. "Just hope you don't get stuck with me that long."

"Nonsense! You're not that bad. Belive me the last fan boy who wanted to be all "Gangsta Gee! N' rollin' wif da Croc daddy yo!' didn't leave without a good reason."

Croc smiled and laughed. "He was funny for a while then i got tired of him. You don't want me to get tired of you unless you're worth the time to have a good fight with."

"Yes, good times, good times. That bugger was a bit grabby though." Dile Lass said slightly adjitated.

"Bah. You're lucky I know well enough not to hug any of you, then you'd want me gone fast enough." She shrugged, and motioned to the spikes on her body with one hand.
"I don't think I'm a very good fighter, no.... Well, I don't actually know. I tend to black out after a bit... Then I come to and everything's on fire." She put a finger up to her lip, and looked off to the side.
"Oh, well."

"Come we have much to speak about!" Dile Lass gestured for Roulette to follow her into a rather opulent confrence room.

Croc sipped at his beer.


meanwhile near the boarder a man stood talking to a table of his peers.
"My friends, my family and all that could be here tonight; I thank you. We have to deal with this menace these new 'leaders' are nothing more than TYRANTS! We have to stop them no matter the cost. Our blinded brothers see nothing but prosparity but at what price? What freedoms will they take away? Will we be percecuted? We need to FIGHT!"

"But Lee they haven't taken anything away,yet. and were doing better than when commedore Hiro was in office." Said an older man

"Ryu, You want to sit around and wait for them to take our freedom away?"

"No." Ryu trailed off.

"We must gather more to the cause. WHO IS WITH ME?!"

Cheers all through the building could be heard.

"No."

Roulette followed DL into the conference room, and sat in one of the many chairs around the room.
"So, what did you want to talk about, hon?"

Liz sat at the table inside and listened to Daemon's tale. He looked like he was being honest; Liz was pretty good at telling when someone was lying. His story was pretty incredible, if he'd really been attacked. And how the man who had given him the chopper had known him was even more interesting to Liz, but he knew Daemon didn't know how this was so.

When he suddenly said the helicopter had vanished, Liz blinked. "What?" He stood up and walked to the window where Daemon was. He was right. The helicopter was gone. "But....how did.... what?" There were really no words for a situation like this one.

Crystal walked in at that moment. She held up her cellphone. "I got it on tape. It disintegrated. Do you think it'll come back? I wanna see that again."

"Well you did say that the 'Boss' wanted you to figure out wether or not this would be a good partnership."

Croc walked in rather quietly for a big man just insight of Dile Lass but out of sight of Roulette. It could be assumed he wanted to make sure Dile Lass didn't do anything to burn bridges or hurt their chances of doing what they had so do to take over asia.

Dile Lass spoke up again. "Is there anything you would like to know about our polocies or the country you might not pick up if you go looking around your self?"


meanwhile at a gun shop
Alarms are blareing and a bunch of people left the owner and a few patrons dead. One of them was shouting. "Come on! Quickly, before the cops get here!"
"Lee this is madness! We need to find ANOTHER way to get them out of power!"
"NO! THERE IS NO OTHER WAY!"

"Oh, I'd much rather pick thngs up from how they're running now.... Maybe you could give me around the city?" Roulette asked. "If I've got any questions then, answer them." She nodded, and got up out of her chair, almost as quickly as she sat down.

Dile Lass led Roulette out the door and they steped right onto mainstreet. "The square is thisway. Since We came intopower We've started makeing this alot like home. Sorry, America." Dile Lass sighed. "I miss those muddy Mississippi bayous. Anyway... we have some god shopping here want to...."

WEEEOHHHHWEEEOHHWEEOHHH. A squad of cop cars poured out of the station parking lot and headed right for the gun shop. Croc jumped out of his window and headed to the gun shop with them.

Daemon just stared for a few seconds, kind of awe struck, yet at the same time he couldn't help but wonder why. "So it was like those two.......were........", Daemon commented. The pain within his leg where one of the boys from before stabbed him returned, only this time it was far more intense. Daemon stumbled backward onto a chair and gripped his leg, clenching his teeth. There still was no wound or even a scar. This sudden shock of pain and realization led to an epiphany.

"No mam....errg....I don't think it'll come back. It was all in my head.....the pain...everything. That is how he operates.", said Daemon, getting on his feet. "He gave it as a gift. When I brought forth doubt, it couldn't sustain itself anymore through me."

Daemon regained his composure then looked back at Liz, he then asked, "Perhaps we should find a place to finish our transaction sooner rather then later. I don't think it will be getting any easier to do this kind of thing, with people like him around. So, are you prepared? Or should we head out somewhere to do this. It might be prudent to have an armored truck come over for this."

Roulette's ear's twitched as the siren's started. Cursed large ears and loud noises. She flinched, but looked after them curiously.
"Wanna go see what that's about?" She asked, before noticing croc running after them.
"Okay, yeah, I really want to see what that's about now."

"Right. Croc shows up at the most dangerous crimes. We find if he dosn't scare them s***less the he can atleast subdue them. He kindof feels responseable for keeping the capital safe." DileLass said as they ran to the gunshop. Three men were shooting it out with the police. The men had already killed about seven cops when their leader ran.


"RUN LEE, RUN!" An older man shouted before being shot in the sholder.

When Croc showed up it was all over. He busted open the back door and tore into the other two. Lee had already made an escape.
After the Two men were in custody The police drove off. In the confusion an ambulance got there and two paramedics were looking after Croc as he sat in the back doorway of the ambulance.

"What happened" Dile Lass asked to noone in general.

"He was shot in the gut and legs." a paramedic said.

When Daemon stumbled, Liz and Crystal instinctively ran to help him, but he recovered pretty quickly. Crystal looked awfully disappointed when he said the copter wouldn't come back.

"So the guy you met... hypnotized you?" It sounded far-fetched to Liz, but not altogether impossible. He disregarded the thought when Daemon mentioned their transaction.

"We can do that here. There's a room in the basement with tough walls just in case I need to do this kind of thing. And don't worry, I won't be shooting it everywhere. I can control the pressure at which I release any metal or diamond. You might need a briefcase or suitcase of some kind, but if you don't have one, you can borrow one of mine." He turned to Crystal. "Stay up here, and let me know if anyone shows up asking for me, okay?"

"Sure." Crystal walked over to the door and pulled up a chair, while Liz led Daemon to the basement, turned on the lights, and headed downstairs.

Daemon was relieved when Liz mentioned that a briefcase would be sufficient enough for this. After his run in down in North Carolina Daemon was leery of leaving notable signs that would allow him to be tracked. He followed Liz down to the basement, and made note of the mini bar and living room. "Heh, this seems pretty nice. He's not overly lavish with the decor inspite his nigh unlimited capital."

Liz then led Daemon into another room beyond. It had the make of a small workshop, and was unfurnished. The walls seemed to be made of steel and Daemon could see some marks and shears within them. "Well I got to say this is a nice place you got, and no I'm afraid I don't got any kind of suitcase to load up, sorry about that. I pretty much brought only myself, and...well you know, hehe.", Daemon joked, hiding his anxiety about what happen.

"That's fine," Liz reassured Daemon as he walked into the middle of the room. He turned to face Daemon again. "Now, the government doesn't know I have this power, as you may have guessed, but I still have to be careful. If I screwed up and made too much gold or anything at one time, the stock market would crash and I'd suddenly be useless. So however much money you want is going to have to be made in several different kinds of precious stones and metals. Any preferences?"

"Mostly jewels would be good, diamonds, cubic zirconiums, rubies, the works. I can sell them evenly among the market so it won't cause too much of a problem, and I can reference them to the diamond mining operations in Africa if needed. A gold bar or two wouldn't hurt either though hehe.", Daemon replied. "I don't really intend to sell it all at once though, just enough to finally get things started."

Liz nodded. "That's perfect. This way, if all goes well, neither of us will be caught. This'll only take a few minutes..."

With that, he kneeled on the floor, stretching his forearms out in front of him. He thought very hard about any kind of gemstone that came to him. Within seconds, several different kinds of gems were coming out of his hands, wrists and fingertips - small rubies, little stones of cubic zirconium, emeralds, diamonds, amethysts, whatever came to mind. The place on the floor where the gemstones fell was just a little curved from use, which was pretty convenient. The sizes of the gems ranged from jelly bean to golf ball, and the pool on the floor grew until it was about fourteen inches in diameter.

When this was done, three gold bars slid out of his hands. Liz stood up and smiled. "I'd say that rounds up to about 1.5 billion dollars. Think that'll be enough for now?"

Daemon looked on as the shallowing in the floor filled up. The display akin to a poor man's pipe dream, truely a testament to the unknown in that one could laugh in the face of conservation of matter. Daemon reached down and picked up a few of the diamonds, staring at them for a few seconds, he then looked up at Liz holding the bars. "This will probably be enough to cover the whole venture, and then some hehe.", grinned Daemon. He then got up and asked somewhat enthusiastically, "So, what have you been up to since that meeting? Blow up any buildings? Spread terror and despair?"

At this question, all of Liz's pride about what he had just done vanished, and he visibly slumped. "To be perfectly honest...no. I've been procrastinating these past few weeks. Only one act of mindless destruction, and it consisted of destroying two traffic lights." He smiled sheepishly. "So unless that led to some wonderful traffic smash-ups, I've been pretty lazy compared to the others."

Daemon shrugged casually then responded, "Well your not the only one. The most I've done against the nation was burning down the morgue I woke up in. Hell we should go blow up building, or destroy city hall in the meantime. When night falls though I'm leaving this town. I'd welcome you to come along, but I don't think you'll be able to keep up with me."

He then opened up a briefcase lying near the work bench and began loading it up. "I hope you don't mind if I use this one."

Liz perked up at the idea of blowing up a building, but when he heard Daemon was leaving he nodded understandingly. The "wouldn't be able to keep up with me" bit stung a little, but it was probably true, given what he'd heard about Daemon thus far. He's probably faster on foot than most machines, unless he's wearing that armor of his. And since my car is a little plain, he'd beat it for speed easily.

He looked once at the briefcase Daemon had taken. "Nope, that one's fine. I'm pretty sure it has a combination lock." He walked over and looked at the briefcase carefully. "Yup. This one's combination is 4-3-6-2. And, uh, if you don't mind my asking, how are you gonna leave town now that you have no helicopter?"

Everything was loaded up, he closed it and stared coldly at the door. He then looked back at Liz, his expression suddenly brightening up. "Don't worry about that.....I'll think of something, but in the meantime what do you say? Hell call up Croc, he'd probably get a kick out of this. We'd actually be acting together like our employer appeared to have wanted."

"Hang on one second," Liz responded. He walked out of the rom and called upstairs, "Crystal?"
"What?"
"Is it okay if Daemon and I go destroy a building?"
"Just come back alive before midnight!"
"Okay!"

He turned back to Daemon. "All I know about Croc is that he and Dile Lass managed to take over Laos. I never did get his number...d'you know if they'd post a political leader's cell phone number online?"

Upon hearing that revelation Daemon was shocked, SHOCKED!! Well not that shocked....

"You could probably Google it, it's Laos for crying out loud! What were they thinking! Oh gee our employer told us to send America into turmoil so he could take over, hay look! Asia!.........Well I suppose through this they could be the next Iran......but still...",   Daemon lamented as he strode up the staircase with Liz. "If they're going to play the laughing boy that's fine by me, it'll keep America's eye fixated on them so our operations here will be smoother."

Daemon then went out onto the deck and stared into the sky, taking in the uncharacteristic balmy weather. For some reason he couldn't help but think that he was being watched by an unseen eye. He then picked up his left gauntlet and fitted it on. With a flick of his wrist the top of the gauntlet revealed a hidden sub-machine gun. He aimed it at a tree, then with another flick of his wrist the gun went back into its hidden compartment. "Heh, still got it.", he thought as he fashioned on the rest of his gear. He then walked back inside, waiting for Liz.

Five weeks ago

Some random American city

   The hustle and bustle of the big city. Masses of people walking back and fourth, cars driving by, lots of background noise. In a place like this, anyone who blends in becomes effectively invisible. Unnoticed by everyone else, one young man walked among the crowds. He looked exactly like your typical slightly punk-ish late teenager, he barely looked to be twenty. He wore ripped jeans, a black shirt with the emblem, 'Eat my Plasma 'Nade", and a hat backwards over short black hair. He looks to be an absolutely normal, ordinary human being.
   Yeah, right.
   He walked along an intersection, in the middle of a crowd of people. He stopped at an ice cream parlor at the corner, ordered an ice cream sandwich, and sat down at a table. He opened the wrapping around his small treat, pulled small earbud headphones from his pocket, and turned on an iPod. He closed his eyes, munched his food, and bobbed his head to music heard only by him. Looking completely and absolutely normal, average, and ordinary, even though he was in plain sight, he was practically undetectable.
   That's when something out-of-the-ordinary happened to him.
   The young person, who had no name when hiding, because no one actually knew he existed, suddenly felt a cold wave wash over his mind. His eyes snapped open, he let in a sharp intake of breath, and he even almost dropped his dessert. He looked around, luckily, no one had noticed his sudden and seemingly unprovoked startle.
   Looking troubled, he closed his eyes, and listened. Not with his ears, but with his mind. He could hear soundless and voiceless whispers, and though they had no words to them, he understood their meaning:
   Balance is in jeopardy. Dark forces are mustering to create imbalance. You are needed, Planet-Guardian of Earth. You must prevent imbalance.
   The unnamed young man opened his eyes, calmly stood up, and walked away.

Several days later

   The young man finished navigating through an underground tunnel. It took several cars drives, a long plane trip, and a very long walk to reach the entrance of the place. That and the entrance was very well hidden. The young man doubted that anyone but himself could even find it. Even if they did, he was certain there was no way they could take the prize buried at the end. As if it would even be any use to them even if they could attain it.
   The young man reached said end. There was nothing remarkable...except a large solid stone block that was remarkably and perfectly cut, as if by magic. He walked closer, knowing exactly what it really was. In truth, the solid block was not solid at all, but hollow, and sealed by a charm of incredible power that made the block virtually impenetrable. It could not be unsealed by anyone...save for one person.
   Said person walked up to the block, closed his eyes, and placed his hands on the block. He felt around for that familiar charm, and when he found it, the charm did the rest. It scanned him, and then began reading his very soul. The charm was trying to ascertain if the soul that now confidently presented itself was an exact match to the soul-imprint that the charm had remembered.
   It was.
   The young man opened his eyes, smiled, removed his hand from the block, and took a step back. A line of light appeared dead center in the block, splitting the face in half. The line widened, then faded. The entire front face of the stone had disappeared. It was hollow, and inside was...
   Nothing but a perfectly carved wooden staff with a milky-white glass-spun sphere at the top held in place by three spikes curving around it.
   However, the young man reached out to the staff, reverently, and gently grabbed it. The moment he did, there was a blinding flash of white light.
   When the light faded, there was a different man standing in front of the block with the staff in hand. No, not a different person, the face was the same... but everything else was different. He was wearing a full body-fitting red robe-like outfit. The forearms and lower legs of the outfit expanded into cones. The robe itself was just a solid red, no markings or other features. There was a matching red cape clasped around the neck of the outfit. The head of the person, save for the face, was hidden by a swept-back pointed hood.
   He pulled the staff close to him, and whispered to himself, "I am Quaddle, Planet-Guardian of Earth, and I am here to serve the Balance of the World."

Several more days later, or four weeks ago

   "Argh, I just don't get it. Nothing has entered this place in three centuries. Three! And I could have sworn that I cleaned it up before going into hiding. And yet, every time I come back here, every time, it's as if a cyclone came through here!! Gha!"
   Quaddle was quite literally wading though an enormous sea of junk, knick-knacks, tables, shelves, chests, and pretty much anything you could name in an underground hideout. He was picking up things and tossing them around pell-mell, just trying to go forward. Finally he got fed up with what seemed like a lost cause.
   "Oh, sod it!" He said, and gave a mighty swing of his staff. The orb at the end of the staff flashed, and a line of junk jumped out of his way of their own accord, making a straight path. Quaddle gave a satisfied grunt, and walked through the "parted sea" of stuff. He got to the end, swung his staff again, and made another path. He did this until he got to a small room with a strange fixture in the center. He went to this strange thing, and placed his staff in the center of it. The glass orb seemed to transform into light that did not actually give off illumination, and expanded.
   "Now, show me what is powerful enough to create imbalance and drag me out of my peaceful hiding. I was really liking American popular culture. It had a nice robust, chaotic, and upbeat tone to it.." Quaddle said to the expanded light-orb. Something seemed to form inside of it, then it faded into darkness. Quaddle frowned. Whoever he was trying to spy on was smart enough to erect scryblock spells. But, Quaddle mused, if they weren't smart enough for that, they wouldn't be worth his time. He began to re-weave the scrying spell. He probably wouldn't be able to beat the scryblock outright, at least, not without expending more energy than he wanted to. Instead, he could probably try to slip through small holes in the spell. He wouldn't be able to see an hear everything, but he could get the general gist. After several tries, he managed to get what would be the equivalent to a "staticy, fuzzy television signal". And what he could get disturbed him.
   It seemed to be a gathering of evil entities, all called together by an enormously powerful one. Try as he might, Quaddle simply could not get anything from that particular one. All of the scryblock seemed to radiate from it, as well as other perception-distorting and illusion power. It didn't seemed to be magic in Quaddle's sense, but it amounted to the same effects.
   The others were only protected by extension of the main being's power, and thus, he could just barely make them out. One was a mastermind by the name of Sheridanna, one was some sort of mutant-crocodile aptly name Croc led by a small human female also aptly named Dile Lass, there was another human who seemed to be an assassin by the name of Sebastian, one Dr. Anastasia, a self-proclaimed "mad scientist", a very strange gecko-person named Liz with a rather unique ability, a fallen angel Black Knight by the name of Daemon, an actual demon by the name of DarkE, and a rather ridiculous crazed little woman named Roulette.
   The horribly mismatched group, at the shrouded entity's beckoning, were devising the first stages of a master plan with the standard villain's motif of "take over the world". This was certainly nothing new, heroes and villains battled every other decade over this sort of stuff. This time was different, however. Individually, the villains may pose little threat, but with all their abilities, skills, and talents combined, they would be a formidable force. Especially since that none of them realized that they were being used. They were absolutely nothing more than expendable pawns to the Shrouded One, as Quaddle started to think of him/her/it. It was manipulating them like pieces of an intelligent chess set, and the Shrouded One had a vast intellect and foresight-knowledge about them. The chess pieces would move seemingly of their own accord, but the Shrouded One would knew exactly where they would move if he just gives them the right nudge.
   Quaddle knew he was dealing with something truly serious here.

Four weeks later, present day

   For four weeks, Quaddle merely observed the Pawns, as he nicknamed him. He had lost track of the Shrouded One completely. The "main event" of his passive spying was when the Pawns Croc and Dile Lass single-handedly took over the small country of Laos. They had actually managed to transform the small country into something that, superficially, seemed to approach a utopia. The people were actually happy. Well, most of them, at least. Quaddle witnessed the small outbreak of a forming resistance. But it was the evil act of the two Pawns that truely saddened Qaddle's heart. They were pretending to be something good, and had every potential to make it true, but it wasn't. It was a lie, and would reveal itself when the plans of all the Pawns were set in motion. Quaddle mused that, maybe, he could try to convert them, if not to Good, then hopefully to Neutrality or Balance. While he could go and try that, or just go in and "take care' of them, it wasn't the right time. With that in mind, he redirected his attention elsewhere.
   That was when he observed the Pawns Daemon and Liz plotting to commit a wonton act of violence. This was certainly not something that Quaddle usually bothered with, but for some reason, it just got to him. He watched them as the began to exit Liz's house. When they did, he saw Daemon look around, as if he thought he was being watched (as indeed he was), the he practiced with a hidded gun. Quaddle quickly retreated his scry-spell. He removed his staff from the fixture, and the sphere returned to it's normal size and form.
   Then he swathed his way to another room in his small junked-up hideout. This room has an empty arch in it. The arch itself seemed to be crumbling slightly, but there were still runes visible all along it. Quaddle went up to it, and waved his staff.
   Nothing happened.
   Quaddle waved it again.
   Still nothing.
   "Goddamned ten-thousand-year-old portal... I swear, these things do not age well. They require much more maintenance than they should. Why are these the only things that the Planet-Guardians can't make sturdy?" Quaddle said darkly, giving the arch a good kick. He was rewarded with a pained toe. Crusing loudly, Quaddle then settled down to bring the portal back to working order.

"Damnit! Damnit Damnit! I try SO F***IN HARD! I give them safety, job security, more money, and freedom out the ass! and what do the ingrates do? F***! Now i have REBELS to deal with!." Dile Lass looked pissed and exausted at the same time. "Why can't I please everyone?" She hung her head.


"Maybe ther're scared." Croc chimed in.

"Huh?"

"You have too much power. they're scared."

"My GOD Croc YOU'RE BRILLIANT!" Dile Lass gave Croc a big hug despite his protest....and the apin from the wounds. "I knew you weren't stupid!"

Roulette had turned away the second they'd arrived, not wanting to risk the sight of blood, and stayed a decent distance away.
Even now, with Croc's open wounds, she stood off, to the side, where she couldn't see him, or smell the blood on him... She knew what would happen if she did, and it was never pretty.
"This is problematic... The boss won't be happy with this... Would you like my help keeping it down?  If we can keep it at least somewhat controlled, and off the news, he won't hear about it."

"I've a diffrent idea Rou, one that hopefully won't spill any more blood."
Dile Lass started makeing calls on her cell. from what Roulette and Croc could gather she was calling afew friends, but what she was really doing was calling many top scientists, free minds and polititions of Laos.
"Boys and girls let's write us up a constitution. Croc go with them to the hospital and rest, our guests won't be here for a few days. Rou let's go shopping." Dile Lass said with a grin. "These presidential robes are hell on this figure."

"Shopping? Aw, crap, I don't have to dress up, do I?" She asked, her face dropping slightly.
"I hate having to try and find clothes I can wear..." Roulette muttered under her breath. You did have to admit that it would be difficult, due to the placement of spikes on her body- her shirts couldn't have a back, much for straps, or extend below her chest, and pant either had to cut off before the knee, or have gaping holes in them.
"I mean... I've got no problem helping you out, but..." She shrugged.

"Come on we're not JUST getting clothes." Dile Lass took Roulette to a car dealership. Almost instantly a man came out and touched his forhead to the ground and was speaking laoian. Dile Lass said something in the same dialect and he took them to an area filled with motorcycles. "I'm looking for something for Croc. He dosn't like to spend money on himself like you would expect."

"oh. Well, that's good, i guess." Roulette replied, hoestly, a little confused. Most girls just meant clothes when they said shopping, and, honestly... Roulette pegged DL with being a hell of a lot more intelligent than most girls, but just about as 'normal' as villains ever get. Sometimes she had to wonder why she even bothered with the villain bit.

She watched on, her hands in her pockets, and an almost bored look on her face, until they got to the motorcycles. Roulette began to look around, feigning disinterest rather poorly, and unable to help the small, fanged grin as she walked around the lot.

There was more Laosian speaking and the man led them to a nice sporty modle. Dile Lass got on and mimiced a small reving motion on the throttle. "Bad ass enough for Croc?" Dile Lass said in a very girly tone. The bike was a small black rice burner. It looked like it was more for the metro type than Croc.

((You'll pardon me, I know nothing about motorcycles other than the fact that they look cool. >> ))

Roulette screwed up her face, and couldn't help a raspy giggle at DL's girly act. "Nah. Too small, dontcha think?" She shook her head, and pointed towards a few larger bikes- she didn't know what they were, really, and shrugged.
"I think that kind of thing's more his speed."

"You're proba...deat sweet LIGHTNING!"  Dile Lass saw a chopper in the direction he was pointing. There is no word for the speeds she was reaching to get there. she gave it a once over and began speaking cycle gibberish. the chopper looked alot like ghost rider's bike minus the flames. and it had a large metal bull shaped skull over the headlight so that it shined from the eyes. there was laosian speaking and a cash money transaction. the poor guy almost had a heart attack he was so happy. She started the bike and it rumbled to life. "Wanna take a ride dear?" she asked with a wicked grin.

"Oh, geeze." Roulette's eyes widened, and she followed DL to the bike, only catching some of what the much, much younger girl had said. She stuttered slightly, as she was offered a ride, and shook her head, somewhat sadly.
"Nah.... these things don't agree with me well." She tapped at one long, pointed ear with a finger. "I've heard the noise if hard enough to bear for people without these. Sides, they make it hard to put on a helmet." She'd tried before, and aving one's ears folded in half for that long caused far too many probles- her skull might have been thick, but not thick enough to succesfuly block rapidly oncoming concrete, should she fall.

"Right then i could use a car too..." Dile Lass looked over the large lot from where she was standing. "Nothing too terribly eye catching...Oh!" She spoke to the dealer and one of his assistants took the bike back to the presidential house. Then put a bow on it and left it in the garage.
"I've seen better cars at a demo durby." she sighed leaning on one of the cars. She didn't notice before. The Shelby mustang was sadly in need of repair.

Liz went to his room when Daemon walked out on the deck. He changed his clothes quickly to a simple black t-shirt, a black jacket and jeans. But before he left the room, he heard the second most out-of-place sound he'd heard that day.

Gunfire...?

He walked quickly to the back door, where Daemon was standing. "What was that from?"  he asked Daemon, who had put on all his gear and didn't look perturbed at all. He probably fired the shots... but what around here is worth shooting?

"Oh that was me, heh. I was just working on my aim, trying to hit a squirrel I saw off in that tree way over there.",  Daemon gestured. "I should get a silencer equiped on these things at some point. Don't think there's enough room for it at the moment though unless I alter the design, and I don't particularily want to go through that hell again, hehe."

Daemon then sized up Liz in his new garb. He appeared to know what he was getting into coming out looking like that. "So, you wanna drive out into the city? Or should we just get started with your neighbors and work our way from there.", Daemon laughed, he was still kind of on edge though. In a weird way he kind of wished that the feeling of being watched didn't dissipate. It's absence could mean a number of things, or have been a part of his own paranoia driving him to believe something was up.

Liz heard a trace of nervosity in Daemon's voice, and he suspected that he wasn't telling the whole truth. But if something strange was going on around here when he got back, he'd handle it.

He rolled his eyes when Daemon jokingly (he hoped) suggested attacking Liz's neighbors first. "No thank you... they've just started getting used to the fact that a talking gecko lives next door. I don't think they could handle knowing that the same gecko shot copper in their windows. The city sounds way better. It's crowded, and the witnesses will sound crazy."

   Quaddle was sitting down in front of his 'broken' portal, staff in hand, brows furrowed in frustrated concentration, and muttering rapidly under his breath. Eventually, he stopped muttering, opened his eyes a little wider, and said "Aha! Finally!". The portal-spell, being an extreamly complicated and very powerful one, one that Quaddle certainly couldn't make from scratch at his current power, had simply fallen apart a bit. Think like a jigsaw puzzle that got bumped, or a chain that broke. He had simply picked up the pieces of the spell and put them back where they belonged. Good thing too, it would be at least another ten, maybe twenty, millenia until he would be powerful enough to conjure an instantaneous-transportation spell on his own. But by that time, he'd already be powerful enough to be promoted to Solar System-Guardian and reassigned to a different place in the Universe.
   Quaddle stood up and waved his staff. This time, the portal responded. Blue magical energy cracked to life around the arch of the portal, then coaleced into a swirling vortex in the center. However, Quaddle had yet to set a destination for it. He brought his staff up again, this time activating a very minor scry-spell. This one, being very weak and unstructured compared to the scry-spell he could make with the enhancer, couldn't allow him to farscry or see as much as the enhanced version. It didn't even have sound. It did, however, have the advantages of being very easy to conjure. And since so little energy went into sustaining it, the 'eye', as it were, was virtually indistinguishable from backround magic. He brought Daemon and Liz back into focus. He didn't want to jump them, yet. They were in a residential area, and what Quaddle had in mind involved a bit of...fireworks. He knew they were going to head from the suburbs to the city, in between is a mostly empty, remote area. He would wait until they got there.

Daemon grinned, Liz was right. No one was gonna believe that a medieval knight and the guy from Geico were terrorizing the city. Response time from the authorities would definately be long, which worked perfectly with the general idea. "Lead the way then man. Let's go!", stated Daemon with renewed enthusiasm, to mask the paranoia building within. He went out into the front yard toward the driveway, waiting there for Liz who went back inside to get the keys.

Elsewhere, Anastasia was finishing up something she was quite proud of.
Sebastion's showing up had turned out a bit less horrifically than expected. He'd had manners enough not to be followed. What had been really tricky had been making sure he didn't catch a look at her latest project. She didn't like giving people the chance to steal her work.
It was a brilliant little number, really. She'd been trying for an upgrade to the biovats she used so much in her work and happened upon a rather nasty mutagen. The best part was that it didn't do anything at all without a certain level of diffusion in the subject's bloodstream. She worked on it, stayed up late typing away at her computer. She pulled mindless drone after drone made up of organic slurry from the biovats for test subjects, throwing them back to the vats when they inevitably died so that the material could be reused. She made the mutagen more potent, raised the minimum amount before symptoms began to show, sped up the gestation of the various bacteria involved when it actually began to work, made it hang around in someone's systems for ages...
Now she stood on the outskirts of a city in Michigan that she'd chosen for a field testing of this lovely little bioweapon. Three drops into the water supply, an extra four for those pipelines heading into the local prison; day by day her toxin had been building up in the city residents.
They latest drop she'd added this morning would, by noon, have either mutated the entire populance of that prison into mindless killing machines or killed them outright, depending on the stability of the individual mutations. By about one in the afternoon, those dangerous mutants will have escaped. And next week, when the lower dosages the rest of the populence kicked in on the 20% of the population that were genetically more susceptable, it would happen again.
Anastasia sat down in the beach chair she'd brought with her and pulled out a pair of binoculars and a beer. This would be a show worth seeing.

