[center][h3]Kunad Highway[/h3]
Level 11 Tora (88/110) Level 11 Poppi (88/110)
Midna’s [@DracoLunaris], Geralt’s [@Multi_Media_Man], Pit’s [@Yankee], Blazermate and Susie’s [@Archmage MC], Sakura and Karin’s [@Zoey Boey], Raz’s [@TruthHurts22], Bede’s [@Crimson Flame], Roxas’ [@Double], Benedict’s [@Dark Cloud]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 2139[/center]

Rays of nuclear power shone down across the mobile battlefield, and in their wake a handful of uncanny, unnatural explosions -more like sustained energy fields than fiery blasts- wreaked havoc for both trucks and Seekers alike. Tora and Poppi, not recognizing the element at work, made themselves scarce the moment it reared its ugly head. Tora jumped into Poppi’s arms so that both could abandon ship, jetting away from the spot where they bid Sandman farewell to an untouched truck closer to the front. 

Of course, that also gave them both a good view of Blazermate and Susie sound asleep the second before Mafreidyne fried them. Their futuristic and cutting-edge technology, bereft of radiation hardening, left both woefully vulnerable to the brutal combo executed by Sandman and Trumpeter together. “Oh no!” Tora cried, reaching out his wing as the machine girls stirred, their circuitry melted and their metal warped by the esoteric blowout. “Friends okay!?”

They might not be okay, but they were still functional, and nobody could patch the two of them up like Blazermate herself. Together the duo fought through the debilitating pain admirably in order to resume their bombardment, although to the Medabot’s continued misfortune a giant pothole in the road jostled her truck so severely that the Engineer’s sentry toppled off its roof to smash to pieces by the wayside. With them doing the best they could, Tora turned his attention -and Poppi her revolvers- to the source of this chaos: the Trumpeter.

After what happened, most of their allies were naturally thinking along the same lines, too. Midna escaped through the darkness, slithering through shadows of stone, tree, and brush to reach a spot up ahead where she could set up a high-caliber ambush. With Trumpeter floating above the rearmost trucks in the convoy it got a heaping portion of lead, and though not weak to Gun the airborne demon did not appreciate her barrage. Before it could retaliate, though, Geralt’s bomb detonated in its skeletal face, prompting a cheer of encouragement from Tora. “Show that boneypon what-for, Geralt!” he cried.

“Hnnngh…” the Trumpeter groaned as it found its magic suppressed by the bluish slivers that now studded its bone and peppered its robes. The Witcher followed with his crossbow, expertly adjusting for the rattle and roll of the truck beneath his feet before firing to add onto his arrow damage from before. Tora and Poppi boosted over to join him in what looked like a good middle-of-the-pack position, the former wielding the Variable Saber in shotgun mode and the latter her two new plus-size revolvers. Even if they landed only one shot in three, their efforts joined with Geralt’s to form a barrage that Trumpeter could not ignore, forcing it to block.

The Witcher’s Yrden trap wouldn’t see much use, however, since the other four demons that remained were facing staunch opposition of their own. Back at the school bus, while Midna gained on it from behind in her appropriated Warthog, Roxas took his scissor-wielding adversary to task. His Firaga missed as Atropos swerved away from it, putting her Dodge Fire skill to good use to avoid her weakness, but soon after the keyblade wielder’s acrobatic prowess brought him into melee range. She went on the defensive without even trying an inelegant cut or stab, with her scissors, but still took a flurry of blows Knocked down to the roof of the bus and forced to hold on for her life, Atropos could only withstand Thundaga as best she could until Benedict intervened.

Once given a little space, however, she pulled back from the fight with Roxas to cast a new spell. “Mediarama,” the twister of fate decreed, and at her incantation all her allies received a burst of healing.

