Garnet on the Astral Plane

A celebrity with a side job as an assassin and an assassin with a side job as an engineer cross paths. Sparks (of irritation) fly. Hold on to your seats, and do try not to get astralplane-sick. ;D

Ilias Ravioli was living his life. Well, he did just wake up, and was now shuffling to the kitchen to make some coffee. He had the most bizzare dream last night.

Unfortunately, that coffee was destined never to be made. There was a tinkling of glass that sounded like the windows shattering. Ilias whipped around. An arrow lay on the floor of his home. A pale blue gas was expanding quickly from a small container that'd been attached to the tip. Well, crap. He ran through it, holding his breath even though he was probably immune to it. He grabbed one of his knives from under his bedroom pillow, and waited. He was supposed to be meeting with some friends today, not getting killed. He'd already left on every other occassion and they were bound to kill him for missing this one. Well, assuming he survived this murder attempt.

A moment later, another arrow whistled through the air. This time, no color filled the air, but the same type of container was attached to the arrow. He held his breath again, and ran through it to a different part of his house. This was not how he likes to spend his morning. But this was more efficient at waking him up than coffee. As for poisons and whatnot, he was immune to most but that didn't stop him from holding his breath thanks to one small, itty bitty irrational part in his brain.

There was peace for a few seconds, and then the rest of the window shattered into the room. There was a soft thump, and then a slightly-muffled voice said, "Interesting. No reaction to hydrogen cyanide or phosphine." A person wearing a teal mask with a yellow smiley face stood in what had once been his pristine living room. So an assassin that was also a weird nerd in the weird science field. A weird one at that, to wear a smiley face. That wasn't in the least bit terrifying; he almost laughed. The gas continued to move to the room he was in, so he stealthily moved on to a different room. He didn't need to look around, as he knew this place like the back of his hand. He cut the power to his house from a panel, everything going pitch black.

In the darkness, there was the sound of more glass shattering. Great. Now, to hunt the hunter. He silently listened for sounds, while moving without stirring the air too much.

There! A waft of air to his right side. He struck faster than a snake, hitting something? Or someone. There was a grunt, and then something splashed against his wrists. He tried to break free, but it felt like a stiff rubber band was holding his arms together.

A cloth was pressed to his nose and mouth. It caught him by surprise and he breathed the chemicals in. It didn't smell like chloroform.

Something impacted his feet. It felt-- sticky. It felt like it was expanding, gaining volume. Covering him? Ew. But he didn't stay awake to see the end of it, as whatever was in the cloth wasn't something he's ever come across before. His chest tightened with momentary panic. He then drooped and blacked out.

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

He came to in a windowless room. The walls and floor were made of cold cement, although there were some pictures on the walls. Oh. On second glance, they were actually Lewis diagrams of chemical compounds. He was kidnapped by a scientist. Great. Someone else to torment him. Darkness knows, maybe they found out about his latest target.

His wrists were bound by a purple gel-like material, and so were his ankles. He was seated in an armchair that was actually rather comfortable.

"Your chemical tolerance is pretty impressive." He turned his head. The smiley face mask person was in front of him, about 3 feet away. "Was it built up through repeated exposure? If so, that must've been pretty painful."

He now realized, nothing at the moment was hiding his scars. They didn't gag him, so he did the most logical thing: he spat on his kidnapper. Best to act like he wasn't an assassin, as there was the possibility the person didn't know.

"Hm. Thanks for the spit sample, I suppose." The person casually wiped the spit from their shirt. "Although it's been contaminated, so no thanks, actually. And I already know who you are." Ilias' chest tightened again. They walked behind the curtain at the front part of the room, then returned with a plate with a sandwich on it. "Hungry? This isn't poisoned, by the way. I'll have some to prove it." They cut a corner off the sandwich, popped it into their mouth, then offered the rest to Ilias.

"And how do I know you haven't just built up an immunity?" He rasped. Whatever was in the cloth did something weird to his voice.

They shrugged. "Fair enough. I just thought it'd be the courteous thing to offer you some refreshments. I kidnapped you before breakfast, after all."

"What is it that you want me to do anyways? Dance on top of a table and recite a few lines from some movies?" Yes, some fangirls had done that before, kidnapping him, but they didn't exactly do it right when he was making coffee.

The kidnapper brightened, their dark eyes dancing. "Oh, could you do that? That'd be very entertaining, although that's not the reason you're here."