((OOC: Miss me?))

Liz strode back inside, grabbing the keys to his Lexus. Crystal walked in, and Liz went over a quick safety procedure.

"Keep the news on."
"I will."
"If you get hurt?"
"Call your cell. If you get hurt?"
"Call your cell. Keep the doors locked. If the cops show up?"
"Lie. If you get caught?"
"I escape and we move. Love you."
"Love you too. Don't die, and try not to kill anyone."
Liz smiled. "Sure." He kissed her cheek and walked out the door to the car. "Ready when you are!" he called to Daemon.

(OOC: If you kill Crystal, I get to make Liz kill you, Boogey.)

Daemon held his fist up in the air and yelled, "Alright lets do it!!"

He then watched as Liz unlocked the Lexus and got into the front seat, reclining the chair all the way back so he could lie down. The engine revved to life and they drove off.

"Oh, better put this under the seat.", said Daemon as he hid the briefcase full of jewels. "I'll pick em up later when were done."

Daemon then looked out around the window as they passed out of the suburbs. Something seemed out of place, but he couldn't place it. He then suggested, "Hmm...put the radio on. That way we can get through traffic easier. At the very least mabye something good will be on one of the music stations for once, heh."

"Hm?" Dile Lass was surprised when her fingers grazed the Mustang emblem. More Laosian. "Hop in. Tomarrow you'll get a rare look at the innerworkings of the United Laosian empire. Let's hope this satisfies the rebels." She closed the door with a rusty clunk. "If not a policeing action may be in order. i have the freedome of speech, not violence."

   Quaddle was still standing in front of his active portal, with the minor scry-spell still trained on Liz and Daemon, who hadn't left yet, when a wave of cold washed over him. It was similar to the one he felt five weeks ago, but this one was more....focused. More...localized.
   Keeping the staff upright and active in his right hand, he raised two fingers from his left hand, touched his forehead, and closed his eyes. He heard the deep voices again. This time they were telling him that something very, very wrong was happening, or right about to happen. Quaddle tried to get a bearing on it's location...and found it to be the very same city that Liz and Daemon were going to terrorize.
   Well, that's interesting. Quaddle thought. He knew that whatever was going on in the city was important, and probably required his attention very soon...but he would take care of the reptile and the knight first.
   He returned his gaze to the scry-spell in the orb of his staff, and found that the duo in question were finally on their way. He mapped out the road ahead of them and found it to be a mostly empty straightaway. There were small hills and a few boulders on the side. He look around-ah. That one will do nicely.
   He deactivated the scry-spell and turned to the swirling blue portal. He quickly went though how this was going to work. Once he set the destination for the portal, a second portal of energy would appear at that destination. Once Quaddle stepped though, the portal would close. It couldn't be set multiple times at once, and Quaddle couldn't actually send his magic over a great distance to reactivate it remotely. At least, not on his own. Once he messed around with his two targets abit, he would have to rely on a more conventinal means of magical transportaion to get to the city, then back to his hideout.
   He only hoped things would actually go that well.
   Focusing his magic, he set the destination, and without further delay, stepped though the portal.

   A blue vortex of energy, giving of no real light, appeared behind a boulder. A red-robed figure stepped though it, and the blue energy behind him vanished. Quaddle quickly looked around the boulder, down a long, dark road. He spotted two headlights off in the distance. Right on target, He thought.
   He had about thirty seconds before they reached the boulder where Quaddle was hiding. Quickly, he turned to his staff, motioned his left hand around it in a constant gesture, and started muttering. He quickly devised a three-part spell to get their "attention". First, the spell would cut the seatbelts holding Liz and Daemon in place. Then, the spell would sheer off the roof of the car. Finally, the spell would instantly make an solid and about four-foot tall barrier grow out of the ground directly in front of the car. With the car's speed, the slashed seatbelts, and the missing roof, the car would slam into the barrier, and literally catapult Liz and Daemon right out of their seats. Brilliant. They wouldn't even be able to avoid it; it was going to happen in a matter of seconds, one second and a half, to be exact. One half-second for each part of the spell. If their reflexes were good, they would look down at the sound of their seatbelts snapping, half a second later they would look up at the sound of shearing metal right above their heads. And after another half second...they could look any direction they wanted then.
   Speaking of which, they were now about ten seconds away. Since Quaddle was there, he could easily hear the car approaching. He began counting down in his mind...
   Closer...
   Closer...
   Closeeeer...
   Now!
   Quaddle gave one quick swing of his staff. Inside the car, there would be a quick snick sound as the belts came apart in several strategic places.
   That's the belts...
   Half a second later, he gave a second small wave of his staff. This time, there was a quite audible sound of metal shearing.
   That's the roof...
   One more half-second later, Quaddle gave the final wave of his staff.
   CRASH!!!
   At that exact moment, Quaddle was treated to the very entertaining spectacle of two bodies literally sailing though the air in front of him in the most comical fasion. He couldn't help it; it was just too funny. A loud, teenage laugh echoed around all the hills, unintentionally amplified.
   Once Liz and Daemon were to collect their senses after finally touching down, they would find the source of the laughter is a teenage boy, wearing what looks like a cultist uniform straight out of a movie, and hanging on to a staff that looks like it belongs in a DnD collectibles case. They would see that the boy could barely even stand--he would be laughing so hard he had to use his staff as support.

"Hmm...there's never anything good on the radio.......it's always some retarded rap song about pimping hoes or an anoying pop song from some nsync rip off.........wait...what the?!!"

Daemon blinked, when he opened his eyes he was flying through the air. He glanced to the side and saw Liz next to him with an expression of shock on his face. Acting purely on reflex, Daemon did a barrel roll grabbing Liz to his side, then landed on the ground sliding a hundred feet from the car. He let go of Liz and slid himself upright, unsheathing his void blade in one motion. He could hear loud unnatural laughter echoing across the road. He then saw a young man rolling on the ground laughing behind a nearby boulder. He had a peculiar staff clutched in his hands, and was garbed in crimson threads as if he was the body guard to a sith lord.

Daemon stood there for a second and nodded his head, he even letted out a small chuckle of his own. "So I suppose this is your idea of a practical joke. Not bad, but you made a couple mistakes.", Daemon barked on at the crimson man, who had gotten up, but was still laughing to himself. "The first one was coming up with this stupid idea in the first place."

Daemon cocked his left wrist and aimed it at the young man, the submachine gun popped out and Daemon opened fire.

   Quaddle had managed to settle down to a small chuckle when Daemon started talking. The moment Daemon first said the word "mistake", Quaddle stopped laughing entirely. He then remembered the wrist-gun that Daemon had practiced with earlier.
   As Daemon started on his second sentance, Quaddle muttered a few short words under his breath, and began spinning is staff with both hands right in front of himself.
   When the bullets started flying, they all impacted on a disk of green energy an inch away from the spinning staff.
   Quaddle knew the problem with this, and hoped he could keep these two guessing for as long as possible. the frontal shield-spell was just that--a shield that only blocked in front. A full sphere-shield spell drains a good deal of energy, and Quaddle would only use it if he was faced with some sort of are explosive effect.
   All he needed to to was keep both Liz and Daemon directly in front of him. They were over a hundred feet away, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem...for the moment.

Daemon fired for a few seconds then stopped once he saw he was getting nowhere. "A shield? .........alright fine then, we'll do this the hard way."

Daemon retracted the machine gun and swong the huge void blade's tip to the ground at his side, gripping the hilt with both his hands. Then he started running towards the man dragging the blade on the ground shooting up sparks and jumped up high into the air swinging it over his head in an attempt to drive his blade down upon the man's head in one stroke, cutting him in half.

Liz had flicked on the radio, and was just trying to change to a news station, when his seatbelt was cut by nothing, the roof of his car was ripped off by nothing, and he was catapulted through the air, by nothing. Daemon grabbed the gecko and they landed safely on the ground, only to hear a young voice laughing.

Liz looked up to see an oddly dressed teenager, barely breathing through his laughter, and holding a staff that looked like the kind used by LARPers. This kid pissed Liz off, and for good reason. "YOU BASTARD!" he yelled up the street. "I LIKED THAT CAR!"

Daemon yelled at the kid for a second, then opened fire with a wrist-gun Liz hadn't seen until now. Cool. But the kid blocked the bullets easily - with the staff. He was a magic user.

Damn.

Daemon was less concerned with this. He pulled out the biggest sword Liz had ever seen and started running towards the kid. While he did this, Liz darted to the side of the road and bolted towards the kid under the cover of surrounding trees, generating steel darts in his hand and holding out his other hand to create a large bronze disc with a curved, open handle. He watched as Daemon jumped, tring to slice the kid in half; Liz himself ran behind the boy in case the knight failed.

   Quaddle frowned when Daemon drew his blade and rushed at him. Quaddle said, "Aw, come on, you don't wanna talk, bubba?" in his teenage voice and attitude, but he thought with his pretty darned old mind, I don't know how old this Black Knight is, but I'm obviously older than him. Only a fool does a rush like this without knowing who the hell he's facing. Know thy enemy. For all he knows, I could be a twelve-hundred-year-old archmage who also is fairly adept at melee combat with an indestructible staff...oh wait. I am.
   Quaddle's staff and arms quickly flashed golden, and Quaddle held the staff in both hands, crosswise, over his head, and braced himself. When the sword came down it, slammed right into the staff...and nothing more. No splintered wood. That's not to say there wasn't any give, though, about a whole foot's worth, but that was just Quaddle bending his magically-enhanced body as a shock absorber.
  Quaddle also decided to goad him, keeping up his young, boyish persona. That should annoy him to no end. "Come on, I was hoping for a smart fight! Instead ya run around like a madman, jumping and swinging like a barbarian... and even your swing is weak! My grandma can hit harder than this!"
  Then, just out of his peripheral vision, he saw movement, like a large, humanoid... reptile......
  "Whoa, now!"
  Quaddle pushed back with his staff, pushing Daemon back into the air a yard or two. In a mere second, Quaddle pointed his staff straight at Liz. There was a flash of white, and Liz would be quite startled as he would feel an invisible force grasp his waist. Quaddle swung the staff back towards Daemon, and Liz flew in tandem. Liz collided with Daemon in midair and sent them both all the way back where they started.
   Quaddle still did not make an offensive move. He would keep his cool, watch both of them, anticipate them, counter them... wait for them to lose it... By human standards, he was freaking old, and had more wisdom under his belt than any ordinary human alive. He learned the values of patience well thoughout centuries of practice. Let's see if these two learned the same...
   But might as well tease them while he plays the game of patience. "Flanks R 4 n00bs!" he said in exactly the voice you would imagine if internet-chat was given audio.

The kid was trying to piss off Daemon - not a very smart move, in Liz's opinion. Just as Liz was about to throw his darts at the boy, his slit pupils dilated in shock. The so-far nameless boy had whipped around and was pointing his staff right at Liz. SOMETHING was tightening around the lizard's waist. Before Liz could do anything about it, the boy had thrown him into the air and right into Daemon, and both of them were flung right back to their starting point. Liz's darts flew out of his hand and skittered across the pavement, and the shield clattered beside him.

Before Daemon could get up and attack the kid again, Liz held out one arm. "DON'T. Attack. Him," he hissed through his teeth. "He's stronger than he looks. I'm gonna try and learn who the hell he is." Sure, maybe he was just pointing out the obvious, but Daemon's attack had been slightly suicidal.

The kid yelled an Internet insult across the road as Liz got up and checked himself for injuries. How such a young-looking kid could be so powerful was beyond him, but he was about to try and figure that out. "STFU, Larper!" he yelled back, as he started to walk towards him. "You almost fell for it; quit giving yourself credit!" He stepped around the wreckage of his car, going forawrd until he was about fifty feet from the kid.

"I don't need the insurance money on that car, otherwise you'd be pulling iron out of your ass right now," he called to the kid. He slid one thin bronze spike ou of his palm, but behind his back. He kept it up his sleeve - literally - in case the kid tried anything. "But risking our lives just for your own amusement pisses me off. That's my job, not yours, if you're what I think you are." He paused. "So what's your name and why are you trying to kill us?"

   Quaddle laughed aloud when Liz threw back his own internet retort. "Good one!" Quaddle called back. He can appreciate a good retort when he hears one. He smiled when Liz stepped forward, and talking-albiet agressively. But it was an improvement.
   He smile faded, just a little, at one of the things Lz said. "I'm not risking your lives, it's not for my amusement, though it can be a perk, and I know full well that's your job.
   "As for me though, Quaddle's my name, and as you've probably guessed-" Quaddle did an elaborate flourish routine with his staff, ending with it being pounded on the ground with a flash of light, "Magic's my game.
   "As for you two, your name is Liz, Your name is Daemon, you're some damn wierd reptile guy who conjures all kindza shit outta the air, and you're an, obviously dense, Black Night. You both are part of a group of various... unscrupulous individuals, headed by a big guy in a shadow, attempting to enact an elaborate plan that involves creating trouble abroad, screwing over America, and using the ensuing political chaos to perform a worldwide coup. You're allies are Dr. Anastasia, Sebastian, DarkE, Sheridanna, Croc and Dile Lass, and Roulette. You also have a close aquaintence, another reptile by the name of Crystal."
   Quaddle then waited to see what kind of reaction this revelation of knowledge would bring. And it was only the tip of the iceberg.

Daemon just stared at Quaddle for a few seconds, he then sheathed his blade as if in disappointment. "That's wonderful, but what does it all mean Mr.Magic Man!? It means nothing!! Ha! There I said it! Good day!", Daemon scoffed, he then began to walk towards the wreckage of the car, and leaned on the hood. He then commented,"Hmm....kind of odd, I thought there'd be traffic here. It's almost rush hour and no ones in sight."

Daemon then gazed at the city in the distance, he could see smoke rising up. It didn't really concern him more then the matter at hand, it was probably just a traffic accident or something blocking off the road they were on. He then looked on at Liz, awaiting a response from him. He probably cared a little bit more then Daemon did at the moment, who made his disdain evident by whistling the Kill Bill theme.

All was quiet in the kensington suburb of pittsburg, when suddenly out of a grave in the Shady Willows cemetary a red forearm burst through the top soil of a grave. Then another. The hands gripped the grass still fresh with the morning dew. Then she rose screaming out of the grave like a phoenix over it's ashes. Her torso free all she could think about was how incredibly HARD it was climbing out of hell. The least God could do after she exposed Satan's last attempt on heaven was to get her to the surface. but no she had to setlle for a pardon and her freedom. after freeing herself fully she realized she needed cloths. A loin cloth would not do her on earth. But for now she needed to rest. laying at the base of her head stone she read it quietly to herself. "Tabitha huh? I'd forgotten." She smiled and a tear rolled down her cheek. "I was only 24."

Liz rolled his eyes at Quaddle's fancy staff tricks and bit his lip when he heard the kid's name (Don't giggle; your name is stupid too, remember?). But all that went away when Quaddle revealed just how much he knew already about Liz, Daemon, and their coworkers.

The only real twinge in Liz's face occurred when the boy mentioned Crystal. His immediate desire was to punch the kid in the face, but he calmed himself down quickly - though he did shoot a glare at Daemon for whistling the Kill Bill theme. Just because he knows her name doesn't mean he'll attack her. His kind never threaten the innocent. Daemon's got the right idea; take away the kid's bluffing grounds, and we take away his power.

Liz crossed his arms over his chest. "Cute display, kid, and I'll admit your knowledge is impressive. But Daemon's right; it's all just sound and fury, signifying nada." He turned and looked at the smoke rising from the trees. "Dammit. If you hadn't destroyed my radio, I could learn who beat us to it. Thanks a lot," he said to Quaddle.

   Quaddle shook his head, crossed his arms and legs, and sat back. But instead of falling to the ground, his feet lifted up off the ground, and he was suddenly sitting on...nothing. He was floating in midair.
   The he started speaking softly, with a tone, voice, and demeanor that most certainly was as far away from kidlike as you could possibly get. Even his face seemed almost like it got older for the moment. "I knew you two were young in age, but I did not know you were this young in maturity. Knowledge is power. Know thy enemy. I know you, your strengths, your weaknesses, and I can use that knowledge against you, but you know no-thing about me. Yet you honestly believe that means nothing?" Quaddle shook his head again. "This is sad. There must be someone in your group who is worthy. I was not dragged out of my peaceful three centuries of hiding after my last crusade to deal with two bums of evildoers like you. I have apparently seriously overestimated your prowess. Maybe your allies will be a little bit smarter, and more of a challenge.
   "I have much more important and urgent business to attend to. Incidentally, it has to do with those collums of smoke rising from the city. But you haven't seen the last of me, oh no."
   Quaddle was suddenly back on the ground, his smile and teenage persona back in full force. "But that don't mean I can't have some good-bye fun!" Since Quaddle had not moved his position at all since this started, the boulder he appeared by was still behind him. Using a spell similar to the one he used on Liz earlier, he picked up the bolder with his staff, levitated it all the way towards the wrecked car that Daemon and Liz were standing by...
   And dropped the boulder on the car.
   Taking advantage of the temporary distraction (which he got great satisfaction out of making), he quickly conjured two small golden disks in the air. He jumped on them, and each one attached itself to a foot. He then silently flew at Daemon and Liz with his staff held behind him, with that looks like a double-sided hook made out of blue energy having sprouted from the orb-end. When the two turned around, Quaddle would have flown between them,
   And both their shins would be caught by the hooks. They would instantly be tripped and fall flat on their faces, while Quaddle rocketed up into the air.
   As a final goodbye, he said in what sounded like a perfect replica of Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice, "I'LL BE BACK!". Then he shot off towards the city.

Daemon ducked out of the way of the boulder, dodging the hook that flew overhead as he lied on the ground. He then got up and looked on as the man flown off into the distance. "Cocky son of a bitch! Damn right this isn't over, it'll be over when I'm done wiping your smeared carcass off the soles of my shoes!", Daemon yelled. He then unsheathed his blade and sliced open the boulder with one swift move and knocked the bits off of the car. He looked around in the passenger seat and found his briefcase still intact.

"Well atleast the money is okay.", he then spared a glance at Liz who looked just as annoyed. "I'm going after him, it's personal now. Besides even if someone did beat us to the punch I can still get something out of there. What are you gonna do."

Liz wasn't lucky enough to avoid the hook. He fell flat on his face, then gritted his teeth when he saw the boulder sitting on his car.

"Cryssie's gonna kill me..." he muttered. What Quaddle had said had actually made sense to Liz. And he probably was as old as he'd said, which Liz should have realized from his power. But even if he was stronger than Liz, that didn't mean he wasn't going to try pounding him into the ground till he talked.

"I'll follow you, but I gotta make a call first," Liz responded. He checked his pocket for his iphone. Amazingly, it was scratched, but still okay. He hit speed dial and walked toward the side of the road.

"Crystal? It's me. ...No, I'm all right. The car, though... well, I doubt you'd believe me if I told you. Let's just say calling it totaled would be an understatement. ... But that's not the important part. Are you okay? What's on the news? ... Wait, the water's...? Well, don't drink anything if that's the case. But listen. The guy who wrecked Dennis knows who you are. If a young-looking kid dressed like a cosplayer shows up, keep the doors locked and run into the basement. You know where to go. ... Good luck. Love you. ... Bye."

Pocketing his cellphone, Liz turned to Daemon. "Think she'll understand if I kill our magic man?"

As Liz was making his call, Daemon walked back and forth trying to figure out a quick way to get to the city. The way it seemed it looked like they were gonna hoof it. Daemon then sat down and began to ponder,"We'll never make it in time to do anything meaningful if we just run....hmm....."

Daemon then began to take off his gear, he was having a hard time thinking straight with it on. For some reason that kid just really got to him; it wasn't even the insults, it was something deeper. He then started walking back and forth again in deep thought,"Liz could ask his girlfriend for another car....if she speeds she could reach us in time........but then she'd be stuck walking in the middle of nowhere....they won't go for that...........damn....I forgot how heavy that armor is....it doesn't even feel like I'm standing on anything......wait.."

Daemon turned to Liz who just hung up, he then replied, "Yeah I think she'll understand, he destroyed your Lexus man. One sec I wanna try something. I saw this in a video game once before I destroyed some twelve year old's home one time."

Daemon picked up his gauntlets and reequipped them, they were much lighter then the rest of the armor. He then grabbed his sword and raised it above his head with his right hand. "God I hope this works!", Daemon thought as he began twirling the sword around and around. It spun faster and faster, the air around him was flowing rapidly downward. Daemon then looked down and noticed he was off the ground, his eyes widening in disbelief. He then shouted at Liz, "Holy crap I didn't think this would actually work!! Alright Yoshimitsu!!! I guess I'm gonna have to leave everything else here though! It'll be too heavy carrying all that plus you at the same time!"

Daemon descended and grabbed Liz with his free hand and within seconds the Deathcopter was speeding off towards the city.

   After flying on his twin golden disks for just three minutes, he hit the city limits. The plumes of smoke scattered around looked worse close up. He flew into the city to find what the heck is going on.
   And as he flew around, keeping out of sight, he saw swarms of horrible mutants chasing crowds of people in various pockets of the city. What in the Great Balance is going on here?!? Quaddle thought, horrified. He focused his staff on a group of mutants and tried to identify them. To his absolute horror, he found they used to be people... as he continued to focus, he also found that some sort of biological agent was causing this. He might be able to reverse it...but for that he needed a sample.

   Later, a mutant straggler was wandering along the sidewalk of an empty street. All of a sudden, the mutant was picked up into the air by nothing and pulled right through the door of a nearby shop. Once inside, Quaddle quickly gave it a good blast of stunning magic to subdue it. He then quickly got to work at identifying exactly what the heck this was...

Progressing nicely. Large number of the mutations are sustanable. Hell, some look fairly beneficial. Small minority of subjects remain sane, gotta work on that. Wait... Anastasia rubbed her eyes, knocked back the rest of her beer and held the binoculars to her eyes again. Some red thing? To narrow it down, a red thing with two discs and a staff. Either the lewdest choice for a superhero theme ever or... She spotted whatever it was again, on the outskirts of the city, whisking away one of her mutants. The rabbit lowered her binoculars with a snarl and beckoned her (thing that looked like a) van closer.
"Little @#$%er better not be doing what I think he is..."

   After some intesive magical scanning of the unconcious mutant, Quaddle thought he finally figured out how it worked. He began making up a spell to counter the effect.
   When he was done about a minute later, he tried it out. He pointed the staff at the horrid figure, and a massive burst of golden light flooded the room, and some out the window of the shop. When the light faded, he observed his handiwork. What was formerly a mutant was now an oozing puddle.
   "Eww..." Quaddle said, disgusted at himself. He thought it over, the figured out what he did wrong with a 'Eureka!' moment. With the new spell in his head, he knew he was going to need a lot of energy to use it on large crowds, even more so sweeping the whole city. He decided he'd have to continualy stop to recharge as he went.
   Having expended only a small fraction of energy during his squabble with Liz and Daemon, he had enough energy stored for two, maybe three good-sized blasts with the purifying reversal spell.
   Readied, he quickly conjured his two small golden disks, stepped on them, then zoomed right out of the shop, making an instant turn down the street at a ridiculous speed, looking like a red blur, to find the first mutant crowd he could.

Red Anvil stood up. the late morning breeze felt chilly against her nude torso and exposed legs. She opened her wings and took flight. Some minutes later she spotted a shop with clothes. After landing she walked in. It was pretty empty except for the shopkeep.

"My lands!" The old man cried "Is it my time?"

"No." Red Anvil replied "I only need some clothes."

"Well I don't know what you demon types are into but have a look."

"This looks nice, and these." She had her shirt and pants.

"Credit or debit?" the man asked

Red Anvil looked taken aback. She had completely forgotten about money. She looked at him pleadingly.

"It's ok, I'll put it on your tab."

"Are you sure? will you remember?"

The old man laughed and said "Will i remember a large red woman owes me fifty bucks?"

"You have a point. Thankyou."

After changeing in the rooms of a similar name, she walked out of the store and infront of an electronics store with a bunch of TVs with the news on.

A few moments later they reached the edge of the city. Daemon touched down on the rooftop of a building and letted go of Liz. He looked over the edge, there were people running and screaming hysterically. He looked further and he could see.....he really didn't know what the hell they were. They almost looked human, but grossly transformed. They were devouring and tearing apart the humans who couldn't get away fast enough.

"Well this place really went to hell....",  Daemon commented as he looked past the burning buildings, he couldn't see his adversary flying through the smoke. Daemon then turned to Liz and asked, "Alright....how do you want to do this. Split up? Or do you got something else in mind."

Liz was still a little amazed that a trick that usually only worked for Tails from Sonic had worked for Daemon and himself. When he and Daemon landed, they received the nasty shock of a mutant and/or zombie uprising taking place and terrorizing the people. So THIS is what the water did, he realized, remembering what Crystal had said.

"They found some kind of weird virus in the water a little while ago. I haven't drank any recently, so I think I'll be okay, but you shouldn't drink anything either."

Liz was snapped out of his daze by the Black Knight asking if they should split up or if Liz had a plan. "I wasn't really planning on this happening... if we split up and quaddle turns up, it'll be easier for him to beat us. And I dunno exactly how you'd kill ... whatever the hell those things are."

Daemon walked over toward the edge of the building again and looked down. As luck would have it the building they landed on was a Best Buy, giving him a sound idea. He then replied to Liz, "Well if they are anything like your standard zombie.....if you take off the head or destroy the brain that should be enough to stop em, but yeah I agree this was probably the last thing I expected to happen today.....ok second last........errr....third last......damn it this whole day from the moment I woke up has been nothing short of insane!! ...Alright, I'll be right back in one second."

Daemon walked over toward the center of the roof, he then took his blade and thrusted it down causing it to crack open, bringing him down onto the floor inside the store. As he fell he jumped outward onto a shelf and wall kicked down to the floor safely. The store was dark, no doubt the power was out, and no sign of life or movement in sight. Sheathing his blade Daemon sprinted for the cellphone and accessories aisle, grabbing up a cellphone and two wired earsets. Something then fell over on the otherside of the store and made a crashing sound of breaking glass. He could hear footprints coming at him from seemingly all directions. Daemon then made a jump onto one of the overhanging television units and fired sporadically into the darkness with his free hand. Keeping up the pace he jumped to another overhanging unit under where he fell in and immediately he heard a loud inhuman screech. One of the mutants was flying through the air straight towards him. It looked horribly disfigured, with razor sharp spikes coming out of it at random points all over its body and had three bulky arms. Daemon aimed the gun at it's head and blew it clean off splattering blood and guts all over the place, he then jumped back up through the hole landing on the roof again rolling a few feet. He then got up and walked over to Liz, handing him one of the earsets for his phone.

Daemon then began to elaborate as he assembled his cellphone,"Ok it seems like we're just gonna have to make this up as we go along. Quaddle admitted he was a magic user, each time he countered us out on the road he was using that staff each time. Our best bet is to try and seperate him from it somehow, or atleast keep his attention on one of us so we can catch him off guard. We're gonna use our cellphones here to co-ordinate our attacks and call out his positions plus what it appears he's focusing on at the moment. If you can try to hose him down with mercury, it may not kill him immediately but the poisoning effect from it will probably put a drain on his abilities. I'll try to keep him focused on me so you can get behind him to do this. He wanted a damn challenge, so by hell we're gonna give it to him."

Daemon then turned on the cellphone and called Liz' phone, keeping the line open so they could communicate. He then gestured over in the distance and said, "Alright, I'm gonna head that way. You head in that other direction, we'll encircle the city until one of us spots him, then we'll call it out and move in. Lets do this." Daemon then ran up to the ledge and jumped off, doing a swan dive. He then flipped and landed gracefully on the ground and began sprinting at breakneck speed through the city streets, keeping himself out of sight as much as he could.

Anastasia set aside her binoculars and rubbed her forehead. It was always something. She knocked on the door of the van once to get it to loyally pop one door open and hopped in, double checking what she had on her. Deadman switch remote detonator, various concialed defenses, a couple frozen med-drones, gun, a few lob-drones... And a few things in the back of the Van. It'll do. The vanlike thing gave a roar that was a fairly good fascimile of that of an engine and took off toward the city. Someone better have a brilliant explanation for this...