Her support couldn’t have come a moment too soon for Morax, who Karin had been outboxing since the beginning. He exhaled a shuddering breath of relief as the bruises and breaks across his inhuman body mended themselves. Gritting his buffalo teeth in a fearsome scowl, Morax answered the girl’s question with Maragi, then Maragi, then Maragi once again. With his life very much on the line, he poured all his SP into a constant firestorm in an effort to blast Karin into oblivion, going as far as to neglect his footing as he stood at the back of the truck for his all-out offensive.

Poppi clicked her tongue as she saw Trumpeter get healed, and holstered her weapons. With her stock of bullets depleted, there would be no more potshots until her new arms could manufacture another batch of twelve. Tora ceased fire too, knowing (and frustrated by) how little damage the Variable Saber’s shotgun blast of lasers did at this range. If the two meant to make a difference, they’d need to move up, but both of the trucks between them and the rearmost pair harbored a furious fight in progress: Karin versus Morax, and Giovanna versus Ippon-Datara. She also spotted Sakura weaving between the trucks on her motorcycle, and did not envy the brunette’s position. It’d be tough for a brand-new biker to maneuver along a highway at these speeds at all, let alone in circumstances like these. The truck drivers to either side of her didn’t seem too happy about yet another problem for them to deal with, either. “That’s super dangerous!” she yelled down to Sakura over the rushing wind. “If you need help, please don’t hesitate to call Poppi!”

In regards to the one-on-one fights, though, the smith and the secret agent were really going at it. Once forced apart by the fallout of Mafreidyne, the two came together again in explosive fashion. Giovanna dashed in and [url=https://i.imgur.com/2Bz8BWS.png]drove her knee[/url] into Ippon-Datara with blistering speed, then launched into a triple side kick while leaning on Rei for support, and finished with a spectacular [url=https://i.imgur.com/aHdSThB.png]Sepultra[/url] spin kick. Her foe staggered back, but just as quickly hopped forward again on his single leg, undeterred. One Sledgehammer was all it took to blow open Giovanna’s guard, preventing any sort of punishment on her part. “Uh huh.” She dashed back to deftly avoid a follow-up haymaker. “Offense it is, then.” Ippon-Datara rampaged toward her, slamming the ground over and over again like a wind-up toy, and Giovanna chose her moment.

She flipped backward with [url=https://i.imgur.com/BDzMcmh.png]Sol Nascente[/url] to counterhit her foe as he barged in, then dashed in to pummel him with a storm of kicks before he could get started again. He kept trying to mash her with his hammer while getting up, only to be struck down again or trade at best, and just when he finally learned his lesson Giovanna dashed in for a grab instead. She vaulted onto his shoulders and rammed her fists into his head to give him an electrifying Temple Massage with the tasers in her gloves. Enraged, Ippon-Datara grabbed her with his tongs to try and throw her off, and when her leg lock around his neck wouldn’t be dislodged he swung his hammer up to loosen her grip with a concussive blow. He threw Giovanna off the truck, only for Rei to manifest beneath her and give her a boost back up. She tumbled across the roof into a crouch, her face tightened from pain as she held her shoulder. Ippon-Datara charged again, but this time the duo cut him short ahead of time with a [url=https://i.imgur.com/E9S91gm.png]low sweep[/url]. “Hmph!” Giovanna linked that into Burst Time, striking the ground with a lightning wave followed by a quadruple flaming backflip kick to finish the brute off.

While that happened, Raz pulled off his own gambit. As Tora and Poppi looked on, he used his regained power to daringly snatch Trumpeter’s titular trumpet right out from under its nose-hole. It wouldn’t be much use to the psychonaut except as an impromptu bludgeon, but Trumpeter was none too happy even after its heal. Silenced and disarmed, it could do little more than glower as the Seekers seized their chance. Bede bid his Pokemon attack, and Tora did the same for his partner. “Poppi, now!” he called.

“Going all in!” The artificial blade took the Variable Saber in hand and boosted up past Giovanna to deliver a lightning-fast aerial combination. She finished with a backflip slice into a shotgun blast that propelled her away, only for Tora to fly up after her thanks to a team jump with Peach and spike one of the princess’s Grenaducks into the harbinger’s face. Its blast threw him into Poppi, who caught him so both could land back down on the trucks safely.

