[color=8dc73f]“Ooooh, little whispering key…wherever shall you lead ussss?” Persephone takes the room key for her and Kanashiko’s room after filling out all of the requested sign-in details, cradling it possessively in her gloved hands.
“Can you stop being weird for a second so we can go up to our rooms?” Ruitsume narrows her eyes as she finishes up her own sign-in, annoyed at how much these people want to know about her.
“Oh. Sure!” Persephone grins. She seems unaware of Kanashiko trembling violently behind her. The little witch in blue is absolutely terrified of all the new creatures and people around her, especially the bear at the counter with eyes of literal fire.
“Kana, let’s go see our roo-...Kana? You okay?” Persephone turns around to take her friend by the hand, but sees the look in her eyes and freezes.
“.......s-sc….scared….” Kanashiko says in a barely audible voice.
“Alright, alright…” Persephone leads her to the front entrance of the hotel. “Why don’t you go outside? You can watch through the windows. I’ll signal you to come back in through ours when I find it.”
“O-okay…” Kanashiko nods as she feebly shuffles back outside.
With that taken care of, Persephone catches up with Ruitsume (who had already started for the stairs in a feeble attempt to avoid Persephone), and they both follow their keys’ directions to two rooms beside each other on the 4th floor.
“How many stories is this place, anyway?” Ruitsume mutters as she opens up her room. Persephone opens up the one next to it, walking in with a bounce to her step. As Zed said down at the lobby, her little enchanted bottomless bag, containing everything from her giant pencil sword, to her enchanted sketchbook, to all the rest of her normal art supplies, is sitting there…open. Why was it open?
Persephone can’t focus on this for much longer before she feels a gust. Her window is open too.
“Kana…? Are you under the bed…?” Persephone calls, but slowly walks over to and crouches before her bag, sliding out her sketchbook and a normal-sized mechanical pencil. There’s no response. Persephone stands in the middle of her room with her things and starts to draw, humming a tune.
There’s the click of the door locking behind her.
Persephone flicks the metal claws out of the fingertips of the glove on her right hand, whipping around right in time to slash the intruder in the face. She’s surprised at who she sees reeling back against the door.
“Ches?” Persephone murmurs.
Sarchesker quickly gets back up, staring Persephone down with a glare that could kill. The slashes on his face have already started mending themselves.
“I was hoping to knock you out before you could identify me...oh well.” Sarchesker rushes at her again, but gives Persephone just enough time to scribble something on her sketchbook, and have a huge metal shield with a paw print design on the front appear to intercept him.
“Your doodles can’t hold me off for long, you know…” Sarchesker growls.
“Why are you here? Whatever happened to ‘staying as far away from me as inhumanly possible’, like you said? I’d ask if you were here to apologize, but that is very obviously not the case…” Persephone laughs nervously.
“Doing a favor for my ex-boss.” Sarchesker states.
“What, Kebaratsu?” Persephone looks shocked. “But, I mean...didn’t he kill you? How does this make any sense?”
“Well, I realized he was right. I am smarter than him. And I could so easily overthrow him if I really tried.” Sarchesker smirks. “So, I’m going to try. But first, I have to get on his good side. And if he wants you brought to him, then so be it.”
“But I-” Persephone starts, but right before her eyes, Sarchesker vanishes. Persephone realizes he’s using his color-changing powers to make himself near-invisible, and tries to track distortions in the room with her eyes. Sarchesker is too fast, however, and suddenly Persephone feels something choking her with her own scarf behind her. With the dwindling strength she has, she tries to hit Sarchesker against the wall. He doesn’t let go, but it creates enough noise to draw the attention of the person in the room next to hers.
“HEY.” Ruitsume’s voice, accompanies by angry banging on the door, arrives a few seconds later. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN THERE?”
Persephone manages only the shortest scream before her choking intensifies. Still, it’s enough to alert Ruitsume.
“PERSEPHONE, YOU BETTER NOT BE DOING SOMETHING STUPID AND DYING IN THERE AGAIN.” Ruitsume tries to open the door, of course finding it locked. “DON’T MAKE ME BREAK THIS THING DOWN. I WILL MAKE YOU PAY FOR THE DAMAGE.”
Persephone’s grip on consciousness ebbs away, and she stops struggling. After a few more seconds, she passes out. The magic shield she had put up poofs out of existence. Sarchesker turns himself back into his normal color, and looks down upon the passed out witch in his claws.
“PERSEPHONE?!” Ruitsume is now attempting to just pull the entire doorknob off, and Sarchesker can hear it. He isn’t particularly alarmed, though. He only sighs as he looks at Persephone.
“Now...you’re much too colorful for me not to be spotted carrying you away...what was that trick you taught me?” Sarchesker thinks for a moment, all while the door shakes noisily from Ruitsume’s attempts to break in without breaking too much of the hotel, then remembers. He takes a claw and pushes in the paw print shaped button in her belt buckle. there’s a small flash of purple and green before what lies before him is a black cat with a green collar and a small striped purple witch hat.
“How disgustingly cute.” Sarchesker rolls his eyes. “But at least she’s easier to conceal now.” He picks up the cat, her sketchbook, and her pencil, and stuffs all three of them into the bag where the rest of her supplies are kept. He buckles the bag to his waist, and flies out of the window.
A minute too late, Ruitsume gives up on being civil and breaks down the door entirely. When he sees the window open, and no Persephone in the room, she goes to look out of it. She catches Sarchesker’s dark purple form heading away from the hotel in the sky.
“You gotta be kidding me.” Ruitsume puts her palm to her face. “First she dies, now this. Why am I even her friend?!”[/color]