   Alarms and sirens were going off in all parts of the city. Police, firefighters, and ambulances were all pitching it to fend off this threat to their city. But they would eventually be overwhelmed if they didn't have any help.
   That's where Quaddle came in.
   He zoomed on his golden disks around a corner. A mob of mutants faced him. He pointed his staff at them and roared several powerful words. A flood of golden liquid light spilled out of the staff and washed over the mutants. Instantly, they were all on the ground in throes of agony--but they were changing. In about seven seconds, they had all turned back into a crowd of humans in tattered clothes. He amplified his voice: "All of you, get out of here! Evacuate the city, now!"
   But in the air, Quaddle was very worried. The spell had taken more energy from his staff than he thought. I've only got enough juice left for another shot like that, then I'll have to recharge. There must be hundreds of these mobs throughout the city! Oh well, I must keep going.
   He zoomed again.
   After turning a few more corners, he came across a massive police and S.W.A.T. barrier trying to hold back a tide of mutants. Quaddle quickly altered his form underneath his robes, he now looked like a strong, well-kept man in his late thirties, early fourties. The authorities would have a better time believing that than his favored form of a teenager.
   He flew over the barrier and cast the spell again. Once again, the crowd of mutants turned back to normal. But now Quaddle's staff was almost completely drained.
   He floated down to the police and S.W.A.T. units, identified the senior ranking officer, and landed in front of him.
   "Sir, listen to me, and don't interrupt, we are pressed for time. You must begin evacuations of every non-infected civillian in the entire city."
   "The entire city?" The man said, baffled.
   "Yes, the entire city. Call your high command and tell them. Also, try to begin hearding the mutants toward the center of the city. That's important. I don't care how it's done, just do it. No time to explain."
    With that, Quaddle went back into the air with his disks. When he turned the next corner, he went up, up, up, and through the window of an office building. And not a moment too soon. The magical energy in his staff drained at almost that moment, and his disks faded.
   Then, he stood the staff upright and placed his hands around it. Red energy crackled to life from his body, and began pouring into the staff. He wanted enough energy to cast his mutant reversal spell a good number of times, maybe around ten. For that, he needed a good three, maybe four minutes of charging. Fourtunately, it doesn't neccesarily have to all be at once. He just decided how many times he wanted the spell, gauged how much energy it took, and mentaly told himself how long he would need to charge to reach that.
   Four minutes wasn't even much time, and the city was so big it would take an anti-miracle for someone... unscrupulous to have spotted him.
   But the longer he stayed in the city, the more likely it became for someone to run across him.

The Van screamed around corners with its creator leaning back in its drivers seat, hands behind her head. It was sniffing the air, tasting the asphalt. Searching, searching, closer...
There! I have found the sought thing! The van thought (in its little not-quite-sentient way), feeling a rush of joy at the prospect of doing as required. It wanted Mommy to be happy. ALL of Anastasia's biological creations were psychologically programmed with a sychophantic love for her. It got them to do what she wanted regardless of their survival instincts. Mommy will be so very, very PLEASED!
Anastasia recognized the slight change in the sound of the Van's engine, an edge that was either a purr or a hunting growl, and smiled. "I'll leave it up to you. After all, I know it's been a while since you've had any really fresh meat that wasn't from the biovats," yes, she doted on the Van a little. Even those who happily perform illegal experiments on children could feel the joy of having something to look after like a pet.
She simply watched through the windshield as the Van charged, planning on going straight through the crowd of recently cured convicts to the building, which it would climb up. It would then splatter (and possibly eat) the red man inside. I'm allowed to eat the sought thing! Yay for eating! Yay for things sought! FOR THE GLORY OF MOMMY! It's "engine" giving a feral sounding scream rivaled only by its tires on the street, the Van surged forward.

   After several minutes, Quaddle finally cut off his flow of energy into his staff. It was at that moment when he started hearing thumps, rumbles, and crashes. The floor even started to quake slightly. What now? Quaddle thought. He put the orb-end of his staff to his forehead and closed his eyes. Suddenly his vision was elsewhere, floating around and though walls, searching for the source of the distubrance-
   Something was making it's way up the stairs of the building. Quaddle didn't even want to know what it was. When will these biological depravities end? Big, dumb, and FUGLY AS ALL HELL. He thought. However, since the "thing's" brain was quite primitive, he was partially able to read the instincts, and to a small extent, it's thoughts. At the moment, it seemed to have one thing on it's mind: Splattering Quaddle. This gave Quaddle an idea.
   The room he was in was a large one, containing many desks, and took up most of the floor. Smiling greatly, he gave two mighty swings of his staff. Everything on his floor of the office building simply flew to the side walls. Then, Quaddle moved to one of the whole-story window-walls. He opened one up, and stood in front of it, facing the stairwell entrance. Now there was a completely straight path from the entrance to Quaddle.

The Van was trying for subtlety. While it couldn't think, it COULD hunt, and a vehicle growing huge, muscular, veiney legs and climbing up the side of the building (easier though it may be) would attract unneeded attention. Mommy wanted to keep a low profile. That means entering the building from the inside, and not roaring unless it was going really fast.
One more flight of stairs and it could eat the sought thing. It blinked the seatbelt light at Anastasia, who took the hint and buckled herself in. The rabbit stroked the horror's dashboard once, provoking another croon before it went silent. For a few minutes it waited. It didn't move, it didn't breathe, it barely even thought. Until the TIME. Right when the prey stopped smelling of wariness and started smelling of mild discomfort.
Then it truly MOVED.
Wheels were a nice way around, and it had taken Anastasia AGES to find a way of growing a biological wheel. However, the creature still preferred not holding its legs in. Its legs shot out, huge and muscular red/pink/grey veiney tree trunks, its claws (four on each foot, arrayed like the points of a compass) folding down over the wheels in midair. These same claws reaching above it, reaching the ceiling where they dug in to ricoche the Van to the side of the entrance, ensuring that it and the Sought Thing were parallel to the window. The sought thing could fly and it could not, so it couldn't simply rush it without ensuring it would not go through the window. It opened it's four part mouth to scream a challenge. Were a biologist to see it that alone would be another testament to Anastasia's craft; the esophagus that was closed until needed, the humanlike eyes remaining inside the mouth and seeing through the "headlights," the connection to the nasal passages under the "hood" that produced the enginelike noise, the writhing mass of prehensile tongues, the TEETH... Something made for the purpose of killing, with intimidation being a convenient bonus.
Anastasia stroked the creatures dashboard again with a soothing noise, and then rapped her finger against the steering wheel once. The creature tensed, ready to strike...

   Quaddle was standing in front of the open window, not really wary, just mildy cautious, but mostly confident. Then, all the disturbance stopped. Inexplicably. Oh for crying out loud, what NOW? he thought, irritated. He placed his staff to his forehead and did the same thing as before.
   But before he could locate the thing again, it made itself very obvious. It had come from the entrance, the rushed to the side, and faced Quaddle. Then it roared.
   Well well, Big Dumb And Ugly's not as Dumb as I thought... Normally, Quaddle would have complimented Anastasia, but at the moment, he was just mildly irritated.
   "I don't have time for this." He said. With that, he jumped backwards out the open window, conjured his disks, which went under his feet to support him, and zipped off.

Daemon was whisking silently through the alley ways, blood and graffiti splattered all around each one, keeping an eye up on the heavens as he went. Then he stopped abruptly on a fire escape, he could hear a faint voice in between the buildings. Although it was distorted from the cityscape, there was no white noise in the voice, like you would normally get when using a megaphone. It was probably him, and even if it wasn't he could question whoever it was before doing them a "favor". Daemon then jumped in the direction he heard it from and wall kicked his way through the alley ways.

"Liz, I think I got a lead on him, I can't see him yet, but I'm sure he's close by.", Daemon said through the makeshift comlink. He then jumped down toward a cross section in the city street, there were blood smears and tire tracks covering the road. A massacre... "I'm at the junction of Dr.King blvd. and Jefferson ave. It should be somewhere to the east from where you are at the moment, try to make your way over and let me know when you have a visual. Knight One Out."

Daemon walked out into the street and squated down to inspect the tracks. He then rubbed his finger on the blood marks and sniffed it. "They must have died no more then a few moments ago. This blood is still very red and fresh.", Daemon thought as he rubbed the blood off on his shirt. The tracks led into nearby building that had a large gaping hole in the entrance. It was still very quiet though, aside from some sirens he could hear off in the distance. Daemon walked up toward the broken entrance, he was then startled by a audious bellowing roar, coming up from above on the left side. He cocked his arms and rushed towards that side of the building, looking up at the windows. Then he saw him, flying off yet again.

"Coward....if you were smart you would finish what you started...", Daemon thought as he propped himself against the building, ready to spring. "I found him. He's up in the air again near the junction. I'm gonna try to bring him down."

The reality around Daemon's feet pulsed outward subtly, a split-second later he was rocketing upwards into the air towards Quaddle with the velocity of a F-4 Phantom Jet. Aiming both arms outward at him, Daemon began firing furiously at him.

   Not ten seconds after jumping out the window and zooming off, he heard a blast from behind him. He started to turn in air--and two machineguns sounded. Quaddle quickly brought his staff around, spinning it to generate the shield he did earlier, but just a second too late. A few of the bullets zipped by him, some went through his cape or robes, but several shot through parts of his body. Quaddle wasn't human, he was a Guardian, and such trivial wounds barely caused him pain, or even immediately consequential injury. That didn't mean he didn't have to fix it eventually, though. The rest of the bullets were blocked by the shield.
   "I though I ditched you, loser knight!" And in a split-second, Quaddle's mind processed exactly what Daemon had done. Does this fool of a Black Knight have a suicide wish or something?!? Daemon had made several stupid, critical, and rather obvious mistakes: he did not have his armor; thus he was unprotected, and he had done only a straight power-jump at Quaddle; thus he had zero maneuverability. He could not dodge anything Quaddle decided to throw at him...
   "I don't have time for you right now!" Quaddle stopped spinning his staff (a few more bullets got to him) and swung it towards Daemon. A single beam of white light, one foot in diameter, lanced at Daemon, just as he was a mere several yards away. It struck him square in the gut. It was nothing more than a forceblast-spell. Daemon's direction was reversed completely, flying back towards the ground at the same speed he jumped up. The initial spell does little damage, but that's not what it was for... Daemon impacted into the ground, leaving a good-sized crater. No, really.
   "You have no idea what I can do! I'm not even using half my power against you! These are basic spells! Yet you still kamikaze? You are an absolute fool!" Quaddle sent one more spell down at him, to slow him down and teach him a lesson. This one looked like nothing more than an innocent ball of multicolored light, and it fixed itself in front of Daemon's face. As soon as he looks at it, it would flash. Blindingly. As in, he'll be spending several minute rubbing sparklies out of his eyes.
   "Chew on that for awhile!"
   Quaddle enhanced his disks, turned around, and was zipping obove the streets at twice the speed he was going earlier. Hopefully, that would keep pursuers off his tail. He healed himself and fixed the holes in his robes as he went. He continued looking for mutant mobs to patch up.

"Hehehe.....HA HA HA HA!!", Daemon laughed as he lied there in the crater, his clothes tattered, but still not a scratch on him, the cellphone though was destroyed. Something was overtaking him, in the back of his mind, parts of himself long since forgotten. "I think that struck a nerve, hehe."

He then opened his eyes, a glowing ball of light was infront of him, and immediately it bursted brightly. Daemon looked away quickly, gripping the sword on his back. He then opened em up again, but he couldn't see anything except the blinding light, his body trembling. Then the darkness in the back of his mind triggered. He couldn't contain the unrelenting rage building within any longer as he felt the entirity of his being begin to burn. Daemon's hands ignited in shadow flame, his eyes lit up in bright white radiance and began to burn as well, his vision remedied. Immediately he unsheathed his void blade, within seconds it too was enveloped from the pyre burning in his hands. Daemon jumped up out of the crater, looking onward in the distance. He could still see him, but he was very far away, on the otherside of a river that cut through the heart of the city. Daemon made a broad swift swing with his weapon, unleashing a shockwave of darkness that cut through all the buildings infront of him causing them to collapse. He then began walking towards the river, every now and then slashing at the buildings around him as he went, destroying the cityscape in his wake. Although their exchange was sent into intermission, the battle within Daemon's mind flared on. The darkness, raging against the light. To his body though, only vengeance mattered now. He was Wrath incarnate.   

Red anvil came upon the city on silent wings. There was nothing but chaos, and from what she could make out a small battle between a man in red and a severely pissed man with a really big sword. She came in low. No need to attract attenton untill needed. That was a mistake. a mutant burst out of a window and latched on to her, both plummeting to the ground. When she hit Red knew she had her job cut out for her. she threw off the mutant and lit her hands in fire. "May God's grace guide me." she said quietly.

Daemon's plan made sense; it was the only thing that could be done without needing to factor in the zombie-things much. Liz nodded and stared as Daemon jumped off the building. Thank God I don't have to do that...

He walked over to the side of the building, kicked off his shoes and socks, and jumped. After he'd fallen a little ways, he turned around and stuck his hands and feet to the side of the building. Then he crawled the rest of the way down as quickly as he could. Man, am I glad I'm a lizard.

Then Daemon's voice crackled from Liz's phone, informing him of the knight's location. Liz ran fluidly from shadow to shadow, slashing mutants who came near him with a steel blade. He was about five blocks from Daemon when he heard that Quaddle was close by. Then he heard a lot of noise, and what sounded like Quaddle shouting. He listened as best he could, sprinting in Daemon's direction. The red-cloaked mage flew right over Liz's head, but he heard a splintering sound from the phone.

"HE BETTER NOT BE DEAD, BASTARD!" Liz called after Quaddle, not caring whether he heard or not. There was smoke up ahead coming from a huge crater in the ground. Liz screeched to a stop when ... was that Daemon? He looked different somehow...

Daemon faced a row of buildings and sliced them apart with a pure shockwave. Liz screamed and jumped back. "Are you alright?!" he yelled to Daemon, but he didn't seem to hear the gecko. He just walked off in Quaddle's direction, right past Liz.

Liz stood there for a moment, then jogged to the side of the street and crawled along the walls, watching Daemon to see what he'd do.

"Your friend can't hear you now, Liz.",  a voice echoed within Liz' mind. "Right now he is at the complete mercy of his own power. Had he not been wearing those gloves, he would have been lost right about now."

The reality around Daemon shimmered, the visage of two small boys appearing behind him, the same he had confronted before. Daemon couldn't sense them at all, he just kept walking. The boys looked up at Liz, their eyes glowing blue. "You're the only one who can see or hear me right now."

They then looked back at Daemon, and vanished, reappearing seconds later on top of the building Liz was crawling on. "You should get going, your other friend may require your assistance." They both gestured towards the building Quaddle flew out of, then vanished again.

Daemon gazed up at the heavens, and raised his burning blade over his head. He began twirling it again like he did before, except this time the darkness flowing out of his blade began to swirl chaotically around him. He was lifted up and then enveloped by a tornado of darkness. The boys appeared before the tornado and held out their arms, their eyes glowing brightly. The tornado coalesced into a ball of pure shadow, and engulfed them.

"I'll explain this later to you, if he survives. Until then take this, you may need it to fight him."

The orb of darkness shimmered, out shot an obsidian amulet. Liz caught it, then the orb vanished. "As long as your wearing it, nothing he throws at you can hit you. Be warned though, it will not save you if you fight him hand to hand. Farewell...."

Red anvil gave the mutant a good right hook and it landed awkwardly a few feet away. She flew off before more could over come her. Then she saw a lizard, they both appeared to be chaseing the red person and she knew the red man was helping, so he must be a cause of trouble. She flew at him ams streached out and covered in flame.

Liz wondered for a moment how and why he should wear a now-invisible orb that two mysterious children had given him, but then a flaming woman flew toward him. He unstuck his hands and jumped off the wall, landing and generating a copper spike in one hand.

"I don't have the time for this!" Liz shouted, running towards the building Quaddle had flown out of. What did they mean, my other friend? Is someone else here too? And who was that?

"Why do they run?" Red muttered to herself. Then she proceeded to follow him. "If you tun your self in, it'll be much easier on you!" she shouted.

Who the hell is she and why does she care what I do? Liz thought. He had realized by this point that maybe she wouldn't attack him. Unsure of whether this was really the smartest thing to do, he stopped and spun around to face the woman, every muscle in his body taut in case she tried anything and he had to run again. He noticed that she looked like a very beautiful representation of the devil, with crimson hair, dark eyes and red skin. His eyes met hers and he spoke calmly.

"Turning myself in would be boring, ma'am, and much worse than my current position. Once they figure out what I can do, they'll never leave me alone. They might ship me to a lab and have me dissected to see how I can do such things. They might even kill me to keep the economy safe. And I can't have that happen. I'm not done living yet, and I can't force my family and loved ones into such a mess." He smirked a little. "Besides, the world is already in chaos - I'm just making it more obvious."

His half-hearted smile faded. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to keep my co-workers safe." He walked quickly toward the building again, waiting to see if she'd chase him.

Every muscle in her frame bulged as she swung her forearms into the side of the building. The area around the impact caved noticeable and the whole building shook as if an earth quake had hit."You should have thought about that befor you broke the law!" Her arms felt a slight bit tender after that.

After that chase the end was rather anticlimactic. Anastasia pulled out her gun and fired a few shots at Quaddle as he escaped, but she was no marksman and her shots went wide by quite a bit. Daemon hurdled by soon after, further confusing and frustrating the rabbit. Where in the bouncing hell did he-? Bah, gift horses.
Now there was simply the issue of how to get down. On the one hand, after managing to keep a low profile so far it seemed stupid to just have the Van clamber down the building. After all, they wanted to make the incidents seem unrelated and the Van would be recognized. Then again, Daemon blasting by for everyone to see could have sent that plan to hell anyway.
"@#$% it, the stairs aren't meant for things of your weight anyway..." She drummed her fingers on the dashboard, and finally reached a compromise. "Break through some floors to get down, get out when we're closer to the ground." The Van hurried to obey, bringing one claw down with as much force as it could.

--

It wasn't fast, but eventually the Van (Its legs scrunched back into the wheelwells and its mouth closed, once more from the outside a normal van) drove through the second floor window in a stunt that would bring a tear to the eye of any Hollywood director. Landing on its back wheels first, it fishtailed and tore off down the road to follow Quaddle. As it did it noticed another Red Thing and, assuming it might be important, pointed Anastasia in its direction with one of the dashboard blinkers. She glanced out the window as the Van approached Red and Liz to get a better look at what was going on near her. Liz is fighting... A human twizzler? Must be doing good if she's on fire...

Liz stopped yet again, but only because he could feel the shockwave from the red woman hitting the building. She had power, there was no question of that; but would she use that power on him or not?

He turned once again, taking a few steps toward her. "I respect your strength, and admire you for trying to change my ways. But I'm not going to. And recent events have led me to believe that one of my friends is in that building. Since I can't have you keep interrupting me - " At this he stopped talking and abruptly swung the heavy end of the spike at the woman's side.

Bad move. Being as tough as she is she was barely affected and she wrapped both hands around liz's arms and ripped him off the building. She looked him square in the eye. "I don't care if you change or not you're still going to jail. I just said it may be easier." with that she threw him to the ground.


*OOC she has him lifted so his feet are only inches off the groung but she throws him torso first down*

Liz barely had time to register the surprise about such a heavy weapon having no effect on the woman before she grabbed him by the arms and threw him down. His back scraped against the rocks and other debris in the road. He wasn't hurt too seriously, but it still stung like crazy.

"Rrgh...ngah...okay..." He stood up slowly, gritting his teeth and looking more than a little pissed off. "I wasn't gonna use this attack... but it seems nothing else might work against you." He tossed off his jacket and side-stepped quickly till he was standing ten paces away from the building he'd been crawling on. He was still facing the woman; he made sure of that. Then, without making any clever comment at all, he curled up into a ball and began spinning in place rapidly.

Darts made from almost every kind of metal conceivable flew out of Liz's skin, and he could hear glass breaking, car alarms going off, and a few people screaming. Best hope they run away... He was trying to concentrate the darts on the woman, but since he couldn't really look up, he hoped for the best.

He was rewarded by sounds of agrivation. "UGH Ow! sonova OW!" Red ripped a piece of blacktop out of the road about as big as two fists. She chucked it but good at liz. "You'll put someone's eye out!" she called. Then started ripping the darts out of their shallow resting places.

Liz stopped when he heard sounds of pain in the red woman's direction. He uncurled and stood, seeing, to his dismay, that it had only worked a little. The needles were stuck in her, but he had been hoping they'd pierce a little farther than that. She wasn't even bleeding that much! He tried to dodge the pieces of road she threw at him, but they bounced off his forearm.

"OWW! JEEZ!" Liz shouted, his other hand going to his arm immediately. "I was hoping to put out more than your eye, lady!" he yelled at Red. "What the hell are you?!"

Roulette obligingly got into the car with Dile Lass, smiling, as usual. The ride went by without much trouble, for the first few moment, at least... A small buzz from Roulette's pocket, and she paused in her somewhat idiotic ramblings to pick up.
"Church of England, cake or death?" a large smile on her face, as she waited for the boss to respond, and, once he had, her face fell.
"Right, right... Damn, I'll let them know." She hung up, and glanced at Dile Lass. "Get Croc, we need to get back to the states. Something's gone down, some dude with a staff or something, Daemon, Liz, and Anastasia might be in sme trouble, some flaming red chick just popped up and has been being a bit of a pain." She sighed. "Damned heroes, always getting in the way... Either way, the Boss is pretty worried about the dude with the staff... He's leaving his building."

   Quaddle had flown around the city for some time. He gladly noted that the police and firefighters were doing as he said, and the mutants were getting hearded toward the center. They came in much larger groups, and Quaddle was able to take out more of them on one blast. He had almost half the mutants converted by now.
   But it was still taking too long.
   His staff was getting low on charge after seven clensing blasts, he would need to recharge soon. There's got to be a better way to do this... All my amplification devices are still in my hideout...Wait! Of course!... oh, that's going to take a lot of power... but I think I can do it!
   The center of the city had higher buildings and skyscrapers. Quaddle darted up to near the top of one. Once inside, he quickly cast a scry-spell again. Better keep an eye on the Pawns... and what he found surpised him greatly.
   Dameon was gone, but Liz was fighting...someone. Quaddle had no idea who she was, but The enemy of my enemy is my friend doctrine kicked in. I better pick her up when I leave here...
   He turned off his scry-spell and began charging again. This one was going to take a little more time, about seven minutes. Before beginning the charging, he cast a spell on himself to magically extend his spatial senses. Now, if anything were to come near his little building, he'd know about it well ahead of time.

As the car rolled to a clunky stop infront of her house/citadel/throne type thing Dile Lass turned to Rouletee and spke to her very ernestly. "Croc is hurt and I'd rather not risk him being worse off for the wear, and I've my country to attend to... I have a very important meeting. I can't send my military because at the moment the U.S. finds out they's squish us like a bug. This is on your sholder for now Rou but I know you can handle it. I have a private jet on the roof take it and PLEASE bring it back in one piece."



*************************

Red and Liz seemed to be at a stand still. She had strength and he had speed, though they were about equal in the brains dept. "I don't know who you are, but you have to stop makeing things around here worse." Red ripped the window of a news paper dispenser off and used it like a sheild should he try his little dart trick again. She bagan walking to him at a stady and moderate pace.

"When y'all can, please, head over, If the boss thinks he needs to leave, we're in trouble." Roulette nodded. "Until then, I'll see ya. I'll try to give a call every once in a while to let you know how we're doin'."
--

The Boss was already well on his way- he'd 'forgotten' to call Roulette until he was most of the way into Michigan already, and now, was watching the destruction from a ways away, leaning out of the open door from his limo. He nodded once or twice, a half-smile on his mouth.
"Good, good..." He motioned over one of the small robots that had been in his building- how he was able to bring then was a wonder to anyone.
"Do me a favor." He said, not bothering to look at the little thing. "Go and find our opposition, let him know that I'd like to talk. Purely business, no hostility." The robot gave a small noise- I suppose it was of agreement? And sped off towards the city.

   After a good solid several minutes of charging, Quaddle finally figured he had enough energy stored. He jumped out of the tower he was in, and floated down to the bottom of the street. It was near the center, but mostly empty (as Quaddle had cast a clensing spell on it earlier). He walked to the middle of the street, and began to weave a powerful, yet relatively simple spell. This spell was going to chew up a great amount of energy, as it's range had to be huge.
   After thirty seconds, he had what he thought he needed. He raised his staff high above his head. The staff-orb flashed blue, sending invisible tendrils of magic all throught the city.
   Everywhere in the city, gems, jewels, and crystals simply floated into the air of their own accord, and began flying through the streets. The windows of jewelry stores shattered as a torrent of shiny things sped through them. Gems set into rings, necklaces or anything else simply detached themselves from their metal bands, leaving them behind.
   In the center of the city, Quaddle stood as his magic did it's thing. Rivers of gems paraded toward him. He held out a hand, and the sparkly things converged above it, becoming a rather pretty multicolored micro-maelstrom. It got bigger and bigger as more and more gems flew to it.

The Van rolled to a stop near Liz. The window rolled down slowly without Anastasia's interference. The Van knew what she wanted.
"We have bigger fish to fry, Liz. The other one's able to screw up everything we've gotten done here so far. Way more work than I'd like down the crapper," The Van's back doors swung open, its interior dark in contrast with the light coming in from the windshield. However, one got the impression of movement back there... "Come on. We can leave the girl for later."

"No! I won't let you." Red picked up the pace to a mediocre run. "This ends here!" However Red was mistaken as Liz had plenty of time to hop in and leave.


*********************
"Take care Rou hate to see you get hurt." Dile Lass said as she climbed out of the clunker.

(OOC: Holy shit, this went on far longer than I expected. Apologies again for the uber-long post, I was telling myself I would never do it again, but...gahhhh. Sorry.)

   The three would notice that the rivers of gems had stopped flowing. It seems they were all now gone...

   Back in the center of the city, Quaddle was engulfed in a whirlwind created by the spiraling gems. His cape was flowing in the air, and bits of paper and rubbish were flying all around the street. But, the flow of incoming jewels and crystals began to taper off, and soon stopped all together. The vortex of sparkles slowed and became a lazy, peaceful, silent swirl.
   Satisfied that he had enough material, Quaddle motioned with his hand, and the gems gathered in a loose ball. He placed his staff upright under the ball, and it stayed there, standing on it's point. Quaddle made an upward motion with his hands--and he floated a little into the air.
   He didn't have to actually be touching his staff to draw upon it's magic, but he did have to be in fairly close proximity. As for what he was going to do, he needed the speed and precision of hand motions to guide the gems rather than the crude wave of a staff.
   Without hesitating, he set to work. He moved his hands in elaborate ways, and the gems, jewels, and crystals followed. He started by sorting them out. Then he made cupping and squeezing motions, and the gems began crushing themselves together. He made angular motions, and the clusters cut and shaped themselves. He began maneuvering the pieces into place, and fused them together. He continued the process of shaping them while simultaneously putting them together and fusing them. In no more than two minutes, he stopped and looked at his creation. Think a giant, massive crystal shaped somewhat like an angular umbrella with stained-glass colors and you'll get the basic idea of what he made.
   With the composite crystal still floating, Quaddle lowered himself back to the ground. The making of the crystal did take a noticeable amount of energy out of his recently charged staff, but it was the spell to retrieve all the components that drained the most. He checked the power level in his staff--did it still have enough for what he needed to do? He hoped it did, he didn't have enough time to charge again. He might be ambushed before he could begin the final phase.
   He made a high raising motion with both arms, and the giant gem flew straight up. It climbed higher and higher, until it was above the tallest buildings in the city. In anyone looked up, it would be almost impossible to miss the huge glint of moonlight reflecting and refracting through the crystal. He struggled slightly to keep it steady; it was difficult to control magic from such a great distance, until he affixed the gem on a magical axis of his staff.
   Quaddle placed his hands on his staff, which had remained in place the whole time. Without a second to waste, the staff's orb began to glow--then a huge, intense golden beam literally erupted from the orb and blasted toward the gem. No one could miss the beam.
   It shot up at a rapid pace, and in seconds, it hit the tip of the shaft of the umbrella-shaped gem, and stopped. Soft golden light began creeping up the shaft of the gem, got to the wide canvas-part, and spread. When the entire crystal was suffused with golden light, a great golden beacon in the sky, it too seemed to erupt.
   Liquid golden light spilled out of the gem downward, and began filling the entire city. The spell itself was powerful in its own right, but not something that could cleanse the entire city on its own. The crystal acted as both a focusing lens and an amplification devise.
   The light flowed through the streets, through the buildings, through everything. Anything with eyes would be seeing nothing but gold as the light washed over them, not even closing one's eyelids could stop it. It penetrated everything.
   As the spell washed over everything, it began to work itself. Every remaining mutant in the city (though no one could see what was happening) dropped to the ground, convulsing in agony. All mutated body parts retracted, becoming softer and normal.
   The spell, being so intensely amplified by the crystal, had several side effects. It essence, the spell itself was basically a reversal spell (to reverse the mutation) combined with a cleansing spell (to remove the mutagen from a body system), and retrofitted specifically to the mutagen. But the original effects and purposes were still there, normally negligible until the gem. Anything unclean was washed away. As it passed through normal people, the spell removed all foreign substances and toxins from their bodies entirely. Any drugs- prescription, over-the-counter, or illegal-were simply eradicated. If anyone had anything stored in their bowels or bladders, they would feel a tingling sensation as all waste products simply vanished from their insides. This also included half-digested food. Everyone would be raving hungry when this was over. Another side effect-thanks to the reversal part of the spell-being so intensely magnified, caused everyone to 'grow' one or two years younger. The spell also cleansed the streets, all dirt and trash wiped off, and the light also flooded the sewers, evaporating every taint. If anyone visits them later, they would find it as clean as a surgery room.
   All these effects, of course, extended to Red Anvil, Anastasia, and Liz. Golden blindness, empty but cleansing feeling, de-aging one or two years. This effect wasn't even confined to humans, all living organisms were affected. Mice, dogs, cats, birds, pets, strays, and The Van all felt these effects.
   The entire city, to any onlookers from the outside, was completely engulfed in a great golden half-sphere.
   But the whole time this was all happening, Quaddle was having problems.
   The crystal-gem, being a hashed together composite one, as opposed to a pure one, had difficulty handling the sheer raw amounts of magical energy it was magnifying itself. Feedback vibrations had shuddered down the beam to the staff, and had been shaking Quaddle. His staff was indestructible, it was crafted by the Elder Universe-Guardians themselves, as all Guardian Tools were, to be able to manage this kind of energy, but the crystal most certainly wasn't. If it imploded the wrong way, it could go off with the destructive force and range of an A-Bomb.
   And that would be very bad indeed.
   Quaddle attempted to stabilize the crystal, and it worked--for a few moments. Then the feedback came back, slightly stronger. Try as he might, Quaddle simply could not keep the composite gem high above him from fluctuating. If anyone could see the gem close-up, without all the golden light, they would see small black spots begin to appear, and grow bigger. The crystal simply could not handle the energy--it was beginning to burn out. The crystal gradually grew blacker and blacker.
   Down beneath, Quaddle could sense the problem, but didn't know how much time he had. If he went too long, it might go nuclear.
   But finally, he and the gem had enough. With a mighty roar that echoed throughout the city, and somewhat into the countryside, Quaddle yanked his staff, severing the connection.
   High above, the almost-totally black giant crystal shattered. Not into shards, but into blackened ash-dust. It vaporized into oblivion.
   The light that had filled the entire city slowly faded.
   Down below, Quaddle nearly collapsed. The strength needed not to sustain the spell, but to hold the spell stable, had come from him, and it exhausted him. The staff was completely and utterly drained. He shakily placed a hand on the orb of the staff, and tried to recharge it. He was a Guardian, his soul held a limitless reservoir of raw energy, he could assume many different forms at will, and he essentially had no vital areas and could take a fair deal more damage than any human, but his body was still mortal. It said "Nope, I've had enough", and Quaddle collapsed on the ground, struggling to stay conscious.