Soonafter, however, the dimeritium shards had lost their potency. Despite the theft of its instrument, Trumpeter unleashed Abyssal Surge. Suffocating darkness swaddled the Seekers in a wide range around it, inducing a medium chance of Despair. Crippling mental anguish pierced those afflicted, leaving them unable to act beyond clinging to the trucks. Bede’s Aromatherapy and Blazermate’s status cure wouldn’t just be blessings, but lifesavers, for if allowed to persist too long that despair would leave the afflicted unconscious.

Unfortunately for the heroes, they had more than despair to worry about. A chorus of honking arose from the trucks, prompting their riders to look ahead. Having been going uphill for a few moments, the convoy now neared a series of the dripping black bridges that spanned some of the scrubland’s many canyons, these ones featuring frothing rivers at the bottom. With the bridges in better condition but narrower than the road, the trucks packed in tight to fit, forcing Sakura to pull back, and putting everyone else in close proximity. “Meeh!” Tora cried, holding his partner in a deathgrip as the two nearly fell off. “Poppi,” he begged. “Please to snap out of it!”

“Existence is meaningless,” Poppi deadpanned, her eyes lifeless. “Happiness is fleeting…death is a certainty…”

“Meh meh meh, this bad!” Tora looked up as Trumpeter began to cast, but its focus seemed to be elsewhere. It let loose Mafreidyne behind the convoy, trying to bomb Midna and Sakura. This was his chance! With no other option, Tora whipped out his tools and took Poppi offline for an emergency reboot.

Unfortunately, he failed to account for one leftover demon, wounded but very much alive. Leering evilly, Belphegor arose to assail the united team. “Grahaha!” he guffawed as he cast Mabufula, capitalizing on the pandemic of despair with a widespread deluge of ice. Tora threw himself over Poppi to shield her with his own body.

After another few moments, the trip across the bridges came to an end, putting the fleet of trucks back on solid ground among the ridges and canyons. Up ahead lay the ground continued to slope upward toward the massive ravine, with Midgar more clearly visible than ever on the opposite side. When Giovanna squinted, however, she made out a welcome sight slowly getting bigger: a beefy [url=https://i.imgur.com/9kNRCAn.png]Cargpbob[/url] twin rotor tandem-engine helicopter, the very one she called in for extraction earlier. It sported an undercarriage-mounted hook perfect for carrying one vehicle, and it cruised her way at a crisp hundred miles an hour, which still wasn’t as fast as Giovanna would have liked. By her best guess, it would reach the convoy about the same time as they reached the ravine, which sounded like a recipe for very brave and stupid ideas.

As it turned out, the group did not have the luxury of choice. For the second time that trip, Giovanna heard the sound of an engine out in the scrubland, although this time it came from in front, and it sounded like more than one. A [i]lot[/i] more. She winced as she saw a white truck plow onto the scene up ahead, flying up from a lower valley in a cloud of dust. More trucks drove out behind it, clustered together like herd animals, and just like the first they all lacked drivers. More warning honks resounded from the convoy trucks in reply, coupled with panicked shouts from the Bridges personnel driving them. The motors, swears, horns, and road sounds created a frightful cacophony of noise, but Giovanna didn’t need to ask to know what was happening. “Wild trucks!” she yelled back at the Seekers as the clamor died down, replaced by a focused silence as the drivers white-knuckled their wheels. “Forget fighting, we need to move!” Clenching her teeth, she turned to face the incoming stampede, the ravine beyond, and the incoming Cargobob, then sighed. “Goldlewis is never gonna believe my report,” she said flatly. Rei whined, obliging the secret agent to pat her, before the both of them got underway.