[color=00aeef]When space at the front desk clears up some, Marko and Silversa go up to the counter. to hear what Zed is telling people as they come in.
“Ah. Seems we need to sign in. Please, allow me.” Marko purrs. “I can read all your thoughts anyway, I might as well do both of us.”
“Go ahead, I guess…” Silversa mutters. she eyes everyone else in the lobby carefully wary of all the strangers. Sensing this, Marko tightens his tail’s hold on her waist for reassurance and tries to sign in faster. When he finishes putting down both sets of information, he takes the key to their new room and hurries out of the lobby with Silversa. The cat demon girl seems to calm down some.
On their way up, they spot a familiar bear-sized black and silver cat with flaming wings walking the halls.
“Ah, Ammi!” Marko smiles politely as he greets her. Ammi snaps out of her thoughts and turns to see the pair, her eyes lighting up.
“Oh thank goodness, you made it!” Ammi walks over to hug them both. “Thing these past few months have been tough...you know, with what happened to Sephie and all...you were told, yes?”
“We were.” Marko nods. “It is very unfortunate...she was a true friend to us.”
Silversa says nothing, but the coldness in her eyes gives way to a bit of sadness.
“Anyways...we hoped that maybe having more of our friends here might cheer everyone up, you know?” Ammi gives them a warm smile.
“Of course.” Marko grins.[/color]

[color=a187be]Outside, Negloria’s glowing eyes intensify, and her hair begins to sway without any wind helping it.
“What...are you doing…” Felixter takes a step back from her.
“Calling my friend for help…” There’s a faraway echo laden within Negloria’s voice as she speaks. She holds out her hands, and a sharp wind presses down on both Negloria and Felixter. Felixter shields himself from it at first, but when he looks back, he sees a dragon in front of them. Not just any kind of dragon, though...this dragon looks to be a ghost. Bits of its form are missing, replaced either with skeleton or ghostly white energy. Its blue and green glowing eyes peer down at the two, and its ghostly purple mane flows freely about. The dragon’s wings are nothing but blue and green light outlines, but they work all the same…
“My god…” Felixter whispers. Negloria’s eyes have ceased glowing, and her voice has gone back to normal.
“She will take us up. The portal she used to get here will suffice.” Negloria explains as the dragon lowers her head. Both of them climb onto the ghoulish beast’s back, and she lifts off into the sky, heading for a portal hidden high into the clouds.
Upon reaching the other side of the portal, they find themselves flying above uncharted wilderness.
“Where are we now?” Felixter inquires.
“About 10 miles from the base of Takai Mountain.” Negloria replies. “We shall land in 9 miles, however...for there is a small settlement I feel you should start the journey at...you’ll see why…”[/color]

[color=ec008c]Amber and Clancy turns around to face Karl, and both of them grin, forgetting their whole stealth mission.
“KARL!” Amber cries. “It’s good to see you!”
“We’re sorry we left you before the whole ‘shadowing’ process was done. We had to go spread mischief.” Clancy explains. “Our stupid daughter-” He gets smacked by Amber before he can continue, and she glares at him. Clancy smiles apologetically. “Right, right, sorry. I’m trying to stop. Anyway, our...uh...lovely daughter was getting married to one of the most important people in the land of the shadows, so we kinda had to be there...even though she’s a Cursed Shadow now. Oh, what a terrible accident that was…”
“At least she’s not as savage as a normal Cursed Shadow.” Amber huffs. “Those things could destroy even the most powerful regular shadows, like you and me! And Karl when we turn him! Which we should do now!”
“Right, right.” Clancy nods, then turns to Karl. “Soooooo, buddy, hows about I bite you with my shadow venom and then we go spook some peeps? Sound good?”[/color]