   Throughout the city, everyone else would stagger to their feet, feeling better than every before in their lives, a year or two younger, and empty and starving to boot.

Liz had generated a steel pole in his hand when all the gems started flying past. "Wait... what?" he muttered as crystals, diamonds, and almost every kind of precious stone he knew of shot past him. He gave Red a look saying It's not me!

Then Anastasia pulled up. Liz's shock about her appearance from nowhere and a seemingly alive creature in the back showed, but he had no tie to acknowledge it as Red started walking up. He jumped in the van. But before they could leave, a blinding light surrounded them and everything else. Liz shielded his eyes from the glare, and felt very odd things going on in his body. He didn't see any of what went on, only heard a loud roar and the sound of something shattering. When he uncovered his eyes, he felt... lighter. Younger. Healthier.

And for some reason, he was starving.

"Let's get out of here and get something to eat," he told Anastasia.

As Red ran tward Liz two things happened during the spell. Firstly, she was blinded. This pissed her off. Secondly, the metal that was replaceing the bone in her shin was gone. Her shin just crumpled as she fell to the ground with a scream of pain audible for miles. If any one were able to see it they would feel ill and have deep sympathy pains for her. She lay on the ground nurseing her limp shin.

"Sounds like a plan," the rabbit sighed, ignoring the screaming hero before her. "After all, all that work I put into that mutagen's been wrecked. It would take months to even use it again, and we can't afford any recognizable patterns." Besides, she was starving. The Van was too, but if Mommy wanted to go rather than let it eat the loud thing first then it would do as it was told. "I know a place relatively close to here that doesn't ask stupid questions about odd looking patrons. Or their pets."
Now that Liz was in the car rather than looking in from outside, a few more things were readily apparent. Small veins were visible on the inside walls of the Van, pulsing gently. Something large, like some gargantuan snake or slug, kept moving under the rug laid out on the floor in the back beneath the mans feet, as well as something under the cushions on the bench he sat upon. However, probably the most abnormal aspect was the area in front of each front seat. There were no pedals for brakes or gas, nor the usual blank expanse before the passenger seat. Instead, beneath where two people would sit, were what could only be called mouths. Large, red, toothy mouths whose tongues flicked out to taste the air every so often.
"I'd stay seated back there if I were you," Anastasia said, looking back at him in the mirror, "It doesn't really like strangers and it doesn't know you yet."
The Van drove off, heading for that diner.

Red being as persistant as she is grabbed another chunk of blacktop and chucked it at the van. It hit the back doors with a thunk and left a scratch, but the van was otherwise undamaged.

Liz sat on the bench and was all too grateful to follow Anastasia's advice. In fact, he pulled his knees up to his chest and curled his tail around his legs to add to his secure feeling. Something the bunny had said had grabbed his attention though.

"Wait... YOU did this?" he asked. "Was that water virus your fault? Because you put my girlfriend in danger." He kept his tone mild - it was water under the bridge. "Please avoid that in the future."

"Really? Didn't know where she was," the Van shuddered under Red's attack, but didn't stop, "Figured all you rich people imported your water from springs in Romania or something like that. Sorry about that. In fact..." Anastasia did some quick thinking, "She may be at risk of a few MINOR things anyway. She was outside that blast that undid all my hard work, so there may still be some in her bloodstream. If she's abnormally susceptable to the stuff, she may be in trouble anyway. Should we pick her up on the way?"

Red got up and hopped on her good leg a short distance to a residential building stoop. "What on earth?" She put one hand on her knee and poked her shin. It was a loose bag of ichor and muscle. Red was not pleased.

"Oh no, she didn't drink anything," Liz assured the rabbit. "Crystal's pretty good at telling when something's wrong with food." He paused, then remembered something she'd said. "But come to think of it... she said she dumped it in the plants. Any idea whether that would cause any harm?"

"Erm..." Anastasia thought hard. It was a toughie, "Not sure. It's not SUPPOSED to, if that's any help. You may want me to take a look later." Now that they were out of harms way, the Van's driving was a bit less hectic. The things under the seat even seemed to writhe less. "So, pick her up? This may not be a good place to be a reptile right now, and seeing as this stuff was in the water supply for a little less than a month she may have downed some anyway. Started off at pretty low concentrations."

This was something Liz hadn't known, or considered. The authorities had only found the virus this morning. "Yeah, in that case, we should. Our house is in Monroe. It's a little town a couple miles from here." He pulled out his cell. "Should I call her now, or should we get food first?"

Gentan was only less then a minute in the city and he already got attacked by some kind of green monster. He jumped over the monster to dodge his claw that tried to remove his head of his body. When he landed on his feet he turned fast and kicked the monster against its head. The monster rolled 10 feet over the ground before it stopped against a car and the thing stayed down on the ground being unconsious.

Gentan saw a big bright light almost like it exploded and the monster turned in a human infront off his eyes. "Man, this is one of the weirdest things I have seen," he said against him self and started to run fast towards the light to see what it caust. His shadow turned beneath his feet in a spring box and launchs him up in the air on a roof. After a few blocks he jumped down and landed straight on a Van's hood and a rabbit was driving it. He quickly rubbed his eyes and saw it was reall he stared at in disbelief for a minute before he launchs him self again up in the air.

After a little while Gentan reached where the light explosion should have come from and he noticed a guy in a red robed thats lays on the floor. "Yo bud, are you okay?" he asked the guy and he looked around he saw nothing dangerous but you could not be carefull enough.  He lifted the guy up and carried him towards a building that seemed destroyed.

Inside the building Gentan put the guy down on a coutch and he started to block the door and windows on the first floor. Once he was done he came back with some bottled water and put one on the table for the guy. "Man, whats up with this town he asked not sure if he would get an answer.

"Call her. We don't know how much those guys in the city knew about us; she may be a target," Anastasia told Liz, heading toward Monroe. "Tell her to get whatever she absolutely needs together; we can't leave her where just anyone could pick her up."

   Quaddle was summoning what little willpower he had left to stay concious. It is impossible for his spells to directly drain the energy needed from him, he must draw the energy from the staff after he has poured his own energy into it. Having the soul of a Guardian, his self-reservoirs of power are virtually unlimited. However, the concentration needed to cast and maintain spells does come directly from him. Usually it is negligible, but the concentration required to fire the cleansing spell, keep the crystal in one piece for as long as he did, and containing it so that half the state doesn't turn into a wasteland, that was so draining that it actually exacted a physical toll on him.
   And it was enormous.
   But eventually, Quaddle felt himself lifted into the air by someone's arms. He could not see who, he was faced away and his hood obscured his vision, but he dearly hoped it wasn't one of the Pawns. He felt himself carried a short distance, and from what he could see, into a destroyed building. All along the way, he maintained a death-grip on his staff, and just barely managed charge it a little.
   Once inside, he felt himself placed upright on a couch. He still could not see much, but he heard the sounds of several heavy somethings being moved around. After a little of this, the footsteps of his unknown friend came near, and he saw a hand place a bottle of water on a side table next to Quaddle. He tried to lift a hand to grab for it, but it was useless. Then he tried concentrating instead. The orb of his staff flashed weakly, and the bottle wobbled into the air, and started floating slowly and shakily toward Quaddle. About halfway, it wavered, and Quaddle concentrated more. The orb on his staff flashed again, and the bottle suddenly flew with great velocity, thwacking Quaddle square on the nose.
   The bottle flew to the ground and spilled everywhere, and if Quaddle couldn't move before, he could now. Both his hands, one still clutching the staff, flew up to cover his throbbing nose as he whimpered a little, rocking back and forth.
   Through his fingers, he looked up slightly, and saw whom he assumed was the one who had broght him here. He was a man clad in traditional, yet distictive, elite shadow-class ninjitsu garb.
   Quaddle didn't know who he was, but he was still holding out for 'friend'. "Who...who are you?" Quaddle managed to choke out weakly.

Gentan noticed the staff of the guy flashing a bit and the bottle started to move a bit before it flew straight in the guys face. "Ow, that got to hurt," he stated and standed up to help the guy a bit more. He walked over and gave his own bottle. "Just call me Gentan and from who do I have the honor to be in the presence with?" he replied as he pult the guy a bit up so that he could sit.

"One moment got to check if we aren't being approached," Gentan walked to the window and pushed a closed out off the way a bit. A snake like tentacle came out off his side and went through the small crack before it came back. "No one to see," he said as he pushed the closed back on his place and went to his seat.

   Quaddle thankfully took the offered water and drank some of it. Just enough to restore better speech, Quaddle wasn't greedy. Then he handed it back.
   "I'm... I'm Quaddle, archmage." Quaddle was able to sit up by himself now. He noticed Gentan walk over to one of the windows and...shift his very arm into living shadow. He looked at his staff, and red energy crackled from Quaddle to it as he began charging it.
   After a good ten seconds of this, Quaddle stopped charging, and held the staff in front of him. he concentrated on it, and the orb glowed a soft golden-white. Quaddle gasped as the energy, in the refined form of magic, flowed back into his body, rejuvenating him.
   Quaddle then suddenly stood up, he physical energy (somewhat) restored. He couldn't do any overtly stenuous activity, but he wouldn't need to at the moment, he hoped. Gentan should get a good look at Quaddle's face now, and he should realize that Quaddle (looks) like nothing more than a teenager.
   Quaddle then turned to Gentan, and pointed his staff at him. "Look into the orb. Do not be alarmed, do not resist." Quaddle commanded, holding the staff up to head hight. The orb glowed, and Gentan would find his eyes locked onto the orb, unable to look anywhere else.
   "Are you a friend or foe to me?" Quaddle asked simply. Thanks to the spell that Quaddle had a vicegrip on Gentan with, he wouldn't be able to answere anything but the direct truth. It would wear off the moment Gentan does answer, though.

When Gentan turned around he stared in the globe that was now shining and Quaddle asked him "Are you friend or foe?" He give a loud sign and answered "I am neutral, I help those in need and who are not capible to defend them self."

Gentan felt that he could move again and did not waist any time of wondering what would happen next. He pushed the staff out off his way so that he would not get hit by any other suprise. He gave a fast kick against Quaddle temple to disoriantate the guy. He grabbed the staff and punched Quaddle very hard against the chest sending him flying against the wall. Gentan's right arm turned in a scissor and punched the blades into the wall with Quaddles head between the two blades so that he could not do something without losing his headl.

Gentan looked at the guy and shaked his head a bit "Now I have a question for you! Are you friend or foe," putting the emphasis on both you's.

   Quaddle knew he was telling the truth when he answered, the spell wouldn't allow him to do otherwise. He also didn't resist as Gentan thwacked him around. Had Quaddle been at full power, he could have done something about it, but at the moment, he didn't want to. This must be handled tactfully.
   Quaddle looked up with the shadow-blades around his throat. "My answer is rather similar to your answer. However, I do not see how throwing me around like a ragdoll and threatning my life are neccesary. You'll notice, I did not harm you in any way. I merely performed a simple truth-spell on you. At this point in time, I have many enemies, most of whom I haven't even met yet. I cannot afford to take any chances. I had to be sure you were not in league with the Pawns.
   "Though I'm apparantly mistaken in thinking that you wish me no harm." Quaddle said, looking grimly at Gentan.

Gentan turned his hand back to normal and pulled Quaddle up to his feet by his arm. "Sorry about that its sorta a reflex. I thought you made a error with your spell so I reacted to it before you could restore it," he apologized and gave the staff back to Quaddle.

Gentan walked to the door and pulled the closed that was infront off it out of the way so that he could go outside. "Maybe you can now answer why this city is in such a bad shape?" he asked while he was looking to the wrecked city. Hearing people come out of they're hiding places from many diffenent directions.

Liz nodded and clicked speed-dial.

"Hey Cryssie. ... Oh. So you saw the news. ... Yeah, I'm alive. A little scratched up, but honestly I'm feeling better than I ever have. I'm on my way home right now. ... Another of my coworkers showed up and gave me a lift. So are you OK? ... He didn't show up? Thank goodness. Well, listen. I've got some bad news. ... I'd rather not tell it to you over the phone. I'll explain later, but grab any essential items you can and pack up.  You might want to close the shop too. We're leaving for a while. ... I'm not sure. Yeah, sorry. ... OK, see you in a few. Bye."

He hung up and grabbed a pencil and an old receipt out of his pants pocket. He scribbled his address down quickly and handed it to Anastasia. "This is where we live. Just go straight until you hit Oak Street, then turn right. We're the second house from the cul-de-sac - the white one with navy shutters."

   Quaddle took his staff back, and followed Gentan outside.
  "Indeed I can," Said Quaddle in response to Gentan's query. "Two of the Pawns were looking to stir up trouble in this city. A third one, a derranged bio-scientist, intoduced a muatgen to the city. It mutated part of the populace into horrible monstrosities. You would have to be beyond blind to have missed the giant explosion-like light earlier, that was me flooding the entire city with my magic to cleans the mutagen and reverse the mutations.
  "But now that it is over, they would have to be fools to continue to look for trouble. The city's civil sevice forces are all on full alert, and the national guard may have even been called upon. If you wish to help me on my current mission, we must collect another person and flee-" Quaddle's eyes suddenly widened. "I forgot about her!"
  Quickly, Quaddle slammed his staff into the ground and concentrated, activating a scry-spell. The strange firey woman in red who had been fighting Liz earlier swam into view, and she was hobbling around, clutching her shin. Quaddle zoomed in on it, and began using his magic in an attempt to identify the problem. He quickly found out.
  "Oops. My spell did more than I thought." Quaddle deactivated the spell and turned to Gentan. "Well? Do you wish to aid me?"

Gentan had no idea what the Quaddle talked about with the muatgen, he knew about lots of high tech stuff, but bio-engineering was way over his head. "Yea sure lead the way," he answered as he waited for quaddle to go a direction. "But what does that group want any way? There has to be a simple reason why someone want to destroy a whole city?" he had seen destruction and murder in his life but not on this big scale.

   While Gentan was speaking, Quaddle was charging his staff as much as he could afford. "There is a simple reason for all of this," Quaddle said, "But I'd rather wait to explain. There! That should do it." Quaddle said as he finished charging his staff. He turned back to Gentan. " We must be swift. I can take us out of here, and to my hideout very quickly, but the...ride...for you will most certainly be disconcerting the first time around. Prepare yourself."
   With out waiting for Gentan's responce, Quaddle jumped into the air, and would have fallen back to the ground--if two disks of golden energy hadn't materialized out of nowhere under his feet with a flash of his staff. He turned to face away from gentan, and held his staff so that it was backwards, the orb pointing at Gentan. The orb flashed white, and Gentan would feel a firm, but gental force envelope his body. He could move, but it was somewhat limited. The disks at Quaddle's feet began to glow very strongly. A low humming sound filled the air as the air around them seemed to ripple. The humming intensified as the the disks gathered more energy. After about ten seconds of this, Gentan's world wuld seem to explode. In reality, Quaddle suddenly shot forward with speeds in excess of several times the speed of sound. Thanks to the spell he cast on Hentan, he was dragged along as if physically bonded. Thanks to magic, niether of them were torn apart by the sheer forces as normal physics would dictate. There were also no sonic booms. They were nothing more than a red, gold, and blask streak in the air.
   Aftere mere seconds, they stopped abruptly. Right in front of the woman knows as Red Anvil.
   Quaddle held out his hand to her. "I'm terribly sorry about your leg. I'll patch it up soon. If you are an ally, come with me, quickly, no time for questions now. Save them for later. We must get out of here!"

Gentan got already doubts when he heard that the trip would be a bit uncomfortable for him but before he could protest they shot away really fast. When they stopped after the little trip Gentan wobbelt back and forth as a drunk he could feel the inside off his stomach still moving fast. "I think I like the old fashion way off traveling more," he stated as he leaned against the edge off the building breathing loud trying to keep his food inside.

Then Gentan noticed a purson that was not wearing red, no he was red of its self. Off the shock Gentan slipped over some lose peddels and fell on his butt. "What the hell," he said as his hands changed in swords not knowing if he would be attacked or not. Though Quaddle was not afraid off the creature.

Anastasia looked at the instructions and nodded, then simply pressed them against the (thing that looked like a) speedometer on the dashboard, leaned back in her chair, and closed her eyes while she thought about what they were up against.

About fifteen minutes later the Van pulled up outside Liz's house. "Do me a favor?" the scientist said, not opening her eyes, "Warn her about the front seat when you go pick her up."

Red stood up on her good leg. "I saw how you travel, and I will be fine with my own mode. Where ever you're going there better be a hospital there." Red could feel he ankle of her bad shin swelling with her putrid black ichor it wouldn't be plesant for either of the would be heros either. Her ankle would appear a deeper shade of red and drasticly distended. "Well?" She blurted "What are we waiting for?"

~"So....do you remember now?"~
"I remember being betrayed."
~"We did what we had to do. We can't never go back, our cries are beyond his ears, and they have been ever since the day we were shut out."~
"I will make him hear us."
~"You tried that before and still you've payed no heed to the cost."~
"I have to try. You and that whore may have resided yourselves to despair, but I'm not giving up on him. I'll make him hear me, and if either of you try to interfere again I'll see it personally that both of you burn for an eternity."
~"So this is good-bye then, old friend? You're right, but whatever hope you see, I can not see it. I will not stop you, but I can't say the same about her.....good-bye."~

His vision blurred, the shell cracked, and in an instant he found himself on the roof of a familiar face's residence. He was draped in a black trench coat with a sport jacket and red tie residing under it, his eye's shielded by crimson sunglasses. A suitcase in his left hand, he quietly thought to himself as he looked upon a van approaching down the road, "....That must be him......plus....another?"

He then sat down as he watched it pull up on the side of the road, he could see Liz beginning to step out of the vehicle. He decided to wait, to see what would happen, he looked like he was in a hurry.

   "Alright, if you say so." Quaddle said to her. He turned to Gentan. "Lucky for you, I only had that small burst of speed in me. From now on I'll have to travel normally. I don't know what...um...haven't caught her name yet...she can do, but she must be confident if she's seen me flying around on my disks. Do you have some form of self-propelled aerial transportation?"
   Quaddle summoned his disks again and stood on them, hovering about a foot off the ground. He waited for Gentan and the woman who's name he knows not to react. He didn't want to be dragging Gentan halfway around the world.

(OOC: Fex, your guy's ability to become a smoke cloud might come in handy here ;))

With a few broad sweeps of her wings Red was hovering with him. "I'm Red Anvil. Where are we going?" Her shin dangled and wobbled in the wind.

"I can't fly but I am faster then you think I am on my feet," Answered Gentan as he looked to the two as one got its disks and the other spread its wings. He looked to the lady's shin and it already hurts just looking at it so he tried not too look at it.


(ooc: uhm not really as cloud he can travel at the speed off 10km/u and I have to say thats almost as fast as someone who walks. Though he can keep up with you guys just as he is now)

Liz nodded to Anastasia, stepping carefully out ofthe van. About halfway up the walk to his house, he stopped. It felt like someone was watching him. He disregarded it, but kept his eyes moving around him as he headed to the door.

Crystal was in the mudroom, watching as Liz walked up. Before going in, the male gecko made the "one minute" sign to whoever was driving the van. He stepped in, then shut the door for a moment.

"Can she see us?" he asked his girlfriend.
"I don't think so."

With that, the two rushed into each other's arms, speaking simultaneously, their sentences garbled, but their intentions the same.

"OhmyGodI'msogladyou'reallrightIthoughtIwasgonnadieIthoughtyouwerehurtIthoughtI'dneverseeyouagainthankGodI'msogladwe'realive!!!"

After about a minute and a half of this, they broke the embrace. Liz was the first to speak. "So are you packed?" Crystal shrugged and answered, "I got a few materials, bathroom stuff, a week's worth of clothes, and a tenth of your secret stash. If we need more, I can help pay."
"Why a whole tenth?" Liz wondered. Crystal gave him a "duh" face. "If you get hurt, you won't be able to generate money for the hospital bill. So I'd rather be safe." She started for the door. "That's a creepy-lookin' van."
Liz shuddered, then remembered what Anastasia had told him. "It's even creepier on the inside. I think it might be alive... Anastasia said to watch out for the front seat."
"Anastasia?" Crystal repeated. "The one you said looked at you like she wanted your blood just to see if it was platinum?"
"Yeah," Liz nodded embarrassedly. "But never mind that. She's got wheels, and Dennis was mutilated by our Larper friend. Let's go."

They walked out the door and back towards the car, Liz stealing a glance over his shoulder at the place where he'd felt eyes on him. 

He watched as Liz stroded into the house, and waited until he walked back out with his girlfriend. His body overcome with eagerness; it would seem his presence had not gone un-noticed, even though it was rather obvious there was a man on his roof. The mind has it's priorities, and Liz' was clearly fixated on her. He felt the desire to go down and make himself known to his would-be compadres, and if he hadn't fallen so far earlier he might just have. Now though, he knew better. Everything about him, who he was, what he's done, was known to him now. He knew better then to just so brazenly waltz down and pretend that nothing had happened, causing unnecessary hysteria. 

With that his eyes shimmered lightly, and he faded from sight. He jumped down gracefully from the rooftop and looked on as silent specter to the two getting into the van. He would follow them and reveal his new self when the time is right.

A voice spoke. As it spoke the sky turned golden, and the voice resonated with such power the small group would think the whole world had heard. "Red Anvil," It began "Or should I say Tabitha Richards? You have been called upon my God and the army of heaven for your commendable acts in the second assult of brimstone!"
Red seemed very nervous. The voice had used her real name and now her loved ones were in danger! Atleast that's what she thought. It would seem only the small trio would hear and bear witness to the first time a demon would join the ranks of God's army.
"You are now in the army of God! Thy lord wishes you to have a weapon befitting your status!" The clouds parted and a forge hammer was brought down by an angel. Red gripped the hilt of her new weapon. The rough leather felt good in her hand, and the grey steel was pleaseing on the eye. What's more it radiated an aura of comfort.
"But God! You just told everyone my real name!" Red cried.
"Oh, young demon, I am not god and I have not exposed you. You three are the only ones who will bear witness." The invisible voice resonated again.
"If I am part of Gods army why am i still a demon?" Red asked.
"Heaven has not forgotten your misdeeds young one." The voice sounded sad and sympethetic with her and her troubles.
"I have one last question!" she cried again.
"Yes?"
"If you are not god who are you?"
"I am Hadriel, his voice to mortal man. You see if God were to speak to you your human friends would die from hearing the voice of the almighty. I must now leave you Young one, but remember you are never apart from the lord's protection." The silant angel gave a nod and a smile to Red. "He's right you know. Even when all hope is lost God will help you bear the burden." Red smiled back and the angel was gone.

The back doors of the Van opened obligingly as Liz and Crystal approached, Anastasia watching via the front mirror. Heh. They make a cute couple.
"You must be Crystal. That boy of yours' had nothing but nice things to say about ya, nice to meetcha. Alright, that restraunt I mentioned isn't too far from here. You don't mind greasy switchknife- erm, spoon, sorry- type places?" Without waiting for a reply, the Van was already off. It wasn't until they had just left the city and were on the highway a bit further that Anastasia remembered the plant that had recieved a glass of that mutagen. Ah well, probably wasn't important.

The Boss, having grown bored of the scene below him once his pawns had left, and the 'heroes' had yet to do anything interesting, had retired to inside of his limo once again. One of his white gloves had been removed, and a screen seemed to float above the steel palm. As if remembering that he had something to be doing, his hand twitched, and the screen folded and disapeared.
Hardly even bothering to move his hand after that, the meal on his wrist twisted aside to show a small watch display, and he nodded, motioning for one of the robots he'd brought with him to follow.
He stepped out of the limo, putting his glove back on, and leant against the back bumper. A polite smile stayed on his lips, but the cold, businesslike stare belied his nature. A smile only made him seem all the more approachable, as, despite his tiny frame, he'd been told he was quite intimidating.

No matter. Any intimidation wouldn't matter now, as, if the file had held any truth, This man... Release, his name was? would not be impressed with much less than extravagant and vain displays of sheer power. He let out a small sigh. He really wasn't in the mood to have a confrontation now, much less with someone he'd hoped to gain the alliance of.

Release was having a good time at the dinner, and strangely he wasn't even causing any trouble.  Instead he was building a small log cabin out of perfectly placed toothpicks.  Unfortunately he was running low on building materials.

"Uh..." He stumbled to remember the server's name.  "Jodie?"

"Yes?" The waitress asked.  "Ready to order?"

"Yup." Release smiled, "More toothpicks and some sunny side up eggs."

"All right honey."  The Waitress smiled as she turned and left for the kitchen. 

As she entered the kitchen he caught the faint ethereal haunt of her mind echoing the words "lunatic" and "weirdo".  His eyes immediately narrowed as he had been in a good mood.  Now though he was slightly cheesed off and that meant someone was going suffer so his mood would improve.  It took only a few brief seconds for him to ignite the small pile of toothpicks which he then flung into a nearby booth where a man and his family sat; the small pile of burning wood immediately caught the man's pants on fire and he toppled out of the booth in a panic trying to put out his flaming pants.  Release couldn't help but laugh and then the guy flipped him off so Release threw him into a wall and held him there.

"Anyone else want be a jerk?" He snapped.  The room quaked with silence as the man's young daughter started to cry.  "Ahh... crud..."  Release let the man fall to the ground.  "You're lucky this time pops, I don't like to make kids cry." 

With that Release stormed out of the dinner, but not before causing the stove in the back to jet up a flame four feet high and wide enough to singe the eyebrows of the cook right off.  Now he was in a bad mood and someone was really going to have to suffer.

   "Alright, no more wasting time, we've got a long way to go. We're on the eastern seaboard right now, and we've got to go all the way to the west. Follow me."
   With that, Quaddle began flying straight up. He flew up until he was well above the city, then started off in a western direction, He look behind him to see if Red Anvil and Gentan were following him.

Crystal smiled politely at Anastasia when she spoke. "Did he now?" she grinned. "Well, he told me that you guys seemed like the most competent people he's ever worked with. Nice to meet you as well, Ms. Anastasia." Her smile didn't falter when the diner was suggested. "Doesn't sound bad, at the very least they'll have better food than what Liz can make."

Liz looked at his lover in mock indignation. "Hey! Ramen is not as easy as it looks!"

"Even so, when the fire department issues a warning to you never to cook again, you know something's wrong," Crystal retorted.

They were silent on the highway up until Liz remembered something. "Oh yeah, Anastasia? Something happened to Daemon. When he and I were heading to the city, this red-cloaked guy called Quaddle attacked us and demolished my car. I'm pretty sure he's against our employer and ourselves. He knows all our names - he even knew about Crystal. We made it to the city all right, but Daemon got attacked by Quaddle again and ... well, he got really unresponsive. And he was way more violent than usual. I think he got stronger too. I followed him until I got attacked by that red chick you saw. And then, a few minutes ago, I'm pretty sure he was standing on my roof."

He paused for a few breaths. "Do you think we should help him if we run into him?"