[center][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvazwo2KdZk&ab_channel=KarlFlodin-Topic[/youtube][/center]

[center][h3]The Ruins[/h3]
Level 10 Nadia (54/100)
Koopa Troop’s [@DracoLunaris], Primrose and Therion’s [@Yankee], Sectonia’s [@Archmage MC], Jesse’s [@Zoey Boey], Omori’s [@Majoras End], Rubick’s [@Scarifar], Adventurer’s [@Squashedquatch], Ganondorf’s [@Double]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1463[/center]

Once Nadia made her request, Ganondorf took a moment to mull it over. The fact that he seemed to be contemplating what to tell her implied that he indeed possessed some pertinent information on the subject to share, so the feral left him to it. His pensiveness also gave a couple other Seekers a chance to trickle into the Temple of the Black Egg, including Rubick. Though the battle back at the flowerbed didn’t go his way, he seemed to be okay, or at the very least less focused on his own condition than on the bejeweled stranger before him. The sorcerer apparently perceived some sort of magic in Ganondorf, and while Nadia didn’t see any energies at work when he staged his breakout a couple moments ago, she didn’t doubt that he possessed some sort of supernatural ability. Despite their paltry size and simplicity, even a pair of handcuffs turned out to be astonishingly hard to break, as Nadia could attest. Luckily, as with most things, she had her own ways around such problems. She could scarcely imagine what strength it took to snap chains like rubber bands. The way the man snapped at Bowser was only a little less impressive.

Ganondorf’s deliberation lasted only a few seconds. Then, he fulfilled his end of the bargain. Since he made the offer in the first place Nadia expected him to, but she did not expect just how valuable his response might be. He informed her, and by extension the other Seekers, that their objective lay tantalizingly close at hand, but just beyond their reach. Nadia looked at the great obsidian globe with newfound appreciation, her eyes resting on the intriguing indentations just above the spot where the prisoner had been bound. Three masks, huh? That made sense! Just like the Qliphoth roots in the Dead Zone, it seemed like the perfect number for important things. “Good grief!” she grinned, fresh excitement flowed through her veins. “That’s [i]purrfect[/i]! Egg-zactly what we needed!” It wasn’t like this region’s Guardian had been handed to her team on a silver platter, but already this was a much, much better foundation than the Seekers got in the Deep Blue Seaside. A concrete objective did away with so much uncertainty, after all!

She turned to Bowser and the others, her eyes shining. “Hear that? The start and finish line are one and the same! That means all we gotta do is make one big circuit around the underground, get ourselves a three-course meal of masks, and find our way back here to give the Guardian its just desserts! Piece of cake!” Would it be that easy? No way in hell. But as she’d already learned in her adventures thus far, a paw-sitive attitude went a long way when it came to working in a team.

The good news didn’t stop there, however. Ganondorf proceeded to volunteer for tour guide duty, or something like that. Fantastical folks always tended to mince their words a little, but Nadia got the message loud and clear: he was offering to join them on their campaign, and in so doing would make their subterranean journey all the easier. She spun around, a big smile on her face. “Sounds good to me!” she chirped without a second thought. “The more the merrier, right? Leatherback here made it sound like you’re some kinda bad guy, but if we’ve already got one, what’s one more? Accordin’ to the Consuls we’re all bad guys anyway, seein’ as we’re tryin’ to destroy their world and all.”

One of the other new arrivals, Sectonia, then chimed in too. Nadia wasn’t paying enough attention to realize what happened to the Loox, so she only heard that Sectonia also favored cooperation with Ganondorf, although her phrasing earned her a sideways glance from the feral. “Psst! Hey!” she hissed at Sectonia. “Ya can’t just call people ‘dark’!” The big bug probably didn’t know any better, but right now Nadia didn’t want to risk getting on the newcomer’s bad side; if the Seekers didn’t want to go back to the original plan of languishing in the darkness down here, they needed his guidance.