"Then why am I here?"

"Well, I kind of need access to the astral plane."

This person had to be kidding. Literally anyone else could have been kidnapped. "And you couldn't find anyone else."

"You're special!" He could hear the smile in their voice. "Take it as a compliment. Not everyone gets to be exposed to my latest chemical creations. Thanks for the extra data, by the way. It's good to know that tolerance for hydrogen cyanide and phosphine doesn't render one immune from the effects of the compound I used on you."

"Why don't I expose you to enough caffiene to deteriorate your liver and give you a heart attack?" He replied, not sounding very sarcastic thanks to his kidnappers chemicals. "Also I held my breath."

"Yes, but unless you're a holding-your-breath professional or had a mask like mine, the gases would've still had somewhat of an effect. Anyways. Back to the astral plane. You do have a guest pass crystal, yes? There was that time you brought Napa to the astral plane to show off- I mean, to show him around."

Ilias rolled his eyes and waved a hand around to the best of his ability. "Yeah, yeah okay. And for what exact reason do you want to get into the astral plane?"

"Uh. To determine whether the myth of there being blood-sucking unicorns prancing around at the fringes of the astral plane is true, of course." Ilias couldn't see much of the kidnapper's expression under their mask, but their voice sounded absolutely serious.

"Well, I can tell you right now that is true. I had an encounter with an entire herd. It's not the blood sucking you should be worried about, it's the gas. Also, I'd like to eat that sandwich."

"Noted. But I need to see for myself. And here you go; it's ham and cheese." They passed the plate to him, then poured some kind of liquid over his handcuffs. They melted away into nothing. "I'm being polite and giving you the benefit of the doubt, but I have more of that goo, in case you decide to be stupid and try to escape."

He crammed the sandwich in his mouth. At least if it was poisoned he'd be able to escape this conversation. "Of course I'm going to be stupid. You're not giving me the truth. You don't seem like the kind to go galavanting off in search for unicorns."

"Oh? You've gotten a full analysis of my personality in the... let's see... whole five minutes we've been talking?"

"No, I've barely done that. You just don't seem very unicorn obsessed, even with your smiley face mask."

"Fine, Mr. Ilias I'm-a-therapist-now Ravioli. There's a different reason, but you don't get to know what it is. You've got to reach friendship level five for that. You're at negative one right now, for context. Helping me will get you up to four."

"Please, I'd rather try to fight you for the rest of my life in a never ending battle than become a therapist."

"Aw, that's sweet! I'd get the chance to test more of my creations on you." Their voice was annoyingly chipper.

"Secondly, you don't tell me what's actually going on, I don't give you help. I like to know how I'm going to die."

"No one said anything about dying. But if you insist, I can give you a temporary pass to friendship level five. I'd like to go there for research. You see, the properties of crystals are somehow different in the physical plane and in the astral plane. Why do crystals charge so much faster in the astral plane? Does it have to do with their internal structures? The amount of rigidity? How does the freedom of movement of electrons in metals affect the..." He tuned out the rest of the kidnapper-aka-mad-scientist's ramble.

Blah, blah blah. He shifted into a more comfortable position, swinging his still bound legs so that he was sideways in the chair, his knees on the armrest, and his lowerback at the other. He then tossed the plate upwards, and caught it as it came back down. Then tossed it up again.

"...And clearly you're not listening. Well. To sum it up, I want to go there for research. Satisfied?"

"... What?" He turned his head, allowing the plate to hit the floor, where it shattered.

The kidnapper winced. "That's a hazard now. I may be the kidnapper, but you're the one who's being a rude guest. Do I need to spell out my reason for you to understand it? R-e-s-e-a-r-c-h."

"That sounds like gibberish, how about you speak in simple peasant language?" He picked up a shard, which he could probably kill himself with.

There was an irritated groan. He felt satified. "Put that shard down. Now, in simple peasant language: science. Me plus astral plane equals science. Will you take me with the guest pass crystal or not?"

He continued to test the sharpness of the shard with a finger. He did need to go to the astral realm anyways. This would give him the perfect excuse: taking a distant family member to see the glories of the astral plane. And with that perfect alibi he could go off and do what he was hired for. "Fine. As long as I don't have to hop around like an idiot."

"Oh, absolutely." The kidnapper snatched the shard away.