Release had left the dinner in a bad mood, but as he kept walking down the sidewalks of the city he made sure to "buzz" the minds of the lesser folk as he passed by them.  Usually he induced odd perceptions and triggered long forgotten phobias, but every now and then he'd plant the hypnotic suggestion in a strange crowd to break into random song and dance.  Yeah his mojo was off. 

Then he came across an odd looking man, maybe only four feet tall, dressed in white standing at the rear of a limo.  He couldn't help but chuckle to himself as he tried to enter the man's mind to plant the suggestion to sing "Humpty Dumpty" from the top of the limo.  Unfortunately when he tried to it was like his mind hit a brick wall, so he stopped and stared at the man.  He had never had this happen before and he was quite amazed.

"What the heck are you?" Release asked in a tone laced with what he tried to make sound like awe, but he was sure it came out as contempt.  He was going to have to work on his faux awe voice.

"Ah, there you are." He responded, getting up off of the limo, and taking a few steps towards him.
"Who or what I am isn't important, Release." He started off, his hands folded behind his back. "I just have something of a proposition for you." his tail flicked out behind him, and wrapped absent-mindedly around his leg.
"It's completely your choice to refuse or accept, but, should you refuse, I'll need to ensure that you don't recall our little meeting." His eyes narrowed, but he smirked. "Unfortunately, I'm not as skilled as yourself in such matters, so it may leae you a little... damaged." There was no point in hiding his amusement as such a thought.
"Will you hear me out?"

Release blinked for a moment, the little man had threatened him AND complemented him.  He really was having one of those days.  He chuckled to himself lightly and shook his head in amusement.

"Sure why not?" Release smiled then he remembered something.  "Could you hold on just one second though..."  He looked back down towards the dinner where he had forgotten to maim the rude waitress and realized he was to far to consider walking back.  "Bah, it'll have to wait.  Lead on."  Release smiled, he didn't know why but he thought the day was improving so far and thee little man was entertaining him, although he found it creepy the guy knew his name. 

Quaddle saw Red  keeping pace while carring Gentan by his arms. She notices Gentan looking back for a second at her leg. "Eyes forward." She didn't seem irritated but it did sound like a command. In full flight she looked awe inspireing, and from her last heavenly encounter full of purpose.

"Quaddle?" Anastasia's eyes widened in disbelief, "This clown's capable of disarming my mutagen, flight, standing and GRINNING at my creations and he's got some idiotic name like Quaddle? The man sounds as though he should be hosting children's shows, not fighting us!" She almost thumped one fist on the dashboard, but thought better of it at the last second.
"We can't afford to lose any allies. If he seems sane, we pick him up. We all need to regroup and figure out what to do next," she sighed and let herself drape across the back of the driver's seat. "We weren't counting on this sort of opposition this early."
--
By the time they pulled up to a diner at the side of the highway in the middle of nowhere it would be very late. The place was the sort of Diner that only had that for a sign, the sort of place that gave the impression of being an immovable and permanent feature of that particular area of space. There was a sign in the window that simply said "Discounts for card-carrying craftsmen."
Anastasia jerked awake, "Hey, lovebirds, we're here."

Liz held out his hands and looked up at the ceiling. "THANK you! I mean, seriously, I have a girl name and I was trying not to laugh!" Crystal had been giggling at it since he'd said it.

When the talk turned more serious, Liz nodded wisely. "I figured it'd be dumb to kill someone like him. We need him, and he might be sane by now."
---
Liz and Crystal had fallen asleep in the backseat when they reached the diner, her sprawled across Liz's lap and him lolling against the headrest.

When Anastasia spoke, Liz blinked awake. "Nghdunwannawakeup... huh? Oh, OK." He rubbed his eyes and shook Crystal's shoulder gently. She didn't respond, so he leaned over and lifted a strand of her hair that was near her ear. "Wake up," he whispered.

She yawned and pushed herself up off of Liz's lap. There were a few lines in her face from his jeans. "Are we there?" she asked sleepily. He nodded, so she sat up and stretched before looking at the door. "Where's the handle?"

Gentan looked up as Quaddle flew up and flew to the west. "There we go."he said to him self and he started to run afterthem jumping from roof to roof. Every time he would run behind his legs curled up and he would shoot him self back to his normal posistion not far behind the two.

Anastasia didn't know whether to find these two sickening or adorable. It was too damn sweet. The Van opened its back door on its own; the scientist had forgotten that there wasn't a handle on the inside. An accidental effect, what with genetic manipulation not being very exact, but useful for when you didn't want somebody just up and leaving.
"We're here. You'll like this place; the staff knows not to stare and it's a good place to lie low. Nobody ever thinks to look here," which was true. It seemed to have been built on a locale that was just a blank spot in most people's minds. They just forgot it. A curious manner of eatery more secure than cozy and where if anyone knew your name, that was something to worry about.
Naturally, the rabbit strode right in as though she owned the place, taking note of individuals she was familiar with until a couple caught her eye.
"You kids go pick out a table and order; I have some catching up to do," she clambered up onto a seat at the counter next to a slightly built man who looked like he could be the missing link in vampiric evolution and was soon talking animatedly with him about something or another. He was an old contact and at times employer of hers who made it his business to know everything going on in what he simply called "the business." Time to see what there was on this "Quaddle" jackass...

He had been following them for a good couple of hours, right up to when dusk broke down over the stark, seemingly empty locale. A lone building blighted the expanse, it had the make of an ole diner. He watched silently from a hundred feet away as they pulled up into the lot beside it and exited out of the van. There were a few other vehicles held up there in the lot as well. One was undoubtibly the owner's, the other three, potential customers or employers. As they entered the diner he allowed the veil surrounding him to dissipate. He figured there was no point in holding it off any longer and began to stride toward the building, adjusting his crimson shades as he went.

He reached to the door and opened it, immediately he saw the backside of a familiar hare he had met at somepoint from before. She was conversing with a pale looking fellow at the counter, he couldn't make out the exchange they were having due to the low tone of voice they were using. He then looked to his right and saw the backside of two other familiar faces, this time of lizard make; the female one was leaning casually up against the other. They didn't appear to have been served yet since the waitress was nowhere to be seen at the moment. With that he walked up toward their table and sat down on the otherside of it.

"Hello again. I'd like to apologize for earlier...lets see how can I put this......well...I over-reacted...yea that sounds about right.",  he gestured as he sat down before the two, awaiting a response.

   "Quaddle?" Ace said quizzically, looking at Anistasia. "Ain't that some kind of kid's fruit juice?" Seeing Anastasia's glare, he said, "You're serious? Well, I hate to admit it, but you've stumped me this time. Can you describe him? I might be able to come up with something then."

(OOC: Tech, I think Daemon meant he was sitting with Liz and Crystal.)

Anastasia quirked an eyebrow. While she'd seen Ace do many things she hadn't expected of him, saying the word "Ain't" was a new one for the usually cultured, eloquent man. Unless he was making fun of someone. Or just being a fop.
"Magic user," Anastasia spat the word. While she didn't doubt that those who called themselves such had power, it galled her that they called this power something out of myth and legend. Worthless superstition, "With a red robe and a staff. He appears to wield a lot of power, enough to cure a city of one of my creations in a single flash." She didn't know if the carriers who didn't exhibit symptoms were cured or not, but it seemed likely. An idea struck her; if you can't appeal to old favors, pride works well too. "He knew my name, and everyone I'm working with right now. I'd say his information network rivals yours." Rather than look at Ace's face she looked down at the polished countertop, hoping the bat-like man took it for fear while she studied his reaction in the reflection of his one visible red eye (its fellow concieled behind a lock of hair; sometimes doing something impractical made people think you could afford it, rather than that you were just vain, and Ace wasn't one to correct them).

   Ace took in a deep breath, sighed, and shook his head. "Cure a city in a single flash? Information network rivaling mine?" Ace shook his head again. He leaned in closer, talking in a dead whisper to Anistasia. "If what you're saying is true, then by inference, his power is the kind that I should know about, but don't. My informant network is the best. If he's got better...than this is way out of my league. There. I said it."
   Ace appeared to think for a few more moments, then said, "I'll be right back." he went into a backroom of the diner, then through a very well-hidden cellar door. He passed some of the guys in his organization, then went deeper still. He came into a dark room with some shelves covered by what seemed like ages of dust. He selected a few, coughing as the dust came off, and carried four back upstairs.
   Back in the diner, he set the four books down, more dust pluming up around them. "I honestly don't think these will help you," he said, "But they're probably your best bet. If they don't work, you will have to go to someone else. I don't want any more of this, you hear? This is over my head, I don't want any part of this."
   Then Ace left, shivering as he went.
   Once Anastasia skimmed though the books, the first three would be nothing but junk. The fourth one, the biggest, had an interesting cover title: Folklores and Fantasies of the Hidden and Unkown, had an article that would catch her eye. Glossing over it, the general gist would be that at the hieght of the Middle Ages, a force of a hundred black dragons organized and prepared to carry out an attack to subjugate all of Europe. One by one, exactly seventy-five of them were simply anihilated, leaving the rest to be mopped up by various adventuring parties. Supposedly, they were killed by someone known as Unnamed. There was but a single artist's depiction of him:
   A rather tall, mature man in armor, wielding a longsword in one hand and a mage's staff in the other. He looked nothing like Quaddle. But a second glance at the staff--It was the exact same staff Quaddle had! Right there, made of wood, extreamly long, no distinguising marks, three curved spikes at the end, curling around a spun-glass orb. There was no mistake. It was Quaddle's, alright.
   Further skimming through the book would come across another article. About three hundred years ago, one of the Churches was gearing up for the ultimate Holy Crusade. if successful, it would have wiped out all criminals and evil in the world, and the planet would become the perfect utopia. But the crusade never happened, because they were stopped by someone known as the Guardinal Sage. He appeared to them, and convinced most of them to not go through with it. Some of the more zealous decided to try anyway, and after talking failed, the Guardinal Sage killed all of the zealots. There was another drawing:
   This man was old, very old, had a very long, white beard, and dressed in a long white-and-blue robe. His face was nothing like Quaddle's, but, sure enough, the old man was holding the staff.
   Quaddle's Staff.

Liz's eyes widened when Daemon sat down at the table he and Crystal had chosen. He felt the latter stiffen against his shoulder, so he rubbed his hand on her back to relax her. Daemon seemed calm enough, even if Liz now felt a little more of a "who are those freaks" vibe from the room. He glanced over at Anastasia, but she had her back to them, talking to the vampiric-looking guy at the bar.

"Yeah, you did. What exactly happened? I called to you and you didn't even hear me, and you seemed a hell of a lot more powerful." He spoke quietly but firmly, so no-one else would hear them but he'd still get his point across.

NOW Anastasia was nervous. Ace wasn't one to show when he was afraid. At least, not when he was ACTUALLY worried. She stared at his back until he left, noticing how his small, stunted wings were still visible beneath his suit and how his overlarge bat's ears were barely concealed by his hair.
She went through the first three books fairly quickly, speed reading her way through. The fourth pissed her off with just the name. Folklore? Jackass... However, as she paged through she noticed the similarities. The staff. Always the staff. She DID have a scientific explanation for simple items effecting one's personality. Psychic background noise rooted to a physical object. Could this Quaddle be some sort of personality affixed to a staff, changing bodies as the antique changed possession? Have to be a powerful one, to have this great an effect...
Whatever it was, it was apparently prone to acts of charity. Wiping out dragons, putting a stop to a crusade... Saving the world from all sorts of atrocities, regardless of the politics of the time and who was committing them. It'd be admirable if it wasn't so inconvenient. With a sigh the madwoman closed the book and tucked it under her arm, grabbing the other three on an afterthought. He'll probably want these back.
She looked around for the others, locating them after following the stares. She noticed Daemon amongst them and started on her way over, exasperated. From where she was she could tell that a man in at a table in the corner was some sort of machine, a family of five in one of the booths were eating something that looked like caterpillers the size of piglets, and the rather pretty waitress who just walked by never blinked or breathed. It was practically a stronghold of those in their profession. How were they managing to attract attention HERE?

He leaned back into the seat and sighed. He then quietly began, "....You recall meeting with two children earlier, do you not? They are actually one and the same. He is an old brother in arms of mine, from a long time ago; thanks to him I remember everything now. There were twelve of us, we were each part of His inner covenant, the Zodiac. When the war came, our covenant was transformed into one of the finest operating squads creation ever bore witness to; we became known by our comrades as, The Angels of Death. In the waning moments of the war though......we were betrayed. Our comrades turned against us in fanaticism, they sought to bring us down since each of us we're akin to the One who started the strife. Right now.....there's only three of us left, and so far you've met two of us. Myself, Gemini, and....Libra."

The waitress then walked over and asked for the drink order, she had a blank expression on her face and her voice seemed somewhat orchestrated. Each of them replied to her and she was off. He then started again as she walked off, "The name my father gave me is Scorpio. You know me by the name Daemon because that was the name my shell adopted five years ago when I was found on an arctic fishing vessel, that though...is another story."

He then looked over at the Doctor who was walking back over from her encounter with her apparant informant. She had an expression of disbelief, not overtly directed at him, but more towards the others within the diner a few feet away. He commented, "So I take you were behind the mutant infestation earlier, how did that turn out? Or did that Larper screw up your brilliant plan as well..."

Liz's attention was caught the moment Daemon mentioned the two children. I thought I was the only one who could see them... As for his story, all Liz could do was blink. "What war?" he managed, before turning away to order a small salad and bottled water from the waitress. He waited for Crystal to order before he turned back to Daemon.

"This is sounding a bit crazier than what I'm used to, but I know you're telling the truth," he muttered. He nodded when Anastasia walked up, signaling with his eyes that Daemon was all right.

Dile Lass and Croc sat at a table around wich some of the most noteable members of Laos from all it's diffrent 'parties' were also seated. Discussion of a constitution were in full swing.

"Free speach we musn't forget that!" a professor insisted
"Duly noted, we will allow free speach." She assured him.

"The right to bear arms!" shouted a military advisor from the old regime
"We will but were going to have to have special processes and licenses to ensure the safety of the general populace." Dile Lass added.

"The right to oust and elect a new president." A nuclear physicist from the new rebelian said.
"If that or I do not run the country properly so be it. It must be a unanimous vote, though."

By the time the talks were done Croc had learned more Laosian than Dile Lass had taught him. Everyone left the talks happy, and they would meet again soon to put it all on paper. Dile Lass hoped byond all hope that this would put her people at ease.

"We have to start expanding soon, Croc. If we don't the plain might fail horribly."

"I know," Croc started. "But atleast you're not like that Casrto prick."
Dile Lass giggled and hugged Croc. "I'm so happy with the way things are going." And that statement would be her downfall. On the news China was eating up swaths of land and concoring everything in it's way. Dile Lass saw an oppertunity in the beast.

Anastasia nodded to Liz and Daemon, sitting down next to the more recently arrived associate.
"Yeah that was me, and yeah the little %@#$wit blew a good month of setting up out his ass. I probably wont get to use that stuff again too, don't wanna create a discernable pattern. Think I've found something on him though." She flipped open the mythology book she'd gotten from Ace and pointed out the pictures that included his staff, "Look familiar, kids?"

He looked down at one of the images on the page the good Doctor had displayed; he then raised an eyebrow as he looked intently at the staff in the figures arms. He then commented, "Heh, Same weapon. Either that or the one he used earlier was a well-built replica based on this."

The waitress then came around again with the drink orders, then strode off. He popped open his soda then drank a little of it, as he did he began to feel uncomfortable sitting there. Something wasn't right about this place, and his back was starting to bother him.

"Croc?" Dile Lass asked her partner as they walked down the hall away from the meeting. "You're o.k. now right?"
"Yeah, why?"
"I need you to go to America and find roulette and find out how you can help." Dile Lass looked rather impressive in her royal blue silk robes coupled with her sage green under shirt and pants.
"Why what's goin on?" The classic strong man looked down at Dile Lass with his typical blank stare.
"I don't know, but she said they needed help with some guy messing up Ana's plans."
"Alright. When do I leave?" Croc smiled
"Soon as you can, but...be careful please."
"Don't worry, DL I'll be fine." Croc had on a cocky smile "When haven't I come out on top? Keepyer nose clean, kiddo." With that Croc strode off.
"Rou took out jet you'll have to take the chopper!" Dile Lass called out. Croc smoothly changed direction and strutted down another hallway.

---------------------

"How far?" Red looked lightly irritated, and rightly so. It felt to her like flying with a balloon lodged above her ankle. "And I know you're responsable for that beam! You could have KILLED someone! Infact I'm reasonably sure you did!" Red's mood was degenerateing rapidly.

"It's the one lead we have," Anastasia sighed, closing the book, "Meanwhile, we don't even know where all our OWN people are. Sheridinna, Sebastion... Insofar as I can tell, us and Croc are the only ones whose locations we even KNOW. We need an actual base. A command center. Some way of coordinating." She sighed, "And I still haven't finished setting up those computers up at my lab. Any ideas other than helping me unpack that crud?"
She asked the waitress for a beer when she came around, taking the immobile features and almost plastic grin in stride. She noticed Daemon's discomfort and grinned, "Never been here before, huh?" She leaned forward, keeping her voice down, "An unspoken rule in this place is that whatever starts outside is left outside and whatever starts here is left here. For some reason nobody ever breaks that rule. Dunno why, but I'm not about to test it. You get some weird sorts, don't pay it too much mind."
A waitress that looked exactly like the previous one, save for a different name on her tag, walked past them to reach another booth. Some sort of crease, like one gets on a doll when the pieces are put together by machine rather than by hand, was barely visible beneath her clothes. A blackened hand reached out of the booth and beckoned her to sit down, across from whoever it was over there...

"Heh, yeah I'd really prefer to not have to fight head way out of here if at all possible. Still, your right. At the moment it's really just us three, well four if you count his girlfriend; that would be pushing it.", he quietly replied, taking note of the other waitress sitting down a few feet away. He lifted his left hand up to his crimson shades and took them off, tucking them into his trench coat. He then looked back at the Doc and quietly asked, "You've obviously been here before, know who that guy is?" He then eye-signaled to the booth ahead where the waitress sat down at.

The waitress was no longer visible, and there were sounds somewhere between eating and unwrapping something made of celophane. A name tag fell out into the isle.
"That's just Manny. He's a regular. Loves the service here, really, probably the only one who doesn't just come here to get away."

He didn't even blink as the tag fell into the isle, then a sly smirk spread across his face as he attempted to recline a bit.

"Heh, love might have been a bit of an understatement.", he subtly joked. He then held out his hand over his part of the table, it dimly flickered a little bit; and in an instant his briefcase appeared before him. He turned it around towards himself and subtly continued, "Well, atleast not everyone's plans were ruined. Of course I didn't even start yet with this..."

Liz had been a bit distracted from the conversation by the waitress and Manny. He did his best to keep Crystal from noticing it, but she did. Thankfully, her only reaction was to bite her lip and turn back to the food the previous waitress had brought, her eyes wide even in her silence. When he turned back, he looked closer at the book Anastasia had brought. Killing crusaders, huh? This guy really does know who's truly dangerous. And he didn't lie about his age, either. "Funny... he thinks religious extremists killing people they think are evil is bad, so he kills them because he thinks they're evil. Am I the only one who finds that a little contradictory?" It wasn't a very clearly worded thought, but it was the closest he could come.

Daemon stretched his hand over the table and recovered the briefcase full of riches Liz had given him earlier. "Holy %$^&, that thing survived?" the lizard quietly exclaimed. He had an idea about what Anastasia had said earlier. It was a stretch, but it just might work.

"Y'know... my house has a multi-level basement. And we made sure the walls were sturdy and soundproof, in case I needed to do a transaction or if Crystal had a certain kind of order. I don't know if it's safe to go back yet, but if we can't find anywhere else..."

   "Pretty far. We're headed to the Sierra Nevada mountains." Quaddle said. At Red Anvil's insistance that his cleansing spell could have caused deaths, and the fact that her leg was seriously bothering her (not that hard to pick up on), he decided to angle down for a landing.
   "if you really want you're leg fixed up that badly, you should have asked. And if that 'beam' you're refering to was my cleansing spell, I assure you, there is no possible way it could have killed anyone."
   Quaddle touched down near Gentan.

He crept open his briefcase slightly and picked a small diamond out from it, he then closed it back up and slid it under the table. Quietly he acknowledged, "Yeah....after I came to I went back there to pick it up. As for your plan, for the moment it will be alright. It'll take roughly a week or so to come up with a more firm base of operations. Barring a few things, of course."

He held firm the handle on his briefcase under the table, the image flickered for a second; then it was gone. After that he picked up the small diamond on the table and began twirling it on his index finger like a basketball. He could....sense fear, it was coming from across the table. He looked up into Crystal's eyes, she seemed a bit startled from Manny's bliss a couple booths away, barely touching her food.

"Are you afraid?",  he quietly asked, directing at her. He then flicked the small diamond into the air and grasped it with lightning quick reflexes.  "Don't be. You're in safe hands here, even from death."

Croc was takeing a quick nap as his pilot navigated his way across the Pacific.


--------------------

"But what of their pace makers and artificial limbs?" Red adjusted to follow him. "Are you saying they'll be alright without them?"

Crystal gave a little start when Daemon spoke to her. She'd almost forgotten where she was, but then that was what she'd been trying to do. She smiled timidly at him. "Thank you. I'm just not used to being involved in things like this... not directly, anyway."

After that, the girl seemed a bit more relaxed. Liz smiled warmly at her and patted her shoulder, then caught Daemon's eye and nodded a solemn thank-you. He didn't want Cryssie to stay scared this whole time. He suspected that things were going to get a little worse from here on in, so he wanted her to be calm and prepared.

"Ana? Any objections about staying at our place for a while?" He glanced once at Crystal to make sure all this was okay with her too. She nodded, so he took a bite of his salad and waited for the lapine to respond.

   Quaddle regarded Red Anvil. "The spell was supposed to cleanse and remove things that the body would try to get rid of itself, if it could. Obviously, with the crystal, the effects went much further than I anticipated, but things like prosthetics are sugically cleaned and fitted to the recipient specifically to avoid being rejected by body systems. Thus, they would not have been rejected by the spell. I am going to assume that whatever was in your leg probably had no right being there. Thus, it was rejected by the spell."
   In case Anvil had any further doubts, Quaddle added, "A good number of people have pacemakers. I can sense anyone's death if I so wish, though individual scales that I have no knowledge of can sometimes be clouded. But if that many people had died, believe me, I certainly would have felt it. Since I did not, no one died."
   Quaddle finally leaned in to examine Red's bloated leg. After studying it for a moment, he held the orb-end of his staff close to the leg. It glowed soft golden, then flashed violently as the magic backlashed and stung Quaddle. He lurched back, but then came right back, furrowing his brow. Such minor things, while most certainly would have been disorienting to a human, had little effect on Quaddle. He helf the staff close again, but this time, the orb glowed a dark, almost evil-like black. Instead of backlashing, this time Red's leg began deflating a little. Suddenly, there was a continuous crunching sound as the bone that had been missing for who knows how long grew back. Red would feel no pain, but if she was even the slightest bit squeamish, it would probably make her grimace.
   In a few more moments, it was all done, and Red Anvil's leg was as if it had never suffered so much as a scratch. "There ya go!" Quaddle said, smiling. "Magics actually have personalities, and any normal person has at least a minor aura, while more powerful entities have stronger ones. Occasionally, magics get fussy with one another, so you just gotta smooth talk to it," Quaddle made a motion with his hand, "to get it to do what you want it to.
   "Ready? Let's head off again." Quaddle conjured his two golden light-disks and flew off into the  night sky.

Red haveing both her legs back again could go back to her more familiar way of takeing off. *CRACK* *CHOOM* The ground rippled as she lept into the air. The sheer hight she could jump astonished both her companions, then her magnificant wings unferled for flight.

"If you have the space for my equipment then fine," Anastasia grinned, "It'd beat the hell out of that warehouse over in Oakland," she nodded at Crystal, "You'll be fine kid. I've been employed by groups all over the world, including most major political bodies. If I can keep my work from being tied to them, I think you'll find yourself in the proverbial clear." She raised her beer, the suggestion of a smirk visible at the corner of one eye, "To getting down to business, gents?"

He raised his can up to Ana's, then grinned, "Yeah, I've waited long enough. Let's do this."

He then drank the entire can in one gulp and then crushed it on his forehead. He then fashioned a wire coming out of his jacket that had an earplug on it and lodged it in his right ear; then slid two cardboard business cards on the table infront of the good Doctor and Liz. The cards had his new cell number on it engraved in the watermark of a gilded aegis.

"There's my new number.....lost my old phone, heh. Well....shall we?"

Anyone with television acess would have their broadcasts intterupted with a breaking story. A balding reporter standing somewhere between Dile Lass' Laosian army and Col. Peng's Chinese army high atop a mountain or cliff was talking of war. He was yammering on about how peaceful Laos was before the Chinese agression. meanwhile in the picture viewers could clearly see both forces crawling tward eachother. they would have just under a hundred miles before actual war would begin however. The reporter also spoke of how Loas was also eating up land from other countries to the south north and east. The Chinese in the west was just more interesting reporting though.

Liz clinked his water bottle against the drinks of the other two. "To getting our asses in gear," he smiled. He took a long gulp of water, then turned back to his salad. he took the offered business card from Daemon, slipping it up his sleeve for the time being.

The TV at the bar suddenly changed, broadcasting a news report. The second Liz heard the word "Laos", he snapped to attention, albeit with an exasperated face. "Here they go again..." he muttered.

".....Saw that one coming.....it was only a matter of time before those two caught the eye of the big players......unfortunately for them those players are the ones holding the real cards...mere childsplay to them.....if they're smart they will charge and not stop for nothing.......they'll need to capture more resources if they want to stand a chance......", he quietly thought as he looked up at the T.V. and took in the report as the others were. Honestly though it was sort of a surprise to see this being reported in the American Media instead of the latest celebrity/political blunder. They were actually appearing to do a thorough report of what was going on, cycling through recordings from the press reports in China and Laos on this sudden confrontation.

"....Yeah....they're gonna be put in their place.....heh... hmm?.....", he said, but immediately he caught eye of the Chinese prime minister in one of the recordings. For some reason, it felt like he recognized her; every vein in his body began to seethe with anger. It was then obvious; he could see right through the false visage, he knew who and what she really was. He kept his rage within though as he resided again in his seat waiting to see what would happen next.

"Mad'm President we have no where else to go we've taken the whole pennensula, and suffered heavy casualties on the war front!" General Gi Chu was standing before a noticeably distrought ruler.
"And what of the islands to the south?"
They are a possibility, but it would take more thime than we have not to mention the vehicles we'd need. There is good news though, the Chinese are still tied up in Korea with the Song dictatorship. There is word a mercenary is giveing them a run for their money. Infact the only player he seems hesitant to piss off is the Russian mafia."

There it was a way to give Dile Lass an edge. The mafia was a touchy subject as she doesn't condone crime nor does she condone terrorism, but what were her options? She would need to think. China had to be stopped.

Liz shook his head at the TV screen. Almost unconsciously, he generated a small silver toothpick-shaped object in between his fingers and began fiddling around with it. These two were causing a sufficient amount of trouble, he admitted, but it was not just the wrong country, it was the WRONG DAMN CONTINENT. Not onl that, but did they even realize how close they were to the Middle East? And screwing with China... He bit the toothpick and used his now-free hands to clasp his head. "Damn those two..."

That's when he noticed the tension across the table. He looked up at Daemon. "You okay?"

"....Nah, like you I'm a bit annoyed by all of this....",  he replied with a hint of frustration in his tone. He then stood up and laid the small diamond that was in his hand down on the table. "I'll be waiting outside..."

He then left the table and went out the door towards a nearby bench near a lamp post. He then sat down and attempted to cool himself off. As he did that he put on his shades again, lighting up his vision of the landscape much akin to nightvision goggles. He then clenched his right fist, it shimmered for an instant, and within seconds he was wearing his gauntlets under his trench coat. Their appearance though had changed somewhat since the last time he wore them. It appeared that the gloves themselves had veins showing through in detail and they were dimly glowing. He tucked his sleeves up to conceal it, then he got up and leaned against the lamp post, waiting for the others.

OOC 1 imma goin campin 2 don't you guys think enough's happened in a day?


"Yes Chairman Maou, you heard me right. NUKES. Keep this up and your country will be a radioactive crater!" Dile Lass yelled into her phone.
"You drive a hard deal. Let us work something out. "
"What do you have in mind?"
"You have oil fields to the south. If we can not have the land, you will give us a noticeably marked discount. Also you will not use your warheads and we will stop our expansion."
Dile Lass gave a heavy sigh. "O.K. You have a deal."

It was hard for her to agree to those conditions but at least she now had the strength to stand up against the U.S. in battle and enough time to actually make those nukes. Dile Lass smiled.

"Wonderful. Now, Release... I'm running a little... project, a bit of a crusade, if you will... And I've found some resistance that I didn't quite expect has been appearing." All amusement dropped from his face. "Now, I'm afraid my current... employees, if you will, may have a bit too much on their hands. Which is where you come in." He paused, to make sure that release was still following him.
"I require someone of your skill and particular... talent... To distract this resistance, if not dispatch as much of it as you can." He stopped now, and flashed Release a small smile.
"Payment is, of course, negotiable, as are terms. You, by no means, are required to accept."

Release thought it over for a few moments.  He was strapped for cash and he was even more bored. 

