[hr][hr]
[center][h1][color=tan]Julia Kray[/color][/h1]
[i]Location: Paragon City Academy, Riverside, Paragon City[/i]
[@Tally Dor][@Nallore][/center]
[hr][hr]


Julia got off the bus, paying her fare with the smallest bill she had which was still $10. She told them to keep the change. Here she was, at the academy. She stopped and checked her reflexion in the reflection of a building's window. She made some adjustment to her hair so that she now looked 'casual yet presentable'. Julia had already formulated her plan while on the bus. She was now Bridget, a friend of Julia Crane. A name that was only one consonant sound away from hers felt too close for comfort so she really had to condition her brain and essentially self-hypnotize herself. For the next few minutes, her name was Bridget.

Bridget approached the entrance to the school and buzzed the reception. After getting let in, she approached the school's front desk.

[color=tan]"Excuse me. I need to speak to a student called Madalyne Crane. I'm a friend of her mother's. Could I trouble you to pass on the message that Bridget needs to speak to her?"[/color]

"Certainly. Please wait here."

The receptionist left to go to the classrooms. As she waited, Bridget felt that chill again, and her instincts screamed danger. She was familiar with signs by now. So, the Monster was likely somewhere in the school too. Sooner or later, their paths were going to cross. Julia needed to find Madealyne first. The receptionist eventually came back.

"I'm sorry. She appears to be playing truant. Some of her friends saw her catch a bus at the beginning of lunch."

Bridget immediately shifted tacks with this new information. She pinched her nose and sighed as if this was the answer she had been expecting.

[color=tan]"I knew it. Thanks for your help. Need to call Julia now and let her know she's doing it again."[/color]

Bridget grumbled as she turned and left the school. Outside, Julia walked to the bus stop on her side of the road, studied the timetable, then crossed the road and looked at that timetable. Between 12 and 12:30 there was a bus that went to Paragon Bay Quay, and a bus that went to Little Asia. The former was quite the distance away and had very few, if any, budget lunch options. It was a more place for sit-down restaurants. At least, that's how it had been fifteen years ago. She couldn't rule it out entirely but it was much more likely that a high schooler playing truant at lunchtime would go to the cheap fast food haven that was Little Asia. And there was another bus in ten minutes. Julia had a little time to kill so she walked to a nearby row of shops and entered what seemed to be a phone shop. She was always going to have to buy a phone. My as well tick it off the list now. Besides, she'd likely need it once she got to Little Asia. The trail would likely run cold there without any kind of search engine or map app. Technology really was an amazing thing.