In the minutes that followed however, the swordsman provided just that. In as few words as possible, he outlined both this area and its immediate surroundings according to the information he’d gleaned during his imprisonment. The Ruins, being directly beneath the Chasm that formed the Under’s primary entrance, served as a sort of crossroads for the whole region. Continuing on east past the Temple of the Black Egg would bring them through a nameless, eerie subterranean forest to Hollow Bough, a biome of petrified wood and dried grass rather than stone and stalagmite, infested by thorny red vines and many-legged carpenters. Back the way the Seekers came, a huge basin-like room provided vertical access through much of the Ruins. Its bottom level offered a westward path to the lush Lawn and an eastward one past an abandoned village, though beyond that Ganondorf couldn’t offer much more than some sort of lake around the roots of the Hollow Bough’s trees. Below the Ruins, they could descend into the Dream Canyon, the Fungal Wastes, or the Basement, but without any other concrete knowledge about those places from Ganondorf the Seekers would have to learn more by venturing there themselves.

Therion mentioned the map-maker, and Nadia nodded. “Yeah, yeah!” she agreed. “I think he might be at the bottom of that big open chamber. If the rest of ya wanna scout around a little, a couple of us can scamper down and find him.” The feral waved as she turned to jog back out of the temple, pitter-pattering through the quiet, misty tunnels as she retraced her steps to the big opening from earlier. After a few moments, she stood at a precipice overlooking the [url=https://i.imgur.com/iXHDz2S.png]Crossroads Cavity[/url].

Sure enough, Nadia could still see the scraps of paper scattered around the carven balconies on the walls and the platforms suspended on their wrought-iron scaffolding, but now that she took a moment to really get a good look at the place out she could pick out less savory details, too. A great many [url=https://i.imgur.com/cdBKk0S.png]Gruzzer flies[/url] the size of exercise balls bumbled blithely around those heights, carelessly bouncing into anything in their path with their fat, round bodies thanks to their comically undersized wings. After a moment, Nadia also glimpsed a sleepy [url=https://i.imgur.com/f77vxc1.png]Gruz Mother[/url] closer to the bottom, elephant-sized and with a trunk to match, much to her chagrin. Still, nothing that Nadia wouldn’t see coming. 

“Alright, bud,” she said to Therion, flashing him a competitive smile. “Time for a crash course in bein’ a cat. Try and keep up!”

Without further ado she tensed up and jumped down, soaring through the air for a brief moment, to land on the first big platform. It rattled beneath the impact, sending a sudden jolt of panic through her, but that was nothing compared to what she felt when a four-eyed [url=https://i.imgur.com/zYqQm9T.png]cave cricket[/url] climbed up from where it had been hanging off the other side. 

“WAAAUGH!” As the huge, freakish bug skittered her way Nadia instinctively veered backward, only to nearly fall off the edge . The cricket jumped at her, but Idea sprang into existence and snatched it out of the air. As Nadia watched, equal parts horrified by the insectoid jump scare and exhilarated by her new assist, Idea flung the cricket up, snatched it with its seven tongues, and slammed it back down into the platform before vanishing. Unfortunately for the feral, her new archenemy did not go splat. It began to get up to attack again, but Nadia gathered herself faster. “Cat Scratch Fever! She charged forward with a series of slashes, carving through one surprisingly tough leg with each to leave her foe immobilized. With half its legs gone, it could only struggle as she pierced its abdomen with the final hit, lifted it into the air, and revved up her arm like a drill to scatter the pest to the four winds with the centripetal force. 

Panting, Nadia waited a moment for her racing heart to slow down. “Ohh, man,” she gasped. “I’m gonna have a bad day, I just know it…” Once over the scare, she moved to the edge of her platform, hurriedly gauged the jump to the next, and leaped down. Her three hundred sixty four pounds of effective weight promptly smashed right through it and sent her into freefall among the Gruzzers and cave crickets, her face red with anger and embarrassment. “I HATE IT HEREEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeee…!”