"Well now..." Release smiled, "Let's talk business then.  What kind of resistance are we talking about?  Idiots with guns, idiots with big guns or something more along the lines of a fight that could keep me entertained for more than five minutes.  Because I gotta tell you the police in this city aren't to amusing for me..."  Release smiled, he was really liking this guy.

"Oh, something that can keep you entertained." The smile on his face changed from innocent and businesslike to have an almost sadistic edge to it.
"Anastasia, a doctor of sorts who's been helping me, released a mutagen into the water into this city and the surrounding area a little over a week ago. The resistance cleansed the water, and reversed all of the side affects in very little time." The smile dropped from his face, and he turned to look over the city, frowning slightly.
"Normally, this is the point where I would get involved, but... I realise that I don't know anything about him." He turned back to release, folding his arms behind his back.
"So I'm asking you to find, fight, assess this resistance, and report back to me."

Release mulled the proposal over.  He liked the idea of being entertained by such a powerful opponent, but he also knew that someone powerful enough to stop a mutagen and reverse it in little time was a either a powerful bio-kinetic or a magic user.  Either way he knew it would be worth his time, he just wanted to make sure he wasn't walking into a death trap or suicide mission.  He looked the little man over a bit, his form was truly unimposing, but Release wasn't stupid.  This man, or whatever he was, was no fighter and so he sought out the aide or allegiance of a powerful combat force.  Release could honestly say he was flattered, a powerful manipulator was asking for his help and that meant several good things for him; chief among them, something to do.

"All right I'll check out this 'resistance' of yours.  Probe around his mind if I can first, see if I can't get any psychological weaknesses on him.  Then I'll see what I can do with a direct surprise assault, but I'm going to need some pawns, maybe some of those new fangled attack robots I've been hearing about...."  Release thought for a second.  "And definitely a lot, and I mean a lot of explosive ordinance.  I'm going to give this..."  Release realized he didn't know his target's name.  "What ever this resistance goes by, I'm going to be giving him one heck of a pop quiz on survival."

"Equipment shouldn't be any problem." He answered, smirking a little despite himself. "Especially those 'New-fangled attack robots'." The amused tone snuck back into the Boss' voice, and, as if on cue, one of the robots in the car, emitted a high-pitched beeping noise.
"You'll excuse me, of course." He bowed himself out of the conversation momentarily, walking swiftly to the car and robot who'd 'called' for attention.
"Release?" He asked, straightening up from the car door, which he was now holding open.
"Some of those working for me aren't far from here. You'll come with me to meet them, I trust? They may have something to make our jobs a little bit easier."

"Heh..." Release just smirked at the sight of the robots.  "Those'll do."  Release said as he followed the short man to the limo door.  By the way, I know you know my name, but what's your moniker?"  Release smiled as he followed his new employer.

"My name isn't needed. Boss will work as well as anything else." He answered, before pulling off one of his gloves and setting the metallic hand underneath against the back of the robot in control of the car. The area around his hand glowed green momentarily, and the car started, and left on it's way to the Diner Liz, Anastasia, and the others were currently at.

Release waited as patiently as he could while the car drove them to his new playmates.  On the way he made sure to cause a few problems for pedestrians, he made few people trip over their own feet, but his favorite was when he convinced an old lady that she was a chicken that could talk.  Then the car pulled up to a diner and he groaned. 

"It had to be a diner, I just left a diner..."  He sighed.  "Oh well, thems the breaks.  I take it they're inside there Boss?"  He got out before his employer could respond and walked into the diner.  Unfortunately some of the people in the diner were not quite thinkers and he immediately picked up on some rather wicked thoughts.  "Oh this is annoying..."  He grumbled as he filtered out the loud thinkers.

He scanned the room before realizing he had no idea who he was looking for.  He cursed under his breath and then he noticed a rabbit-girl, gecko guy and a large pile of books.  He knew he had to find the ones the Boss wanted him to help soon and so he did what came naturally.  He annoyed people.

"Say anyone else here know a short guy with a bunch of robots at his command?" Release smiled as several people on the stools in front of him turned to give him an odd look.  Then a large dog-man stood up and grabbed him by the collar and snarled.

"Oh goody..." Release took his glasses off with out his hands and levitated them right next to his body as he forced the dog-man's hands apart and tossed him through the doors the he had flung open with his mind.  "Anyone else wanna play?" He said with a faux innocence and then he grabbed his glasses and put them back on while giving a hugely satisfied grin.

"ARRRRRGGGGGHHH!!!", the canine roared as it was blown out of the diner and zipped past into a nearby tree on the otherside of the highway, crashing it down.

"Looks like someone broke that unspoken rule Ana mentioned about earlier......", he thought as he looked up at the canine crawling out of the wreckage, who was seething with rage. As the canine walked past him back toward the diner, he put his left hand on it's shoulder stopping it abruptly.

"It's not worth it friend...",  he said in disdain to the canine. The canine angrily knocked his hand off it's shoulder, then barked back, "Who the hell do you think you are!? You want to die too!? Don't get in my way!!"

".....I was offering you your life.....",  he uttered coldly in response. He then clenched his right fist and uppercutted the canine into the sky with an explosion of light emanating from the impact. Immediately his visage vanished, then reappeared in the oncoming trajectory of his new punching bag; he then slammed his foot down onto the canine's skull, crushing and folding it under a torrent of light, the impact sending the lifeless corpse back down to the ground. Right after that he vanished again then reappeared back where he was on the ground.

"Heh, he had a thick skull I'll give him that much.", he smirked as he looked up at the flailing corpse, watching it land with a splat on the road. With that resolved he looked onward back at the diner doors, he really didn't have any desire to get involved with what was going on in there. He then looked around and noticed a parked limozine on the roadside, one of the doors was open. He couldn't make out who was on the otherside of the door, but there appeared to be two, one sitting down and another, more metalic one standing beside the other.

"Why does that look so familiar.....", he thought as he decided to head over to the limo to find out who that guy was, letting his curiousity get the better of him.

Anastasia just shook her head, muttering foul things about morons and showboaters alike.
"Yeah, I think we know who you mean," the rabbit replied, closing her menu with a 'fwap!' "Why do you ask?" She was already mentally running through possible courses of action. He's probably out to kill us, if I'm just going by the laws of probability. Some manner of telekinesis... That complicates things. Telepaths are easy, but that sort of thing means that if he's after us we gotta bring him down faster than he can realize what is and isn't a threat. Best see what his game is for now, anyway... "He isn't a commonly sought individual, or so we assume."

The Boss sighed, and burshed a strand of brown hair out of his face, moving out of the way of the canine projected in his general direction, and coming up behind Release.
"That was unnesecary, Release. You should have just waited for me." He spoke up from the doorway, an eyebrow raised.
"Besides, Anastasia and the others have never seen me. A physical description means nothing." He added this on in a more muttered voice, and stepped out from behind release to smile up at Anastasia
"Guard down, Anastasia. He's with us."

Anastasia recognized the voice, if not the appearance of the owner thereof. Alright, NOW my guard's up. Why let this guy know what he looks like before us? Either a prior alliance, or he screwed up. Either way...
"Because we only let trustworthy people join us, of course," Anastasia groused in reply, but she stopped reaching for the gun in her lab coat, "So, who's the new guy?"

"I was watching what happened in the city today. Your mutagen was completely reversed, wasn't it?" He started crossing his arms over his chest.
"I thought some form of resistance would come up, but nothing on this scale... So something of a last-minute recruit to help was deemed nessecary. Release needs any information you may have on the being responsible for that blast earlier."

Corc's chopper touched down at a small air field in california. He headed straight for the nearist bar for a drink he phoned Roulette on the way.

"Oh..." Release let sheepish smile come over him.  "Sorry Boss, just a little excited I guess." 

Release shot the rabbit-girl a smile the Boss explained the situation.  He then grabbed a chair and pulled it towards the group, it created a short grating noise before he levitated it the rest of the way and sat in it reverse style.  His smile never faded and he never took off his glasses. 

"Yeah, I'm the local telekinetic slash telepath with a penchant for maiming, killing and other wise dismantling anyone who ticks me off."  He kept smiling, "Unfortunately some of the local flavors are a lot more boring than what I'm used to and I was thinking of leaving the city when the Boss told me he had something fun for me to do, or rather someone fun to play with."  Release looked over the edge of his glasses.  "So what's this guy look like and how does he seem to operate?"  Release kept staring at the rabbit girl, he wasn't sure but he got the feeling her collar hid more than a pretty face, and her mind was probably like a death trap.  He'd have to go testing it out later when he wasn't sidetracked by his new playmate.  "Also, how much C4 do you have?"

Anastasia shot The Boss a look that should have by all rights should have killed, but she got his point.
"How much I have right this minute, or in general? Either way, enough," Anastasia replied, taking in the individual she was dealing with. Huh, telepath... It varied from person to person, but most cases she'd dealt with developed a heightened sense of empathy as a survival mechanism, amongst other interesting quirks. Best get a feel for his, eventually. "He has a large amount of power, and a good deal of variety thereof, that we have little explanation for. Some would call it magic," she rolled her eyes, I would call them morons. "Our only lead on him is a couple references to his equipment, primarily a somewhat ornate staff of his, in this old mythology book. His abilities thus far appear to include flight, a degree of control over crystals and biological compounds... You two saw more of him than I did," she nodded to Liz and Daemon, "He try anything with you I missed?"

"Hmm.....I think you've said all that needs to be said, Doctor. Expect the unexpected with this guy.... I mean hell he destroyed Liz's Lexus, heh.", he quietly replied with slight amusement in his tone. He was lying through his teeth though. Of everyone present he saw the more of that man's fighting ability then anyone else. For some reason though he felt compelled to with-hold that information, it wasn't nearly as simple as everyone else wanted to believe. "With that said we should probably get going, so...to Liz's house?",  he commented as he made for the door again, rolling his eyes behind his shades.

"Just give me the address."  Release smiled.  "I'm a bit of a night hound so I'll probably being prowling the whole night club scene until morning."  Release looked at the rabbit-girl.  "By the way, you as a scientist should probably be more open minded, after all what we know of today as science would have been magic to our ancestors.  Oh and we can discuss the C4 tomorrow in greater detail."  He stretched his arms and waited for the address before leaving the group for the night and staying true to his word would party until dawn.

Rou's phone rang for a while, but after a while it seemed she wouldn't pick up. After haveing his alcohol Croc checked into a none too fancy hotel.

Liz and Crystal sat quietly, Liz still seething a little at Croc's stupidity, when a completely normal-looking human walked in and asked if anyone knew someone who sounded half like their employer. Robots at his command? Liz sat up a little straighter, and draped a protective arm around Crystal. Stupid thing to do in retrospect, but he wasn't about to risk her getting hurt just for the sake of anonymity. A dog-patron attacked him, but the new guy simply smiled and ... levitated his glasses off to the side as he chucked the dog out the doors. Those doors weren't open when he started talking...

Liz's eyes narrowed and his grip on his lover tightened. Doesn't seem like one of Quaddle's kind... and he doesn't seem like he'd be against us either. Anastasia got up and talked with the guy, not looking overly concerned. Then who should finally step out of the shadows but their employer ... so that's what he looks like. And probably why he hides in the shadows. He pulled Crystal a little closer and whispered, "That's him. My boss."

"The psychic guy?" she whispered back. Liz shook his head, to Crystal's mild surprise. There was a brief exchange of words, during which Liz learned enough about the new guy - Release, apparently, was his name - to know he was with them, for now. Everyone agreed on heading back to Liz's house, so he and Crystal stood, stretching and gathering up what little they'd brought into the diner.

Liz walked up to the others, pocketing his little silver toothpick. He briefly considered throwing it out, or throwing it into the middle of the aisle just to listen to the scuffle, but decided it was too risky, even here. Producing anold receipt from his pocket, he scribbled down his address and handed it to Release.

"Do me a favor and don't go attacking the houses around us when you come," he told him quietly. "I can't risk suspicion." Release moved to leave, so the two reptiles headed for the door, waiting for the others to follow.

Croc finnaly fell asleep about then. He was still holding on to the bag of bugals and the crappy staticy antenna could barely pick up three channels so the tv was still showing the clearist channel.

"Peace declared! China has promised to stop it's arbatrary expansionism thanks the the brave efforts of New Laos! Deals are still in the works for it's borders to return to normal." The obviously over the hill and still dressed up like a tramp anchor turned to her co-anchor "It seems the one day war in the east is finnally over huh tom?"  "That it is Dianne" he replyed.

"Now why would I want to do that?" Release grinned manically as he waved and left.  He his the streets with a deep breath and caught sight of the dog-man's body and gave an impressed whistle.  "Hate to meet the guy that did that on a bad night." 

He then made his way downtown and found a few late night clubs to hang out at.  He would party for a few hours and end up back at his hotel room alone but satisfied with his night.  Unfortunately his night would be plagued by the usual series of torturous nightmares that involved him dying and descending to hell.  The morning would leave him awake, but drained as he headed to Liz's house in a very sour mood.

Morning broke over the quiet suburb in Michigan, morning fog blanketing through most of the neighborhood and around Liz's home. A van and a limo parked infront, everything from last night concluded and arrangements made. For now they resided here, till the daylight hours warranted the next move.

Once again, he found himself sitting up on the rooftop, gazing into the rising sun on the horizon. He did not know whether the others were still out of it, or of the whereabouts of the apparent newcomer. All he could do was think, still trying to fully understand what has happened to him. In his mind, it felt as if he was being, torn asunder. Then something caught his attention, he could hear movement from below within the house.

"Hmm....someone's up....eh I'll head down in a bit..",  he thought to himself as he lied down up there.

The morning sun was an unwanted wake up call for Croc, but he rose all the same. He put on a pot of coffee and watched the morning news.
Ok, i need to list out what i need to do he thought. 1. Contact Roulette, 2. Grab some eats, 3. Uh.... hell I'll wing it.

He called Roulette from his cell. Come on pick up this time.

Roulette jolted awake at the sudden sound of her phone ringing- why on earth was Bananaphone, of all things, her ringtone? But no matter. On instinct, she brought a hand up to push herself up against her 'pillow' and found herself, for the second time that evening, bombarded with noise.
As her eyes jolted open, she all but smacked herself for falling asleep in the car. On the steering weel, no less.
...On second thought, how had she even gotten a liscence?
Either way, now she reached into her pocket, and picked up the phone.

"This better be good."
Roulette isn't a morning person.
--

The Boss had sat back and simply watched the slightly bizzare exchange between his employees, taking in all that was said. There was no need to control their every move... But he'd intervene if things went too far from his plan. He walked behind them as they left, and followed the van from his limo.
During the night, he'd insisted on staying in his limo, and, having risen early, now lounged around outside of the house, a cup of coffee in his hands as he watched the sun rise.
A few hours later, nothing had changed about the small man, save for the emptying of his cup as he waited for the others to join him.

Anastasia had left out a stack of papers and pens when she went to bed in Liz's guest room. Unfortunately it hadn't been enough, and she'd woken up to find that she'd started writing on the sheets in her sleep when she'd ran out of paper to write on. She always had ideas in her sleep, and even unconscious was smart enough to know that she'd forget them if they weren't written down. That, of course, was where the difference from everyone else's mental state when asleep stopped. She dragged herself downstairs, having slept in what she was wearing, and was drowsily working her way through her eighth coffee when the others would be showing up in the kitchen.

As soon as they got everyone settled in and showed them where the basement was (without actually going in it), Liz and Crystal went to sleep. It had been a trying day for them, even without the new guests in their home.

Crystal was the first of the two to wake up, as always. She threw on a pair of sweatpants and a baggy T-shirt, then went downstairs, greeting those who had woken up and fixing herself a cup of chai tea. "Liz should be up by about noon, and he can show you around the basement better than me. Did that new guy show up yet?"

Morning, somewhere in the Sierra Nevada mountain range

   Quaddle had been flying West with Red Anvil behind him and Gentan down below all night. Of course, Quaddle wasn't tired at all, having his magical disks to carry him. After awhile of flying standing up on two disks, he ditched those and created a single larger one, then actually reclined on it, just relaxing the whole way there.
   Finally, around a cluster of several large-ish mountains, Quaddle stopped his disk. He stood up, then held his staff, waved a hand over it, and spoke into it. Red Anvil and Gentan would heard Quaddle's voice in their heads. "Well, we're here! Home sweet home! Whad'ya guys think?"
   There was nothing here but your standard forest-mountain scenery. While beautiful, there was absolutely nothing to indicate any sort of hideout befitting a twelve-hundred-odd-year-old extraplanar archmage that looked like a teenage human. Perhaps he was getting senile?

Gentan was panting loud for running the whole night and he let him self fall on some grass. "You really need a damn train or something else to get us from one place to another. Becouse if I have to run this every time there is trouble I am going to die then." He said through the panting to Quaddle.

After a bit off resting he sat up and saw nothing beside endless nature. "So ... where did you hide it?" Gentan asked he knew the Arch mage was powerfull and that the base was hidden at a place he would take years to find.

"Good morning Roulette, it's Croc. You said you needed some help?"


------------------------------------------------

Red touched down the morning dew shineing off her hoves and the surrounding grass. "Well the scenery is nice, but where are you hideing the base? I'd like some rest."

"Yeah, some help will probably be needed... once I find the Boss. He never really told be where he was..." She trailed off here, looking out her car's window. "somewhere in Michigan, I think..."

   Quaddle was about to reply to Gentan when Red Anvil dove and alighted on the ground with him, and basicly repeated Gentan's question. Quaddle's face faltered, and he talked to their minds through his staff again. "Uh, if you want to see my hideout, I think you're gonna want to be off the ground." Quaddle then conjured two more large-sized disks, and sent them down to Red Anvil and Gentan to pick them up.

"I'm near LA." Croc stated. "Ya want me to get closer to Michigan and go from there?" He asked

---------------------------------------------------------

The sudden rise caught Red off gaurd and sent her onto her rear on the disk. "Oof! Could you warn us next time, please?" She asked regaining composure.

At about 11, Liz headed downstairs at last, wearing a wrinkled pair of blue jeans and a white T-shirt. By this time, Crystal had already eaten breakfast, brushed her hair, called ahead to say she'd be opening the shop late, and made a pot of coffee. She perked up when her boyfriend came down, even if his eyes were still half-closed.

"Hey! You're up before noon! That's gotta be a new record!" she congratulated him. Liz grunted in reply, heading straight for the coffee and grabbing a cup before he did anything else. After taking a sip, he woke up a little more.

"Okay... thinking straighter now... anything we need to do before I get you guys set up in the basement?"

   "Alrighty." Quaddle said to Gentan and Red Anvil. "I direct you attention to those two mountains..." Quaddle pointed with his staff towards two of the green tree-covered Sierra mountains, in between which Gentan and Red Anvil had been standing moments before. Nothing happened for a few seconds. Then, soundlessly, it looked like the two mountains shook a little. No, not shook, moved. Yes, staring at them would confirm, the two mountains seemed to be sliding away from each other, sparsely vegetated and completely unpopulated ground just appearing seamlessly in between them. Then, the ground that continued to appear in between the mountains as they continued to move away from each other bulged, then grew upward. A third whole mountain was growing in between the first two right before everyone's very eyes. But this mountain was different; it had some trees and other greenery, but not much, and still no fauna. As it continued to grow, it would become apparent that the mountain seemed to have been partially carved out into something vaguely resembling half a stone temple built into the mountain itself, riddled with tunnels, entrances, and stairs. After a few more moments, everything stopped moving, and the third mountain stood fully in between the first two.
   The strange thing is, during this whole thing, nature below was entirely undisturbed. There we no sudden mass flights of birds, no roars of suprise from large predators, absolutely nothing to indicate that the wildlife had even noticed the spectacle in any way.
   "So...now what do you think?" Said Quaddle, grinning like a child.

"Well it's flashy I'll give you that." Red said

"Hello, Roulette? Ya there?" Croc was sure he had lost the signal so he moved to try for better reception. "Can ya hear me now?"

Gentan saw the mountains move slowly as a third appeard in the middle. No sound was made by the animals off the moving moutains.

"the mountains moving impressed me but the base ... well I kinda expected something, well ... cooler. Becouse off you being an arch mage and stuff." Gentan said for fun to see if he kept smiling or not.

   Quaddle looked slighly put-out from Red Anvil and Gentan's less-than-enthusiastic reactions. "Kids these days..." he muttered, "such philistines...no apreciation for the subtle arts..." Then Quaddle got a slightly distubing smile. He waved his staff.
   Instantly, the two golden disks of light holding up Red Anvil and Gentan suddenly...vanished. The two plummeted toward the earth unceremoniously. Quaddle let them fall for a moment, and without looking, he idly waved his staff again. Both Gentan and Red Avil slowed to a stop in midair, but now they were both held up by their ankles by some invisible force. He brought them back up to his hight, the two dangling helplessly by one foot. He was laughing like crazy.
   "Hahaha...oh...my...apologies.." he said, trying to catch his breath. "It's just that...when you get to be as old as I am, you really gotta stretch to keep yourself enteratined, often at the expence of others. Usually those who lack fine tastes...sorry..."
   Without bothering to right the two, he slowly started floating all three of them toward an entrance to his hideout.

Stirring form a not quite restless sleep the businessman looked out the window in seconds he knew where he was exactly to the foot above sea level. Next to him shrunken and curled up in a ball a wing hiding her face slept Bakia necko chan. he smiled and she watch her snore. She was purring and he could only guess about what.  Reaching into his carry on he removed an object that looked like a laptop.

It is important to say that it looked like a laptop buts its appearance was deception. It was in-fact an object the combined magic and technology on a quantum level little more then a folded slab of high strength polymer with no true motherboard, key, storage or the like. The genetic sensor lock was real as were the security devices but it stored no information and could not harm him if it sell into the right hands on this planet. In-fact in his experience there were less then a dozen entities that could even access his system if he lost it and none were native to this earth.  There was cipher but he lived and died in a world he'd visited before this one.

That though gave the businessman pause. If it happened once no matter how remote the odds were then the chances that I'll happen again are very great. He'd better be quick.  Running his fingers over the inner surface he activated it and in seconds he was looking as the maps signaling the position of his spies within the camps of both his enemies and allies and on more then. It was the stock market. The value of the American dollar was still fluxing wildly dropping massively and climbing a little. This was not good as 30 percent of his finances were in dollars. Still it made the Euro, the Pound and the Yen more value as the dollar dropped. 

There was and incoming messaged. He glanced over it. It was runs progress report. He was still having trouble setting up double agents with in two of the enemies camps but that's was to be expected. these to camps they he gave his were both well advanced and well entrenched.  He replied to Rues report telling him to activate sleeper agent1422 and sighed off. Counting in his mind he reached zero a full three seconds before the pilot announced they were vectoring in for a landings. He looked to Bakia and saw her sitting staring at him. "Do return to a more human form my dear. You'll want to make a good impression on the others. "

Mewing   she hopped down and disappeared form sight likely going to find something to wear. The businessman closed his eyes and sighed. This game was becoming stressful but then that was half the fun. He grinned and he remember how  one of his watched  and favored people had send a country and it's seas with agents like him only to be beaten by a crew of anti-heroes not even ten in number for the sake of one of there friends. something similar could happen to he he knew. ad he was acutely away they he was not the only player in thing game though he'd gotten a little out of the past month or so he knew he still had a change to turn things to his advantage.

He smiled. Yes theses game were worth it even if the only stakes were to win a hard earned victory or wind up with egg on his face.


(sorry to take so long but i wanted to make this post as non invacive as possible while explaining where i rue and Bakia( one day i'll spell her name right by second nature) disappeared too

"Yeah, Croc. Get as close as you can, and then i'll ask the Boss to send someone for ya." She nodded. "Sorry, you just woke me up, musta dozed off or somethin'."

   Quaddle floated the odd trio through one of the entrance tunnels in his hideout into a small receiving chamber. There he 'deposited' them on the ground. "Come along now, no time to be laying about!" He said to the pair sprawled on the ground. He quickly walked through a small archway. Inside...was a larger chamber that was an absolute mess. There was all manner of unrecognizable junk scattered about. There was no way through. "Oh come on, I thought I cleaned up this place before I left!" He said, exasperated.

"You probably didn't do a good job the first time." Red picked up a blue translucent globe off the ground. "So our glorious base is staged out of your room. Cute"

(12 hours ago) the jet had laded at the air port few hours ago and the business man had rented a car with no time to spare. He'd been quit eager t see the results of the mutations that he'd heard about in the news. He knew form the reposts that Rue gave him and for from the spies that he's snuck into the various camps of his allies that this was likely the work of the bio chemist Anastasia. With luck he'd get there before the city was completely destroyed and his agents would have reports form them
(9 hours ago)

OOh pretty. Said Baikia as she looked at the massive damage to the city.
He had brought Baika with him because she'd fussed that he'd been gone so long in to that other place that she'd missed him. He smiled. For all her power and age she was still very much a child. Oh she was no match for Rue or Daemon in combat he knew but in and average fight she could take down some fairly tough beast of her own epically when she was in adult form unlike now.  Still as he looked around at the city the car pulling in past the out skirts he discovered that there was no road blocks. The destruction was there but some thing was wrong. Then Baika surprised him by undoing her seat belt and jumping out the car. He pulled to an instant stop ignoring the motorist behind him except when he heard someone tell him go to hell. "I'll see you the Timothy. A. Simons" he said. The speaker palled at being call his full name by some one he'd never seen. and he backed up and speed around the rented car nearly running into oncoming traffic.  The business man smiled. It was so easy to get souls like this when he chose to collect them not that the true master of evil on this plane would like him horning in on his territory. Still something was wrong this city didn't feel right.
"Master did you make this for me" asked Baika with child like innocent." no little one this city has been here for a good while "he answered." but it smells so new" Baika said and then it fell into place. The pollutants in this city were almost entirely gone. He could have expected that some super hero or another might mop up the monsters before he got there but to renew a section of the city that was not normal mortal power. This did not bode well for the game he'd intend to play

(6 hours ago) after meets with several of his surviving agents both in the city officers and in the prison he learned a good deal about what happened and he listened to on officer's report again hoping for more detail... "he was wearing red and he had some kind of stick with a ball on it." He said
"Detail more detail about the staff and it's wieldier" the businessman demanded know that this was going to change thing. The staff sound like trouble and he'd known two powerful arch mages that started out in read robes and one wielded a powerful staff. And though this was neither here nor there he could not be sure that it was not an omen. After all that staff could be a weapon of the so called gods like the hammer of Thor or it could be a weapon of Aeon build like Rue's Arch edge and to an extent Rue himself. no this would take time.

(one hour ago)
Rue this is a recall. about your current mission and locate the group you meet before at the warehouse.... in believe you have the addresses that our spies provide and the contact information that you got form them.... the lizard Liz?  yes he sounds like a good place to start... if you have his number give him a call... I have some one to investigate. and Rue if you she a red mage tell me if he has golden skin and hut glass eyes....  no don't engage him unless it's necessary. I know your weapon can block and cut mages it was built but an Aeon that wanted to dominate not only the world but your universe as well anything less would have been beneath him. look just go...  I need to replace the spies that Anastasia killed in her experiments and that one that was run over by a van early today.

(ten minutes ago.)
Run dilled the number that they told him would reach Liz and though Liz he would find Black night and the others. He'd been kept up-to-date on the war between China and Croc's / Dile lasses country and been reminded of how mint wanted to conquer the world all because she'd been replaced by her younger sister. Still Dile lass had more tact then mint who would try to level everything with her magic. He wondered what Nukes were exactly. The way the boss had explained it wit was like mint's explosion spells multiplied by a lot and add with and poison spell that would slowly kill anything the explosion didn't and would continue to kill anything that entered the explosion areas for a long time. Rue sighed as the phone rang.

   "I don't get many visitors, so cleanliness isn't that much of a priority to me. And, this isn't really the base, but it is where I live when I'm not hiding among human civilization. The rest of the base is actually beneath us. Miles of chambers and all kinds of fantastic stuff is down there, some of it hasn't been used in centuries, some not even in millennia. There's about a whole third of the place I haven't set foot in myself, because I haven't had need yet. Hey, be careful with that!" Quaddle said suddenly and urgently as he just realized Red Anvil was playing with something. He quickly took it out of her hands, then used his staff to float it somewhere across the room and place it on a shelf. "Alot of the stuff here is dangerous, it would behoove you to look and not touch. There are a few things here that don't like...strangers handling them."
  Quaddle then turned to the sea of strange devices and objects. He gave one mighty sweep of his staff, and a line of junk flew smoothly right out out of the way and all set themselves up properly along a wall. A small path had been created. "This place actually isn't even mine," He explaind as he got to the end, waved his staff again, created another path, and continued on. "It's on loan to me, really, until either I'm killed, or promoted and reassigned. Then it passes on to the new guy." Quaddle reached the end of this path, and repeated the process as before. "I also have to relocate this place around every now and then. Keeps nosy history off my back. I like this location, though, the mountains are quite scenic. I'll be sad when it's time to move. And yes, the entire base is moved. It's not actually me though, it's just one of the many massive spells built into this place that I couldn't even begin to fathom now."
  Red Anvil and Gentan would notice that as they waded through the room, they passed some archways that led off into other rooms. Eventually though, Quaddle got them to a large archway, with a spiral staircase down. There wasn't any light.
  "There's only three of us." Quaddle said suddenly. "While our enemy is many. We need allies, and I think I know someone who can help us. We're going to the library!" Quaddle said, smiling. He made the end of his staff glow a bright whiet light, then went down the staircase.