[center][h3]Edinburgh MagicaPolis[/h3]
Level 8 Big Band (30/80)
Ace Cadet’s [@Yankee], Red’s [@TruthHurts22]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1599[/center]

Fresh snowflakes softly flitted down from the pillowy white wintry clouds upon the empty streets as Band plodded his way along the sidewalks. Even with the way free of snow thanks to those magic thingamajigs, his expression was stormy, and his mood quietly furious. [i]Irons.[/i] He wouldn’t be forgetting that odious man’s name or face any time soon. As if his sticken glimpse of New Meridian deep beneath the sea in the Black Line’s Rapture Station earlier that day wasn’t enough, his meeting with the Edinburgh police department managed to stir up even more old memories, but nostalgia was the last thing the grizzled detective felt. How nice it would be if he could forget those miserable years, but no matter how far into the past they sank, they could never quite melt away into the haze beyond memory. Instead those memories were like his shadow, following behind him no matter where he went–even the World of Light.

The cruel irony of bad policemen, who served and protected only their own interests and regarded the law as a weapon to be wielded rather than a principle to be upheld, stung Band no matter where it arose. This Chief Irons might represent a different flavor of evil compared to that which Band knew during his own policing days -less ambitious, maybe- but he represented evil nonetheless. That much, Band could [i]smell[/i]. Irons reeked of the animal fat that he methodically scraped off the underside of the hides for the taxidermy he loved so dearly, almost certainly so immersed in the craft that he couldn’t even perceive it himself anymore. The same thing could be said of corruption, not just for Irons but for the whole force, since a leader both set the example for his team and birds of a feather flock together. His audacious and brazen treatment of Detective Lucia Morgan galled Band, not just because the poor woman probably suffered unduly under Irons’ whims compared to the men around her, but also because she reminded Band of himself in those bitter, earlier days. He all too keenly recalled that horrible feeling of futility. Of clinging to one’s principles while surrounded by corruption, of being forced to abide by countless violations while struggling in futility to stem the tide. Those feelings of circling the drain that gnawed away the soul itself. Could he even tell himself that Ben Birdland died a man of virtue that fateful day, rather than subsisting long enough to become another maggot in the pile? How many times by then had he looked the other way when his fellow officers did the wrong thing, after all…?

Band exhaled deeply. He seated himself on a bench that looked like it could take his weight and rubbed at the bridge of his nose with the pads of a mechanical arm, thinking. [i]Maybe I’m just projecting,[/i] he reasoned. Ultimately, despite the obnoxiously sour feeling that Irons and the force in general left him with, he possessed no evidence of wrongdoing. Only his gut instinct, and no matter how well his intuition might serve him, he could not create any case without proof. [i]Maybe they’re just assholes.[/i] Most cops were surly, suspicious, and territorial. It sort of came with the territory, and if not, then it definitely came with experience. For now, he needed to focus on the scant few details he picked up during his chat with the ill-natured Chief of Police. [i]Skeletons at night,[/i] he recollected. [i]Don’t like the sound of that one bit.[/i] Anyone from his world could probably guess what his first guess had been, but given the sheer amount of worlds seemingly in play here, what were the odds that his fears would turn out to be well-founded? 

Band stared up at the sky, feeling the gentle bite of the cold subarctic breeze on his skin. No man could be that unlucky. Not even him. [i]Surely?[/i]

He still had some time left on the clock before his rendezvous with Ace and Red, so he sat there for a while, kept too sharply focused by occasional frigid gusts to grow comfortable. While there he considered the options available to him. Grilling every last random civilian he ran into would be an immense hassle for less-than-tangible benefits; the average MagicaPolis citizen probably knew nothing of the greater picture here. If the law enforcement here wouldn’t work with him, he could attempt to elicit the aid of some other authority figure, a mayor perhaps. The higher up the pecking order he got, however, the closer he would probably get to a Consul. Band still possessed frustratingly little information on them, but even the vaguest notion suggested that those encountered by his allies so far represented some form of organized syndicate with remarkable power, reach, and most worryingly, interest in the Seekers. If one could mobilize the entire feline populace of the Metro into a fighting force at the drop of a hat in time for his group’s arrival, it would behoove him and the others to avoid drawing too much attention to themselves. Hopefully he hadn’t done too much already.

In the midst of the detective’s ruminations, he became aware of the sound of footsteps. He glanced to his left, a handful of snow accumulated on the brim of his fedora, to see someone following in his footsteps along the side of the road at a brisk pace. The heavy, wooly white coat he didn’t recognize, but he couldn’t fail to have noticed those distinctive yellow-striped blue leggings. “Hm.” He turned to look the newcomer’s way as she approached his bench, smiling when she continued to jog in place to keep her blood flowing even after she stopped moving forward. “I wondered if they’d send someone,” he began, “But I did not expect you, Detective. You must be cold.”

“You got NO idea, mistah,” Lucia told him, her haggard breath a constant stream of mist in the cold air. “On both accounts, I mean. ‘Cause while I might be the fahst one to come after ya’s, theah’s moah comin’, and they sure as hell ain’t friendly.”

Band gave a slight, inquisitive tilt of his head. “And here I thought Chief Irons wasn’t gonna roll me out the welcome wagon,” he said drily.

Though shaking all over, Lucia shook her head in particular. “His welcome’s gonna be a whole lot wahmah than yah bahgainin’ fah, believe me. Speakin’ of…” She motioned with her head toward her legs. “I can tell ya moah, but I was kinda in a hurry gettin’ outta theah, so if ya know anywhere we can go I’d shoah appreciate it.”

Her fellow detective rose to his feet. “I know just the place. Follow me.”.

“Lead the way, mistah,” Lucia replied, her expression grateful. “And while we’ah on the way, we oughta stop by Hello Wahk. ‘Cause aftah this, I’m definitely out of a job.”

[hr]

Some time later, the door to the pub designated as the Seeker trio’s rendezvous point swung open not only to admit Big Band, but a yellow-haired stranger behind him. After being greeted with a warm front from inside and stepping into the toasty interior, the unknown woman breathed a sigh of relief; her skin had turned almost as blue as her uniform. “God, I could go foah a pint right now,” she groaned, but she dutifully followed her escort to the booth where Ace and Red sat waiting.

“Afternoon, y’all,” Band greeted the others. For someone of his size, sitting anywhere in a bar meant for normal humans ended up being a laborious process, but he found a way. “This is Detective Lucia Morgan,” he said, introducing his guest. “Met her at the local police department.”

“Foahmah detective,” the lady replied, although she didn’t look too glum about it. “Chief didn’t take too kindly to poor Band heah,” she said, using the nickname she picked up while eavesdropping. “Right aftah he left, he rounded up the Three Stooges to keep an eye on ya. But I seen what happens to people he puts his eyes on, and…well, I just got this gut feelin’, ya know? Couldn’t take it any longah. So I said to myself, it ain’t gonna happen this time.”

Band furrowed his brow. “Not that I don’t appreciate you doin’ all this for us, ‘specially outta the blue, but I gotta ask. It seems like you’re puttin’ yourself in awful danger for someone ya don’t know.”

“Psh.” Lucia waved her hand. “I had it up to heah with that guy, anyway. Always givin’ me crap, starin’ at me weahd. Gives me the creeps. You ain’t catchin’ me stuffed and mounted in his office, no way no how.” She slid the drink menu over and scanned it for whatever looked the cheapest and strongest. “Besides,” she continued. “I could tell you weren’t havin’ any of it. You were hidin’ it, shoah, but I saw it in yah eyes. Like ya couldn’t stand lookin’ at mockery of the luah.” After nodding and tapping one of the options in the menu as if to confirm her choice, she looked his way with grim smile. “I know it, ‘cause I’m just the same.”

A brief moment later, Band smiled. “I’m glad. Welcome to the team then, Miss Morgan.” He glanced at the others. “So, before we get into the welcome wagon, you two learn anythin’ while out on the town? Any ideas for places to go? Don’t matter how small it might seem, gimme all ya got.”