Red shot a look that could kill to Quaddle as he said "behooved". "I suppose we couldn't as for a newer base." She said in passing to Gentan as she walked precariously down Quaddle's path. 

the business man did not like there. this was too soon for some one this powerful to try to disrupt there plans. and that staff. his agents had describe him and an middle age man in red and wielding a staff that save for the missing dragon claw holding the glass orb sound suspiciously  like the staff of magius. he couldn't that 'he' would be though.

the business man his drove his car to a local subsidiary as is companies passing the building where one of his spies have been run over by a van. he glance up and saw that someone had taken out a part of the second story. he knew this building and knew it belonged to one of his business competitors but shrugged it off as coincidence. he'd look into it later. now he had to fine a better image of this so called red mage. he smiled. and he went to the terminal to call up satellite images of the city during the mutation break too bad he'd been away when it happen. he would have sent Rue to destroy some of his competitors strong n holds in the city while protecting his own interest..Baika next to him however was board.

Gentan had never seen this much junk in one room in his whole life. When he heard the word library he started to like this place less. He never liked it in his old home and he dared to bet that this library would be as boring as then. "So ... what are we going to do there?" Gentan wondered as he looked in every hallway they went past.

   Quaddle led the three down the unlit spiral staircase with the glow from his staff. "Well, as I said, we're gonna need some help to fight these Villains...And I have an idea of someone...or something...that might be able to help us. My mentor and predecessor Planet-Guardian, Zaldreen, sometimes told me stories of his own life during the first century of my existance, when he was grooming me to become the Planet-Guardian after him. Sometimes, he told me stories of when he got help to maintain balance from a certain entity, who is both very powerful and even older than Zaldreen was." They got to the bottom of the staircase, and Quadle began leading them through a maze-like series of passagesways, similarly unlit.
   "I can't remember much about who or whatever this is, but I do remember that he is sealed away somewhere whenever his assistance is not needed. Something about his power being to great and his personality being a little to unstable to be left unchecked for extended periods of time. I know that Zaldreen kept a record of this, where this enity is hidden, and how to free him. That's why we're headed for the library...and here we are!"
   Quaddle turned a corner and stopped. The glow from his staff illuminated only a few feet radius, and ahead, it was nothing but pitch blackness.
   "Don't move. "Quadle said to Red Anvil and Gentan. Then Quaddle's light went out. "Don't worry, just give me a moment, and don't move from your spot or you might get lost..." For some reason, Quaddle's voice echoed strangely, as if he was moving away from them. "Where is that little...I know it's here..." Quadle grumbled lightly. "I'll find it-oh wait! Found it! Ok, here we go!"
   All of a sudden, without warning, white, glowing light began to flar up all around Gentan and red Anvil. It grew and grew, and slowly began illuminating a hallway of gigantic proportions. It continued to grow and grow, until it eventually got so big that it seemed like it was impossible for it to fit underneath the mountian that the base was housed in, let alone the rest of the base. And then, finally, the two shelves. They lined the hallway on both sides, going up as high as the top of the hallway, which seemed half a mile high. Then the illuminating glow, that seemed to have no source whatsoever, shot down the hallway, illuminating a library that seemed to have no end. The shelves were filled will all manner of any type of written document that had ever existed on earth; parchement scrolls, modern books, even stone tablets.
   However, back on the ground, Quaddle was standing near a strange device protruding from the ground, the orb end of his staff stuck into it, glowing brightly. Quaddle removed the staff and the protrustion melted into the ground.
   "Behold!" Quaddle said dramaticly, moving his staff in a sweeping gesture towards the two shelves. "The Library Of Earth, kept safe previously by the Planet-Guardian Zaldreen, currently by the Planet-Guardian Quaddle, containing the sum total of all knowledge that ever existed on this planet! More than three-quarters of it were written by Zaldreen himself, he kept a history of this place thousands of years before humans even discovered written language! Written, of course, in the language of the Guardians, incomprehensible to any outsider." Quaddle finished smugly. "Feel free to browse, I'll be right back." Quadle said, aware of the utter absurdity of this statement, as nearly everything was completely out of reach, and what wasn't was most certainly not written in English. Quaddle conjured his two small disks of golden light, stood on them, and zipped up and down the hallway.

"I wonder if he has Red Dwarf hidden away in here. I would like to read it again soon." Red said to Gentan.

The phone rang before anyone could answer Liz. He looked up from his coffee, walking over to the phone and examining the caller ID. An unfamiliar number. Be careful, but don't just leave it alone.

He picked up the phone. "You've reached a talking lizard. Are you sure you have the right number?"

Rue chuckles. he had not meant to it just happened. " until this moment no i wasn't. this it Rue and my boss says I'm too abandoned my mission and meet up with you and the black knight." Rue paused wondering how to phrase what to say next. "I'm told that opposition has arisen. powerful opposition. My boss is looking into it but..." he shrugged. knowing it would go unseen. " but it would be better to discuss that in private. where would be a good place to meet up with you?" he asked. not wishing to go directly too the lair of his Allies just in case some one tired following him.  Rue looked at the address he'd been give by his boss it was a good ways away and though his bosses information was always good it was not necessarily up to date. the distance might be a problem through Even if he ran it would take him a few hours to get there from his current location in Nebraska and on top of that it might be heading in the wrong direction. well maybe just this once he'd borrow the dragons wings again. it was for a good cause after all.

   Red Anvil's voice echoed all the way down the seemingly endless hallway, reaching Quaddle's ears as he browed around for the tome he was looking for. "Sorry!" Quaddle called back, his voice similarly echoing back down the hallway to Red Anvil. "The Library is only kept updated to the last century, never to the presant day."
   Eventually, Quaddle got to a section of Zaldreen's memoirs, and selected a book with his staff. Using his staff, he levitated it in front of him, flipping through the pages with no hands. Eventually, he seemed satisfied, and replaced the book. He then began his flight back towards Red Anvil and Gentan.

Liz smiled, remembering the boy at the meeting with the menacing weapon on his back. "Well, your boss is right. Our new enemies are quite powerful, but thankfully we have a new ally who might be able to help us. But this would be safer not to talk about over the phone. I'm in southeast Michigan right now with the others - all except the Asian idiots, Sebastian and Sheridanna. I could go somewhere closer to where you are if that's too far," he told Rue, not wanting to be impolite.

"Well that's useful." She said in the most sarcastic voice she could muster. "So is there a reason you only collect 'classics'?" she asked using the universal sign for quotes when she got to classics.

Rue considered. his current position had him in the southern part of the state of Illinois and that put him quite a distance away. he could cover that distance but it would take him a few hours of running.  alright he thought. " i'm currently i south Illinois  but i can make it to Lancing Michigan in about 3 hours. is that close enough to catch a ride" he asked know he'd be tired by the time he got there. such distances at any true speed would wear on him but it would be necessary he was sure. and if the didn't ask how he got there then there would be no reason to tell them.

Liz paused. "Hang on a sec," he told Rue, pulling a map of Michigan out of a desk drawer and making a few quick lines to figure out how long it would take him to get there.

"I think I can be there in about... two hours, maybe a little less. There's a Marriott courtyard there, we can meet up there if you'd like. Should I come alone, or take someone with me?"

Rue checked his mental math. "I'll get some directions and meet you there." said Rue.  he paused a few moments and considered. it was inefficient to keep running around like this and though he and the boss kept in contact through shadow demons he knew that he an the others couldn't. " on more request though if it's not too much trouble. can you pick me up a cell phone on the way out? I'll reimburse you for the cost"

   Quaddle reached Gentan and Red Anvil as Red was giving her sarcasm. "Because I'm a crappy librarian with a poor sense of priorities!" He said in an upbeat tone. "Anyway, c'mon, it's time to collect another ally. Follow me"
   The glow in the Library began to dim, and Quaddle set off in a swift stride back into the twisted passageways.

Red strode down the hall with an air of strength and grace not normally seen in most people. "I'll have to get you one of ours." She said levely but with a smidgin of scarcasm.



---


Croc called Roulette again. The phone rang, but it was later in the morning so he hoped she'd be more cognisant.

The businessman was getting agitated. The satellites he's tapped into showed several people of interest. The first that caught his eye was the deamon copter with the lizard passenger. He followed them until they split up and decided to follow they satellite tracking the lizard

The third one was the mage in red. He had meant find him at this point but the lizard seemed to brush past him and he caught a feeling glance of him. Flying by in an Adam Strange fashion, or maybe it was someone else he remember flying on disk of light. It was so hard trying to remember everyone he'd encountered of the passing of time.

He paused the footage and decided he would look for more detail as to what happened. It was then that he noticed he that deamon had been knocked around a bit. That's was not good. Deamon was someone with potential to go toe to toe with Rue. Both of them wielded magic weapons of the highest regard. He knew Rue's skills first hand and how he was not limited to using his arc edge to fight he also knew that Rue learned end during the fight. He didn't know if Deamon was the same but if he was that spoke of a huge power difference. 

The forth person of interest he saw was a female that looked like a red demon or devil of sorts. he liked they way she looked but soon realized that liked that fallen angel Angella she did not work for whom it would appeared that she did. She would bear watching. after all she'd stopped him form for testing the mage and giving him more data on him

"did it work?" he cringed. Baika was digging her claws into his suite and the sound of his ripping told him yet another 5000$ suite was on it's what to the trash.
" no not yet" do you think it's really work?"
" probably not but I can only hope Baika"
Aww that's not like you. " he ruffled her hair and said nothing as he went back to work.
"why wouldn't it work" asked Baika not willing to let it go.
"It should work but that depends on how careless or in experienced they wizard is. No be a good kitten and go play Plum"
"aww why can't I stay here" she asked
"Because I need to think dear heart and that's had to do with you shredding my closes as I type." He paused and weighted what he would say.  "This wizard could be strong. In Krynn I watched as Rastlin Majere destroyed and entire city in flame and that was before he gained god like power." He shook his head. Rastlin had become a god then he was stopped form becoming one before he could achieve godhood by his twin brother. "If it's him from the time within the paradox when he was mortal or even after he became a dark god then it's time for me to get you and Rue away form here. After all I can't revive Rue's world if he dies and takes of the souls he saved with him"
"Aww rue won't die you won't let him"
He smiled even after all this time she thong he could do anything
"There are rules dear heart and even scorpions play by the rules though they be their own"
"You always say that what does it mean?"
"It means that if I'm not careful you and rue can die. Maybe not against the hero's of this world but if they get divine help then I'll have to bargain pretty heard to get them to spare you"
"aww"
"but enough of this for now I need to find this wizard and see if he's a threat"
"okay" said Baika a little down

He'd lost the wizard again for a while thong and hand to trying the catch the wizard by following the explosions. then he saw him standing with his staff he was not sure what he was doing at first maybe a scry-ing spell which would suggest second sight of some kind.

(that meant it was time to consider other methods of identity concealment. He'd been protected form the immortals for so long he'd forgotten about mortal magic.)

then he realized what he was seeing. The wizard. He must be refreshing himself or maybe his staff. Mortals had limits that neither Rue more baika. there was a chance that he was worn out and need to tap into a sort of healing energy in his staff. Or maybe that staff was tapping into his energy like a plasma gun based weapon. It was hard to tell. Moments later he watched the gem stones flowing and merging. This was elemental manipulation? or was it mealy a new spell?  then the satellite feed went dead as the city was engulfed in golden energy. He shivered. That was power was greater then he expected. It was power like Merlin had possessed and he'd watched Merlin lift and drop a mountain on one of his enemies. He smiled inwardly. If this guy was not a Majere decedent he certainly knew of him.

The first clue was the staff with the orb. No not a dragon orb but still suggested that it was in mind and though it lack a dragon's claw to hold it as well suggest that this person had never seen the true staff of magus but knew of it's powers. The staff was wrong the skin was wrong to be Rastlin but the power of the blood line was there. Who was this wizard? Ah well it was time to find out where he disappeared to before that satellite system can follow him. The satellite he was using took 142 second to reboot meaning there was a time gap. It also meant that he had to find him again. He began the sweep of the city again hoping they the wizard had not gone under ground as the satellites could not track him there.

( now would be a good time for the business man to encounter some of Quaddel's spying defenses. After all while when know how he fled the city the business man doesn't and is looking for him after a 2 minute 22 second gap in his surveillance cause by unknown interference during Quaddles city healing spell. )

OOC:Got a little bored so I thought I'd have a minor misadventure with Release before the meeting at Liz's gets under way I he arrives fashionably late.

Release was running late.  Granted he normally didn't care about time, but now he was working with a group and he knew good impressions would be important.  He grabbed a piece of toast and quickly buttered it as he headed out the door of his run down apartment.  It was a place only a renegade lunatic like him could call home and just as he left a gigantic wrecking ball tore through the building and knocked his TV set onto the street.  Release froze as he saw his favorite possession shatter on the ground.  He didn't even notice his piece of toast fall to the ground and get stolen by a small squirrel. 

"MY PLACE!" Release screeched as he noticed the Squirrel.  "MY TOAST!"  He looked back at his apartment as it crumbled in and crushed almost everything he owned.  "MY STUFF!"  A sudden smoke plume from the rubble confirmed his computer's death and he stood in shock.

"Hey you!" A man in a hard hat came running over.  "You came out of there?"

"I've lived here for six months... LEAGALLY!" RElease shouted. "I demand an explanation!"

"It's been scheduled for deconstruction for a year..." The man said with a wincing smile.  "Whoever let you rent here..."

"I bought it..." Release growled.

"Sold you a bad piece of property..." the man finished as he walked off.

"Ok..." Release muttered to himself.  "First my toast, then the meeting and then I find and kill that idiot who sold me this place..."  And with that Release ran after the squirrel, all the while screaming like a lunatic.

Gentan was looking around till he heard Quaddle say that they are going to pick up another ally and he was totally not happy with those words. "AWWWWWW MAN, you can't be serious do we have to travel all the way back to the city to pick up someone .... can't he take a cab this way or something." He said loud and on a childish way.

Red jabbed him in the side with her elbow. "Shush, You don't have to come if you don't want to...But i doubt we'll even be leaveing this place."

   Quaddle chuckled as he heard Red Anvil and Gentan talk. "Actually, you're both wrong; We are leaving, but we aren't going back to the city, and-" Quaddle looked at Gentan, '-I got something I think you will appreciate."
   Quaddle led the two through some more passageways, eventually coming on a small room that was completely bare except for a stone arch in the middle.
   "This," Quaddle said, pointing at it with his staff, "Is my portal. I can travel instantly anywhere in the world that I want with this baby. Anywhere. Anyways, we are going directly to someone whom I think can help us."

The businessman was vexed. Not only was his Jacket in tatters on the ground and his pants legs were shredded to the knees. Well at least the left on was she was still working on the right one. But he'd spent house trying to pick up the trail of the red mage again after the city clearing blast but the lack of explosions made it difficult to say the least. it was like searching for and ant in and ant hill. unless the one he was looking for did something flashy he would not find him for some time yet
"I'm board" said Baika as she idly rakes his right leg with her claws.
He sighed. A gifted organizer, skilled infiltrator and decent  fighter but she was still a feline. Maybe a winged on but still a feline at least as much of one as she was human. He never did figure out where she came from or why she pried him out of his solitude  in on his throne as waited for a demon to become powerful enough to kill and take the throne for it'self.  What even her reason she gave him a reason to live again and she had been with him ever since. She unlike Rue was not bound to him by a promise but she still served him loyally.

"okay Baika what would you like to do" he asked.
" I want to go shopping"
"okay just let me find this mage again..." ripe more of his pants leg was ripped off. " come on this is important"

"I know but you have others that can do that." She pouted "beside you've been at this for hours. Lets go shopping now"
"but" 
"mew?" her claws raised over the computer as if she were about to cleave it in twain
"alright I'll forward the footage and the sat access  to the labs in New Jersey, Tokyo and Chicago. Then we'll go shopping"
"mew!"
He sighed. some days he wondered who was really in charge as he clicked send and the packages  hurried away to the project leader. As a precaution he also saved a back up of the work he's done to a portable drive.  then he made a note to send images of the mage he saw in the city to his higher lever spys and employees. speaking of employees he wondered if Rue  had made contact yet and summed a shade demon that he dispatched to fined Rue with a report request.

( i figue it'll take about a week game time for any positive results to start coming in. that enough time?)

Liz checked his wallet, stifling a giggle at the irony. "Yeah, I've got enough cash. See you in a couple hours." He hung up the phone and grabbed a set of keys out of the desk drawer, turning towards the kitchen table. "Hey Cryssie? The kid with the huge weapon I told you was at the meeting wants to meet me in Lansing. Is it OK if I borrow your car?"

She looked up from her tea. "OK, but don't get it destroyed again. Speaking of which, we still need a replacement for the Lexus."

"I'll get one, don't worry," Liz said, rolling his eyes. "Anyone wanna come with me, or wouldja need more time?"

The Boss' phone buzzed in his pocket, and he rolled his eyes. "Yes?" he asked, without even reaching in to answer it.
"Hey, Boss?" Roulette's voice rang in his ear.
"Roulette."
"Croc's back in the US. Mind sending him somethin' to get where all of you are?"
"What's the phone number?"

She gave him the number, and he, having not yet even gone inside, went back into his car to "Speak" with one of the robots in it. Croc would receive soon a message with the location, as well as a map, beore sending the same thing to Rouette, after a slight hesitation.
It wasn;t until then that he entere'd Liz's house, and spoke.

"Roulette and Croc should be joining us as soon as they can."

Rue thanked the lizard and hung up. he stretched and  took his bearings. it would be a long run but then he'd been taking it too easy as of late. unslinging his arc edge he chuckles moments before he his forehead crystal glows and a disk of light starting at his feet enveloped. him. in less then a second Rue is gone and in his place stands a four legged saber tiger who's breath clothes the slightly chilled air. he wondered what Mint would think of this world so unlike there own with so little magic. Rue began running some what northeast. he ran at a set pace as it would not due to tire himself  before he got close the meeting point.

moments after Rue vacates heading for his meeting with Liz the shadow of a building starts to wither and move. form the shadow emerges a small shadow demon about 2 feet tall. he hiss and looks for the one it was sent to find picking up traces of him the demon melds back into the shadows and began to track his target again. not an easy task when the target was moving at such speeds with a steady shadow to  appear in.

Liz looked up in slight surprise when the boss walked in. He was only half-pleased at the news - on the plus side, this meant they'd get to vent their frustrations at Croc. But no sense in showing any disappointment when the boss had some sort of favor toward Roulette, and when Croc had technically had more success than any of them.

He nodded. "Excellent. I was just talking with Rue, and he said he'd meet me at the Marriott in Lansing. So except for Sheridanna and Sebastian, we'll all be here by the end of a few hours. Meantime, no-one's answered my question yet. Should I go alone, or does anyone want to come with me to get Rue?"

Gentan looked to the gate and then to Quaddle. "Who is this person if I may ask?" He asked while looking around the room to see what kind off stuff beside old books he was keeping.

About half way down the block that Release had chased the squirrel down the little critter stopped and downed the piece of toast that it had taken.  Release stood stunned and shocked at the little rodent that took off with what he was sure was a giggle.

"GAHHHH!!!"  Release screamed as he psychically crushed a nearby mailbox.  He quickly calmed himself as he caught several people staring.  "What, you've never seen a guy get pissed at a squirrel?"  He then looked back to where the squirrel had been.  "I hate rodents..." 

He continued to grumble on his way to the lizard's address and even though it took almost an in a taxi cab he was still in a foul mood as he walked up to the door and knocked on it. 

"Come on open up before I uproot a tree or draw some other equally unwanted attention!" Release shouted as he waited impatiently.

   Gentan would find the small room they were in quite bare, except for the archway in the center.
   "Well..." Quaddle scratched his head. "I'm not entirely sure. I'm not even sure if he--it, is a person, per se. All I know is that it's powerful and has helped my predecessor, Zaldreen, on a number of occations.
   "But moving on, we should be off."
   Quaddle pointed his staff at the archway. It flashed, and suddenly, blue energy appeared in the center, grew, and began swirling around in the archway.
   "Ready?" Quaddle asked, standing next to the portal.

Before Liz could get his answer, there was a lot of noise outside. "Someone has their panties in a bunch today," he commented, heading for the door - quickening his pace at the mention of unwanted chaos starting.

Crystal peeked out the window. "It's the psychic guy. Can I get a spoon and make him bend it?"

"No, Cryssie, I'm pretty sure he's not in the mood to play Uri Geller," Liz replied, exasperated.

He swung open the door to reveal a very pissed Release. "Good morning to you too, and welcome to my house. I'm Liz, your financier, and you, along with the others will be staying in one of mine and Crystal's basements. It's okay, they're just as well-furnished as the upper levels, and have a good deal more workspace." He grinned, partly to piss off Release, and stepped back to let him in.

Croc was chargeing for Liz's house in a Mustang GT that he had stolen...er.... commendered from one of the locals. He was about ten minutes away.




----------------------------------

"Can we please do away with theatrics? Not sure if you noticed but, you have a tired cranky demon right here." Red said tapping her hoof at a fast pace.

"Great, wonderful, perfect..." Release half-smiled.  "Got any toast, a squirrel stole mine."  Release noticed simplicity of the place and blinked compared to what he was expecting.  "You have how many floors under here?" He asked as he walked in.  "Ugh, anyway sorry about the threat, my place got giant metal ball put through it today..."  He his smile was a cross of homicidal rage and genuine happy-go lucky smile stupidity.  "So I'm not really in a great mood today... plus that freaking squirrel stole my breakfast..."  He was mindlessly babbling at this point.

"Release, there is no need for you to be getting this worked up." The Boss shot him a look, raised an eyebrow, and went back to examining his gloves for dirt or stains.
"Can't have you hurting anyone now." His tone was very light, nonchalant, and he flicked a speck of dust from a finger.
"However much you seem to enjoy that, it is not, in fact, was I hired you for." His tail twitched behind him in slight annoyance, and he pulled up one glove just enough to look at the small screen, nodding.
"Croc should be arriving soon. Behave yourself, the last thing we need is two hot-headed men like you in an area this small. We'd be finished before we even stated." He said with a sigh.

rue had been running for some time already though he knew he still had miles to cover before he made it throng to the next state let alone the target city. reaching a river Rue decided not to ford it but fly over. in a few moments a blue gargoyle lands on the other side of the river and became a saber ( i forget if it was a tiger or a wolf)  and begins to run again. 

Liz nodded. "Thanks for the warning, sir. Please make sure they don't tear up our home while I'm gone."

He looked back at Release. "I hate to be rude, but I have to meet one of our other coworkers a few towns over. So, I'm outta here. The lovely young lady sitting right there is Crystal; she can show you around," he told the psychic, gesturing to his girlfriend and asking her with his eyes if that was okay.

When she nodded, he turned back around. "If any harm comes to my house, or her, I will allow myself the honor of turning you into a human pincushion - and I'm being very literal." With that, he waved goodbye and walked out the door. Crystal stood up from the breakfast table and walked over to Release.

"Hi there. I'm Crystal, and yes, we do have toast. Please don't try to kill me if you get mad; I'm stronger than I look," she smiled, offering her hand for Release to shake.

Release was about to respond to the Boss' remark when Liz spoke up.  He was slightly surprised by the threat, but in a good way, the little lizard had moxy and Release could respect a guy protecting something of value.  He gave his own smile and shook the lizard gals hand. 

"Don't worry toots, I can take the anger out on this magic using monkey I'm supposed to test."  Release was interrupted by his stomach's grumbling.  "Eheheh... so about that toast?"

Croc was going so fast when he saw the house he slamed the breaks and it wasn't until a good three houses past Liz's he was able to stop. As he turned around and parked the car in the driveway the whole house could hear Croc's metal music. Then he turned off the car and got out. He strode up to the door and pressed the bell.

Liz was pulling out of the driveway when the heavy-metal blaring vehicle zoomed by and nearly killed Crystal's car. He was tempted to flip the guy off, but once he saw who it was, he resisted and simply pulled out the rest of the way before zipping off to get to Lansing.

---

Before Crystal could make any toast for Release, the doorbell rang. She gave Release the 'one minute' sign and opened the door.

Having never seen Croc or anyone like him before, her eyes widened. "So you're Croc? Wow. I'm Crystal, Liz's girlfriend. You just missed Liz, but the others are here." She stepped back, allowing the fellow reptile entrance.

"Yeah, I almost hit him when I was comeing in. I should apologise later." He said doing the fake scratch on the back of the head routine. "Hm, thought Liz would have a bigger place."

Release blinked.  Then he blinked again.  Then he blinked for a third time.

"Dude, you look like you could bench press the wrecking ball that tore down my apartment." Release was slightly impressed by the powerful man before him.  Then he did what he naturally did when he met physically imposing men, he tried to scan the guy's mind for any surface thoughts that might lead him deeper into the man's mind.  If he was lucky the guy would be weak enough in the mind to let him get some dark secrets, but knowing this group he might end up busted before he could get a surface thought worth reading.

"Ah, Crystal!" He went to shake her hand. She found his to be like a boxing mit only much harder. "Liz told us 'bout you, dun worry we'll get out of you hair soon as possible." He had a large warm smile on

lucky for croc he had a strong will. lucky for relese it wasn't strong enough. lucky for croc he didn't have much to read.

finnally I'm here. maybe this place has firmer beds than that damn hotel. I'd like that.[/b]

Just after he got done thinking that he noticed relese was talking to him. "Don't worry I ain't decided wedder or not I like you yet. His smile faded into a stoic diplomatic state.

Release smirked to himself and folded his arms at his chest.  "Well I try to keep things friendly with guys who can turn me into a human pretzel."  Then he took off is shades and let a careful look linger on Croc.  He figured now would be best to lay his cards on the table, the muscle man was strong willed and that could be dangerous if things went south with this alliance.  "As for those beds that so carelessly seep through your thoughts, I probably wouldn't worry too much, the kid looks like he's got a solid enough place."  At that moment Release prepared an invisible barrier just an inch in front of his face, just in case Croc decided to attack.  "Name's Release, by the way and I'm afraid I didn't catch yours."

"Croc." That was all he said before looking for a TV. He never was one for postureing.

Crystal gave a genial smile back to Croc, not batting an eyelash when his hand enveloped hers completely. "It's no trouble to have you here. Though a lot of people seem to say that about the house..." When the reptilian giant let go of her hand, she moved to make the toast for Release. "The TV's in the cabinet on that wall over there," she said, pointing at a cabinet in the room across from the kitchen table. "You can leave your stuff in the mudroom for now, we'll get you set up in a guest bedroom whenever you're ready."

---

About an hour and a half away, Liz was blasting a Nickelback album as he made his way toward the Lansing Marriott. He'd only gotten a few weirded out looks from kids in car seats so far, to whom he had offered a big, toothy smile. They shouldn't have stared anyway. He might have been stared at even more if he hadn't shut the windows when "Animals" came on and he started singing along.

At last, he saw the courtyard in the distance. He smirked, turned down the music, and drove towards the parking lot.

Rue had been running for hours stopping only to drink or change into something that would let him  navigation and obstacles better that his saber form. in some places he actually have to become human form a while all this time he was unaware that his bosses mes sager was trying to catch up to him. it had been  almost four hours since He started running and he'd made it into lancing approaching form the south west nearly twenty minutes ago a little asking around had led him towards the food Court and food sound good right now.  all that exercising  could really take it out of some one. as he approached the  restaurant of the food he wondered if his ride had arrived yet and if so were they upset about the wait.

Liz parked his car and locked it. It had a car alarm, so he'd know if anything happened to it, normal or otherwise. Pocketing his keys, he strode towards the courtyard. He scanned the area once with his eyes, and spotted a familiar face near the food court. A smile graced his features as he walked towards a table near the restaurant Rue had chosen.

"Hey there. Sorry if I'm late," he greeted the boy, taking a seat and waiting for him to order.

Rue spun around as he realized he was being addressed.  he smiled as he recognized the gecko. it had been a long few months since he'd seen the gecko but he had a good memory for faces if not names. " hi there." he said waving to the lizard as the customer before him finished stepped aside. " would you like something? " he asked needing to know before figuring out his own order.

The Boss sighed inwardly, trying not to let on to the rest of the room even the slightest bit of reluctance to meet Croc.
Croc struck the Boss as the kind of guy who would care and make a big deal over the Boss' ver, very diminutive height, and he hoped that it wasn't as much the case as it seemed it would be.

"Croc, it's a pleasure to see you again." He eventually said, walking up beside him, and offering a gloved hand out to shake- although, if Crystal's hand was eveleoped completely, his would likely be covered halfway up the forearm.
"Roulette told me there were some issues in Laos with some revolutionaries... Was that taken care of?" He asked conversationally.

   Quaddle nodded at Red Anvil's statement. "Well, if there are no more questions or objections, let's go!" Quaddle walked to enter the portal, looking over his shoulder to make sure Red Anvil and Gentan were following.

Croc shook Boss' hand "Well, kinda. We gotta wait n' see if the 'constitution' will be to their likeing. Corse China didn't help anythin' much either." Croc made a real effort not to point out the Boss' height because 1 He didn't want to mock a man with enough man power to put im six feet deep and 2 Dile Lass would really give him an ear full when she found out. Croc opened up the Tv cabnet. "Let's see if the news can tell us anything more." He said turning on the Tv.

The local news station's identification flashed over the screen as a woman sitting at a desk. "President McCantree of Laos relesed in one of our interviews that Her nation is at the moment in a state of unrest. It appears a band of rebels have tried to over throw the new regime. She also says plans are in the works to try and placate these rebels. We wish her luck. Now it's time for our segment 'On the brighter side!' A local boy saved a family from a hellish housefire! We'd like to thank billy for his heroics and sent him a K-R-A-Z Shirt and a copy of this broadcast."

Release quickly followed after Crystal, even though he was curious about this Croc guy, his stomach still demanded it's daily tribute of toast. 

"Sooo..." Release said as he waited for his toast.  "I got some catchin' up to do, anything I should know about these guys.  And where's the rabbit girl; she seemed like a good person to put the old mental muscle to work decoding."  He smiled eagerly as he waited for his toast.

Rue's order was fairly lard and thong he walked it to the table with ease it looked as though there was enough food there to fill a group of 5 or more people. he paid for it using the plastic care that his boss had given him far easier to keep up with the the small paper bits they called money  so long and he read the name on the card before signing. the total order a little over 100 credits contained 6 main dished and numerous sides but only two drinks both of them bottles of water as he did not know what Liz would like and preferred water tainted as it may be to many of the other so called drinks of this place.

Setting down. the tray  he sits across from Liz and nods offering him a water. " so is it safe to tell me what happened to that city i ran through on the way here?  ." he asked a moment before he noticed  the shadow of the table sprouting red eyes. this reminded him of his request for his cell phone but that could wait a bit. new he needed to figure out what to do about the shadow demon and his ally.

Liz watched as Rue bought enough food for a good-size family dinner and marveled that the boy didn't seem to need any help. He thanked him for the water, picking it up and unscrewing the cap.

"If you mean the completely destroyed city, that was partly Anastasia's fault," he told Rue. "She released some kind of virus into the water that turned everyone into mutant-zombie things. Daemon and I were there, and we happened to meet a few members of an... opposing force to the boss. One of them is a completely red demon-woman who's incredibly strong, and the other's a red-cloaked mage named Quaddle. The mage purged the city of the virus and healed all the mutated ones, and the red girl got hurt somehow, so we just left. We've got everyone, including the boss and a few new people, gathered up at my house."

He paused and took a sip of water. "Oh, and before I forget, I did pick up a cell phone on the way here." He reached into the breast pocket of his shirt and pulled out a simple Verizon camera phone. "Hope you don't mind something this basic. I can exchange it if you'd like."

(sorry my first response was killed when my computer crash and i need time to make a new one)

Rue was amazed but the phone. It was fare fancier then he'd expected and much more then he needed. As the looked it over he accidentally triggered the camera on the phone starting the shadow demon hiding under the table into vanishing. "This is very nice but I think I'll need help learning how to use it." after a few more moments looking over the phone and dialing his bosses number. His boss wouldn't be in he knew as it was the number to his corporate office.  "My boss is looking into to tracking those people that stopped the attack. He seems worried about the red robed wizard most though and I can't see why. I'm acutely under orders not to attack him if I encounter him except if he attacks first." Rue shook his head. Remembering his bosses orders 'gauge his powers but don't engage him. It's important for us to know what he is and the limits of his ability before we know if you can beat him in a fight. Basil the others out if need be but when the time come retreat if you must. "

With his mind full Rue started in on his fourth entrée. Then the shadow demon retunes and placed a package on his lap. In the packet was a sealed letter form the boss. Perhaps magically sealed he wasn't sure and what looked like and 8 gig computer finger drive. He considered the package and the worked on his food. In the brief pause the fist three meals had already digested and he was nearing full strength again. "We'd better meet up with the others soon" he said pushing his two untouched meals aside. "I have a feeling that I have information to share with the group." He said placing the package form his lap to the table. 
.

Liz was a little surprised at Rue's astonishment with the phone, but then, he was used to the constant updates of technology. When Rue mentioned his boss's worry over Quaddle, Liz nodded. "Well, based on what I've seen, Quaddle's the most powerful of the few people attacking us. He totaled my car; I had to borrow my girlfriend's to get here."

Seeing the shadow creature was something new to Liz, who hadn't really been paying attention the first few times it appeared. That package piqued his curiosity as well, but something told him now wasn't the time to ask about it. When Rue insinuated that they'd better get going, Liz nodded and stood up, snagging a small order of French fries and a burger from the unfinished meals on the tray. "Good idea. My car's this way, unless you wanna get a bag for the rest of that first," he said, indicating the remaining food.

Rue taking Liz's meaning nodded and when to the counter for a moment retuning with several Styrofoam packages and a couple of bags. he made short work of packing up the uneaten food before picking up the package. "here. i'd like you to hold on to this" he said handing over the computer thumb drive. he kept the letter planing on reading it on the trip to the base. dispite his hunger being quelled he was still a little tired but them a run of that distance would tire almost anyone. " I think it may be important and you no doubt have some computer somewhere that we can use to read it."

the shadow demon it's task done returned into the shadows dissappering into it's own world again. it was relived to be free of that place of bright light and weird entities but still it's  geis was to be ready should rue need it. It was the bosses insurance on Rue's life. something to make sure rue survived and would in a heartbeat draw Rue and those near him into the shadow demon world if that is what it would take to save rue. that was the bosses command and that's what it would do. slowly the demon drifted to sleep it's ear resin in one of Rue's many pocket.

Liz took the computer thumb drive and examined it for a moment before answering. "Yeah, we have a computer at the house. Long as it doesn't self-destruct after we see what's on there, it should be fine." He watched the demon-creature go away, then turned and headed for the car, motioning for Rue to follow.

After they'd both entered and buckled, Liz asked what had been on his mind for a while. "I don't mean to pry, but what was that shadow-creature with you?"

Rue blinked surprised. most people either didn't notice the shadow demons ore convince themselves that they weren't real if they did see them. Rue smiled. "that was one of  my boss's messengers. they pop up all the time with new instructions, information and run errors to keep the boss connected without  the risk or wire taps and so forth."

Rue laughed a little as he thought he heard a slight his. " I'm surprised you noticed on but then we do hang in an unusual crowed."  Rue shook his head. "Spies, deamons and wizards oh my. an they aren't the most unusual of out acquaintances are they Liz?"  he asked thinking of  Sebastian, Mint , Roulette and the one guy that looked like a robot.

Liz listened to Rue's description patiently, hoping that he wasn't in any trouble with the boy's employer for noticing. He nodded and smirked at Rue's final comment. "No, I suppose not," he replied, starting the car and heading home.

rue was full in both mind and body. not necessarily the best combination when your mind is full of worries and uncomfortable second thoughts. thoughts provoked by the letter he was reading.

Rue reread the letter and it's warning. A waring about the red wizard being a threat to Rue on the same lever of potential as Rueican. Rueican was once called doll master and he had over defeated Rue several times. in the end at their final battle in a fit of rage like how he drove him off at their first encounter. then it had cost the life of Clair the woman who befriend him when he had no memory of who he was or what he was. still even though he managed to defeat Rueican bye unlocking what was then his full power he could not bring himself to kill him. that turned out to be a good thing as Rueican saved him form their creator Valen at the expense of his own life shortly after he revived Clair using the power of the dew prism and his soul gem where he has stored her soul without knowing. reading this letter and the memories it brought up unsettled rue. "There is a password on the drive this letter says." Rue told Liz in part to distract himself form his worries." it's to protect the data from prying eyes just in case." the password Dewprism was in the letter that Rue had read but that could wait. he had something else more important to ask Liz. "we can win this up coming war right Liz?

Anastasia eventually made her way to the rest of the group in the Talking Lizard household, rubbing sleep out of her eyes alongside her 24th cup of coffee.
"Mmf, th'hell's'matt'r witcha p'ple, talking b'niss already." She gave her head a shake, once, and laboriously focused on Release, "What's this about decoding?"

Release gave a sly smile.  "You're a puzzle.  Genius level intellect, one funky van and I'm ninety percent sure that trying to read your mind would result in terrible pain due in no small part to your reaction."  He let the side of his mouth curl into an even more sly smile.  "That plus hiding your face makes you one of the more interesting people here.  I like interesting, it keeps me from blowing things up."  When the toast popped up from the toaster it just as suddenly flew over to Release who quickly downed it in two gulps.

"My toast, no squirrel's going to get these ones..." Release smiled as he licked his fingers.

"Good to know, wouldn't want you losing your self control," Anastasia replied dryly, her head finally starting to clear. Funky van. Yeah, I'm just Scooby @#$%in' Doo. Gyeh. "Good to see you know flattery will get you everywhere, you're not a complete lost cause. Now then, and I repeat..." Her eyes narrowed as she went to pour herself another cup of coffee, "What's this about decoding?" I don't like it when people dodge questions.

"Telling makes it less fun." Release smiled wickedly as he passed a mental scan over her mind.  "Think of a number between one and five million.  Don't be shy about decimals, surface thoughts are the easiest to pluck after all."

Anastasia quirked an eyebrow at the psychic and thought of a number. Then she got bored of it, and thought of another. And then she got bored of that one, and so on until eventually moving on to thinking of equations and proofs, and sequences of numbers whose meaning were almost impossible to discern.
All this in about two and a half seconds, flooding the peeking Release's brain with what could only be called a horrific amount of information.
"I don't play games. Now tell me what you meant."

Release blinked at the inordinate amount of numbers he saw in his mind.  "Gee thanks for the headache..." He muttered.

"I hope that's not all that makes you tick, but then again that's what decodings all about.  Finding out how people work, why they are the way they are, why they do what they do..."  He smiled.  "And at this point in time I want to decode... you and see why you pique my curiosity.  But like I said it can be painful with someone like you..."

Anastasia blinked for a second, thoughts of numbers fading to the background momentarily, and let out a groan. Short tempered, arrogant, psychic, and CORNY. "You have no idea," she replied to him unambiguously, "So, if we can focus on the business at hand? Where's todays newspaper, we should have- ah." So finding the aforementioned periodical, she slapped it down onto the table unceremoniously, headline facing up for all to see. Naturally, because the universe doesn't like people getting smug with themselves and often used the stupid to prevent such an event, it was something about the local sports team's latest win. With a grumble the scientist snatched up the paper again and searched through it for something about their attack on the city, which was ironically under health and fitness. She put the paper back on the table and pointed to a photo someone had taken of Quaddle in the panic.
"We got our asses kicked yesterday by a man with the DUMBEST name I have ever heard, up to and including Englebert Humperdink," she snarled vehemently, glaring around at those present (Crystal being except by virtue of being the lover of one of her coworkers rather than actually one of them, a rank she estimated at somewhere around "Pet civilian"), "We're some of the best in the business, and we got screwed over by this complete and utter SHMUCK! Croc! Laos! All this time we're supposed to be on this you're messing around in Laos! Rue, I don't even know WHAT you were up to! When I got there Daemon was being used as a paddleball and Liz was being menaced by some sort of dragon-thing, Sebastion and Sheridinna are freaking GONE, the Boss was recruiting Release exactly two hours too late- oh yeah, some psychic; tell me what I'm thinking, but you can't get some damn precognition on that thing?- I was busy trying to get my base set up and testing out a plague, and Crystal-!" The rabbit whirled around to point at the girl in question, at which point the stream of verbal abuse sputtered and left Anastasia standing for a moment feeling awkward. Her brows furrowed for a second as she tried to remember what she was about to say, and finally shrugged sheepishly, "As you were. Sorry, it's been a long week."

Crystal paused when Release asked about Anastasia. She hadn't seen the rabbit, but she couldn't quite remember what room they'd given her, and besides, waking her up would be rude.

Thankfully, the scientist came down, albeit still a little sleepy. Crystal smiled and stood off to the side when Release challenged her almost immediately. Controlled chaos interested Crystal in a way she couldn't explain  - probably why she'd fallen for Liz in the first place. Anastasia proved too strong a foe for Release for the moment, then snagged the paper and found the story about the attack on the city yesterday. The she-gecko paled a bit at the rabbit's vehemence on the team's screw-ups, but then again, she'd only seen this kind of tirade in the movies before. So it really DOES happen, she mused briefly before Ana's passion drowned out any other thought. There was a fire in the rabbit's voice that had Liz been there, calm as he usually was, he would've shrunk away in magnified shame. At the end of it all Ana whirled around to face Crystal, nearly blinded by rage, her voice reaching fever pitch.

The girl backed up a step, her heart jumping for a split second and the whites of her eyes visible. Then, as quickly as she had started, Anastasia snapped back to normal, apologizing and quieting down.

Crystal made a noise that was, at best, a cross between a gasp and a bark of nervous laughter, then quickly went silent and took a seat at the kitchen table. "It's okay. Yesterday was pretty trying for everyone."
---
Liz nodded almost absently when Rue told him about the password, not bothering to ask whether the boy knew it. At the question though, he became slightly more alert. It was so oddly innocent for someone with a group of individuals like themselves. But it was worth asking, and he sensed just how serious Rue was.

"I think that's the very reason our employer gathered us all together," he answered at last. "Individually, our kind always seems to fail. But by combining our strengths, we have a fighting chance against even a foe like our wizard friend." He smiled a little embarrassedly. "I know that sounds corny, but it feels like the truth."

Rue smiled. it's not something that he did  overly often. but still it was reassuring. "i've failed before Liz. but that i'll i wanted was to revive a dead friend of mine but it seemed every step of the way there were people and demons getting it my way. i'd defeat a monster with the power to destroy cities or armies and some treasure hunger would take advantage of my being tired and steal what i'd recovered. or my bother would show up and kick me around until  i managed to  tiered him enough to move off. but then i wasn't trying to conquer the world. Mint was" he said touch his forehead gem before remember to cove it with a hat."but i think for her it was more a principle then he was upset by being upstage by her younger sister who was to become queen of their kingdom."

Rue thought about it and made a decision. "Liz when we face this mage i want to fight him. his magic might not affect me very well but there is a spell. a spell that my brother used to drain me of my power temporally if he used that i want you to run. You have some one waiting for you to come him and you may be strong but if i lose my power then i can become a handie cap that might cost you your life." Rue said this because he knew of now mages among then that might revere the spell and wasn't sure if he could over power it himself again. he was worried and his tone and words caused the shadow demon in his pocket to depart and head towards Rue's boss. soon DarkE would know what his Lieutenant said and would know what to do.

There are few things Release could not tolerate and people yelling at him about precognition was one of them.  "First off, I prefer the term 'psionic' for just that reason.  Precog is exceedingly rare, and even if you do have it most mortal minds are almost immediately shattered by the sheer number of possible outcomes and that's only straight precog there are so many smaller facets equally capable of shattering minds it isn't funny.  Meanwhile, I'm here I'm psychokinetic and telepathic and..."  Several glasses shattered  and pointed at Anastasia like missiles locked onto a jet,  "I don't like being blamed for others failures.  Got it?"  The bunny girl piqued his interest, yes,  but she was also dangerously close to crossing a very delicate "do not insult the psionic line".

"Hey! HEY!" Crystal suddenly shouted when Release broke the glasses. Fear was still in her eyes from Ana's rant and the conflict in general, but something else was covering it up. She was angry, for the first time anyone there had seen. She usually reacted to these kinds of ordeals with shock and fear, but this was different. This was bloodshed waiting to happen in her own home, which she was letting people live in out of the kindness of her heart and her love for Liz.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," she said, her voice containing restrained, but obvious fury, "but isn't it extremely rude to break things when you're at someone else's house?" Her gaze stayed on Release, burning as strong as she'd let it around people as powerful as these. She wasn't as strong as the psychic and she knew it, but she wasn't going to let him go around smashing her glasses either. "Put that glass down and leave your fellow guests alone, or I'll go to my workshop and get the blowtorch. Got it?"

---

Liz listened, wide-eyed, to Rue's story. The boy had reasons much deeper than his for doing what he did, and for a moment, he almost felt guilty. He really wasn't sure how to respond to an admission like that one.

Then Rue instructed him to run if Quaddle attacked them. It was a bold decision, and one Liz wasn't really comfortable with. "Well, I don't want to leave you to die if something happens. And chances are he probably does know that spell; he said he was over three hundred years old. But, if its obvious that neither of us can beat him, if he's too powerful... I'll do what you ask." As he said it, something occurred to him. "You have a separate employer, right? Will he be okay with me leaving you behind if that happens?"

Normally Release would have completely ignored the gecko girl, but the threat of a blowtorch got his attention and he quickly remembered he was a guest in a the friendly gecko's home.  "Whatever..." Release said as the sharp broken pieces swirled into a easy to sweep up pile.  "Looks like I owe you two some new glasses."  He said as he left the kitchen and went outside, plopped on the ground and looked up at the passing clouds in an attempt to calm himself down.

Rue thought about it he's have to tell Liz more about himself but he could skit a few things . "He would not hold it against you i'm sure. Especially considering that i asked you to leave. he knows that my world is dead or mostly dead and that i'm serving him because of his promise to revive using magic and divine power beyond that or my creator Valen and he was acknowledged as the greatest of his race of sorcerer so great that he developed an artifact that would allow him to remake not just the world but the universe as he chose had he lived.  The others knowing what he was up too besieged him and he locked himself away with his creation so that should he die he could be revived. To ensure this he created my bothers my and myself.  Our oldest sibling was called Doll master. Ruecian was his true name and his mage was great.  Still magic is a funny thing. It requires knowledge of something to be truly effective and i'm betting that this Quaddle that you tell me about never encountered something like myself. if he has then there is the chance that he might try to turn me against you that's what i worry about more then my own safety. i've heard how you speak about this Crystal she'd very important to you. she is to you what Clair is no was to me. Perhaps more so and she is why you must be safe"

----

The business man was sitting both board and upset as Baika fussed over hot limited the selection of shoes were for those with feline feet like her own. The Poor shop keeper was trying to calm her down and apologizers profusely about not having more feline costumers when baika's ears suddenly perked. The business man was still there but he was no longer board and he'd turned to stare intently into a shadow in the corner of the store where to aisles met. Baika resumed her Ranting even louder and walked around the poor shop talking about how she should buy this place just to fire him and stock a decent selection of shoes. She was doing this to be a distraction as DarkE received his report. "He was not pleased.  he question the demon and then set it back to Rue with orders  to return to him once they arrived at base of operations. Standing up and just shy of stomping He walked over to Baika who stopped mid rant and looked at him.
"We're Leaving" his voice and eyes left no room for argument.
"Yes boss" she said not slipping up and calling him master like she normally would. He was not in the mood for jokes. In moments they were in the car and he was driving out of the city. "Where are we going boos?"

"Rue is planning of fight Quaddle. I warned him not to" said the boss having learned the name in  the report.
And that was it.though Bakia  Rue was going to disobey and order. The bossed didn't like that not one bit. "But he may have a good reason. and who is Quaddle?"

"He's th red mage. the one he enveloped the city in a spell while casting and sustaining a second spell. and you're right he'd better have a good one." said the boss and the headed for the airport. It's be about and hour before the helicopter would be there and then it's still need to be refueled.

--
Its mission completed for the moment the shadow demon worked its way back to Rue tracking him vie his shadow like always. It would return to the boss one it knew where they were headquartered. Per the bosses orders.     

Anastasia gave a derisive snort at the psychic's outburst. Child. She brushed some shards of glass off of a nearby chair and sat down with a sigh, "Well, now that that's done with, lets try to get down to business." She glanced around at those present, "What do we do next?"

Liz paid close attention to both Rue's backstory and the road. He had no reason to think Rue was lying about something so obviously personal to him, and he'd heard much crazier stories before.

"Well, if you know so much about magic, I can see why it would be better for you to fight Quaddle. And you're right about Crystal. But hopefully, we won't encounter our mage friend." The pair was, at the moment, almost halfway to Liz's town. "Thank you for telling me your story."

Rue sat there quietly after acknowledging Liz's gratitude. the boss was going to be angry with him he knew but this was some thing he had to do some one he had to face. and it came down to it. well as far as he knew it the boss would likely keep his word and revive his world anyway. after all Quaddle needed to be tested and if possible dealt with. chances where he was in the way of DarkE's plans as well. ah well he'd summon a messenger and send the boss word of his decision when the reached the house. for not he';d best figure out what he was going to say to the boss.

Crystal watched with an even, but still semi-furious expression as Release piled the glass neatly on the floor. Another outburst like that, she decided, and he can stay in a hotel and break all the glasses he wants. She was undecided whether the same fate should apply to all Liz's cohorts, but she refused to let destruction happen in her home.

She moved to get the dustpan and broom, tail lashing angrily and ears open as the group gathered to discuss their next move. Hope Liz gets back soon...

Release sat for a few moments before he decided to head back in.  He knew he ticked off the rabbit girl, possibly scared the lizard's girl too.  He also knew the Boss probably wanted his team to work together, so to him it looked like he had some explaining to do at least to the rabbit girl. 

When he got back in he saw the lizard girl's angry look and decided it would be best to apologize to her first.  But then again he was a telepath and insane so he took the duel route and walked over to the lizard girl.

"Sorry about the glasses..." He said under his breath.  He hated to apologize, but he was expected to work with the team.  "I'll replace them if you want and I'll try to keep my temper in check in your home."

At the same time he made an intentional connection with Anastasia. You really don't like puzzles I take it, so here it is 'decoding' is what I call getting to know someone. 

As he finished the telepathic sentence he funneled over a few memories of his own.  They started out with Release as a young child playing with a near identical young child.  Then it skipped forward to the two being taken in opposite directions by oddly suited men.  It ended with Release looking over the young man as a teen and thoughts of pain entering his mind.  Then he killed the young man with a telepathic twist of the neck.

He was a precog, were taken at 6 years old by a shadow government organization.  He was my twin.  Do not cross the line.  He hoped he didn't have to explain that the line meant expecting him to have such an extraordinary power.

"Sir sir!" shouted and excited lab assistant. "we've made progress."  the project leader sighed. he'd wanted to be excited but they'd been working on this ever since the packaged arrived hour and hours or work non stop and so far with out good results. they lost the prey right after the flash just like the boss had. " show me" he said.

the lab assistant led him to the work station .there on a monitor the edge of the cite were was the red mage and two others. they were heading out of the city. "well do but what happened while they were in the city. and who's that guy in black?" "we don't know sire but we decide to monitor any and all footage of people leaving the city and found this. now were backtracking the satellite path and trying to pin point where the three of them met up and where they are going"
---
Rue began to write a messages on a piece of was it fabric or cloth? that was uncertain as he pulled it from his pocket he finished the short messaged and called into the air. "messenger who hides in shadows come to me. i have a package to be delivered by thee"  the darkness stirred.

--
with it's ear in Ru's pocked i could not help but here Rue's summons.  slipping out into the shadows of the car the shadow demon appeared in the shadows under the dash board. it looked up at him waiting for what ever messaged Rue had for the boss.
__

Rue handed the message to the demon and bid it wait a moment. "Liz i'm sending a messaged to my boss. do you have anything that you might want or need to assist or mission. from safe houses to artillery He can get it if it's needed" though Rue didn't say it he was thinking about Crystal. he didn't know what she looked liked and couldn't really imagined b. what she human? a lizard? or something else entirely like Baika?

After a long time in silence, Liz almost jumped when hearing Rue speak up. They were now about fifteen minutes away from home, and he'd been falling into a lull of security. The boy sent some sort of message using something Liz couldn't see too well, apparently to his employer. Probably another shadow-creature... does he control them or does his boss?

At the question, the gecko balked a moment and thought. "Hm... I guess one or two safehouses would be a good idea, and possibly a well-hidden lab. Just in case Crystal and I can't handle having everyone in the house." He noted the boy's faraway look and added, "Not that any of you are unwelcome. It's just that our neighbors took a while to get used to two lizards living on the street, so they'd probably think it's a little strange to have so many people around now. Besides, if we get caught, this'll be a good backup plan. Thank your boss for me."
---

Crystal calmed the flames in her eyes when Release came back in. The psionic looked calmer as well, though he was clearly irritated when he apologized to her. She nodded once. "It's all right, just don't do it again." She grabbed the dustpan and broom and collected the glass quickly, listening for any other conflict or important news.

Rue nodded and  wrote down  the request for several safe houses at least one taking into account the likely needs of human gecko's and at least on a decent science lab and he included a thank you as well as Liz had asked him to..  The second message done the handed it to the hiding shadow demon and sent it off. 

He looked around they were entering some kind of neighborhood. he seemed quite suburban almost TV like in it's layout. ah TV. it was perhaps the one thing he'd come to enjoy about this crazy world. especially the TV were you control the actions with those odd remotes and the box that you fed disk. those were fun but it was kind of scary to find that one of the disk  that you could feed the TV box contained the story of when he first meet mint and form several points of view including mints own.

Liz and Rue made it to the gecko's house without any interference. Crystal let out a sigh when she saw the car pulling up, and walked over to the door, waiting for Liz and the new person to enter.

Liz got out of the car and walked over to the passenger side, waiting for Rue before going in. He didn't see any smoke, and the house looked okay on the outside; that was the first good sign. Nonetheless, he ran a hand through his blond locks and hoped that appearance really was everything.

Rue got out of the car and stretched. it was probably a little slower then running a loft faster the boating but it was still quite restful way to travel. he looked at the house and nodded. "nice place you have here" it was a far cry form he cabin that he and Clair had lived int but not as done up as mint's place or some of the bosses places.  The house said to him. 'we are comfortable here' and that was more then he could say fore a lot of places he'd been.

he sighed as he though about what he'd done. " you know my boss will probably show up soon. anywhere form a few hours form now to a few days form now depending on what he's doing at the moment. That said we should probably look at the information that he sent us now. "  what he didn't add was that he felt sure it would be sooner as the boss was not likely to bee pleased with his delectation of intent to disobey orders.

Liz smiled truthfully at Rue for the compliment on the house. "Thanks." But the smile faded when the boy mentioned his boss showing up, and the urgency of seeing the information he'd sent them. He glanced at the windows, seeing an expectant Crystal peering out at them. After a sheepish 'I-can't-come-in-yet-but-I-see-you' wave, the gecko turned back to Rue.

"By 'now', do you mean right now, or should we show it to the others?" He wondered whether he should ask after his and Crystal's safety, then decided against it. Somehow, he figured that someone willing to provide safehouses and labs for them might not hurt them so quickly.

"by now i mean when we get into the house" for a moment Rue thinks that he sees concern on Liz's face. "i don't mean to worry you but my boss rarely does anything with out reason and this is not likely to be and exception" Rue realized he was talking in circles and probably making it worse. "Don't worry know the boss the drive will probably contain information on our oppents and how to fight them."at least Rue hoped that was the case as he  was not 100% sure. as for the bosses  soon to be big appearance it was likely to be for him alone . the boss liked to do things form the shadows

Liz nodded at the reassurance Rue offered. "All right. Glad to know we'll be safe. Thanks again," he said and started up the driveway into the house.

Crystal opened the door for her lover and the young man, giving Liz a warm smile then greeting Rue. "Hi there. I'm Crystal, and this is where you and the others will be staying for a while. Don't break anything really valuable and be as civil as possible," she smiled, holding out her hand for Rue to shake. He seemed like the quiet type, but the weapon he carried might contradict that.

Rue was taken back by crystals manner. she was so warm and cheerful. maybe Clair wasn't that cheerful and she certainly didn't have Green scales but he could sense a strong similarity in them and new that she'd take up arms to protect those close to her that way Clair had taken up arms to protect him. "i'm pleased to meet you ma'am" Rue said trying not to let the shock so. " i'm very touched by your kindness to me and my co workers." it was safe to say that Rue liked her already

---
"Boss"  came the question in a timid voice. it was Baika again
"yes what is it?" Asked DarkE still in his business close.
"we've received another message form Rue. he's asking to safe house for the others as a standby and something about lizards"

"one of Rue's coworkers is a Gecko with  elemental poser to summon and generate elemental. I assume he's the one that Rue's referring to."
over the past coupe of hours DarkE had calmed down but he was still angry. what was Rue thinking?
"where the message?" h asked and in moments he was reading Rue's written note. Rue was a quick learner is somewhat and isolationist. that was why he sent run on so many solo missions. because he did them well but this was still more then Rue was aware. he was sensenig that something big was trying to get started and when that happened there was always some kind of trouble and he aimed to see that it did as little danger to him and his chosen as possible.

Crystal offered a friendly smile to Rue and released his hand. "Well, I'm glad to see civility won't be a problem for you, Rue. It's a pleasure to house someone so polite." She gestured him to the table, a relieved feeling in her bones. He wasn't going to be temper-prone as Ana or Release, and it was pretty safe to guess he wouldn't cause trouble.

"Cryssie?" Liz called from the kitchen. "Why are a fourth of the glasses gone?"

Crystal's eyes flickered at that. "Don't ask," she called, turning towards the kitchen and looking part exasperated and part nervous. "What's that you're holding?"

"Oh, this?" said Liz, re-entering the room and glancing at the thumb drive. He'd almost forgotten he'd been holding it. "Something Rue's boss wants us to look at..."

Rue disappeared not truly disappearing but making himself scares as he followed an inner sixth sense. he found  what he was looking for and a few minutes later he returned to the living room where he sat down and  promptly nodded off.  he did not dream. not this time thong his body seethes with magical energy and his forehead crystal seemed to glow in the light of the room.