"It would raise red flags, don't you think?" He asked, inspecting his finger. It was fine, nothing but a shallow cut. This was the most bizzare situation he's been in.

"I agree. What would also raise red flags is you telling your manager about being kidnapped. I know it's rather rude to make death threats on a first meeting, but I do need to warn you that I have a stronger version of that chemical that I'd love to test out if you make any hint about anything being off."

"You should also know that I do not fear death, and would happily greet him to escape from you."

"Ah. So you find death to be better company than me. That didn't hurt my ego at all."

"Well my ego didn't inflate or deflate so all is well." He picked up another shard.

The kidnapper walked away without a word, then returned with a spray bottle. They gave the shard in his hand a good dousing, then turned the bottle towards the shards on the floor. Wherever the liquid hit the porcelain, it dissolved. Nothing else was affected.

"See? You didn't need to worry about cleaning up. After all, it's just a few squirts."

They rolled their eyes. "I still needed to walk a whole twenty steps to get the spray bottle."

"Please. Vigorous excercise is healthy." He snapped his fingers, and clapped his hands to the rhythm of a song in the lastest movie he was working on.

The kidnapper ignored him. "Hm. Target has been kidnapped, death threat has been made... anything else to check off the list?" The kidnapper appeared to be talking to themself. "Nope! Alright, let's go catch an astralplane to the astral plane." They poured a liquid over Ilias's legcuffs and dissolved them.

"You did forget the part of throwing me over the balcony into a pool that is conveniently located in the correct spot." He stretched his legs, and then crossed them at the ankles, still chilling.

"Well, we can do that later. Come on, I've gotta blindfold you and then get us to your house to get you some clothes that aren't pajamas as well as the guest pass crystal, and then get to the astralport."

"I'd rather be knocked out with something that doesn't mess up my voice, as I do sing. Plus it's amusing to think of you having to drag or carry me."

"Tsk tsk, diva." They rolled their eyes. "But I'll do as you wish, because I'm a nice person. More vigorous exercise for me. I'm getting all the health today, huh?"

"Whoo-hoo, getting exercise." He replied, his sarcastic tone returning to him. He closed his eyes.

The kidnapper left and then returned a few moments later with a cup of tea and a bright pink drink. "Tea first, to soothe your throat. Then the other drink, to knock you out without affecting your voice."

"Great, thanks." He opened his eyes then drank the pink drink, then the tea, well, partly before blacking out again. He did hear the cup shatter though. And he felt satisfied. The kidnapper could walk another twenty steps to get the bottle again. He was just fabulous for their health, wasn't he?

Marisol Vélez wasn't in the habit of kidnapping people. Usually, she killed them. It was the family business, you see. Or, well, the family business on the maternal side, seeing as her father was blissfully oblivious and thought his spouse worked as a nighttime museum security guard. Anyways. It was her first kidnapping, but she hadn't expected the target to be so... compliant. Sure, he was annoying and ruined her tableware, but he hadn't made any attempts to overpower her and escape. Was he just biding his time?

Mari glanced back at Ilias, who was currently snoring rather loudly in the backseat of her car. He clearly had some self-defense capabilities, as the wound along her left upper arm proved. She'd managed to patch up the slash before he came to, though she'd have to change the bandages in a few hours. Mari hoped it wasn't obvious that she was using her right arm for most tasks.

Well, if he tried to say anything, she could "accidentally" trip and drag him down with her. Or "accidentally" push them out a window into a conveniently-located pool, as Ilias had so creatively suggested.

She pulled into street parking in front of his house and turned off the engine. Mari poked her head into the backseat and waved some salts underneath Ilias's nose, then tossed a makeup kit at him. "Cover those scars, yeah?" She'd adopted a cover as well; Mari was wearing a long-sleeved blouse and slacks, and had temporarily dyed her hair to be chestnut brown instead of its usual inky black. That combined with some skillfully-applied makeup should make her look different enough to not be recognized easily.

He still looked drowsy, but tossed the kit back at her. "I have my own stuff in my home."

She caught it. "Alright then." Mari got out of the car and opened the door for Ilias.

He stumbled out grumbling. "Whatever you gave me gave me a headache."

"Look on the bright side! Your voice sounds better!" She bounded up the walkway to his front door.

"Yes, it hurts to sing with a headache so I'll just say sarcastic quips very sarcastically when I get the change to bludgeon your skull him." He replied sarcastically, opening the door, which had been unlocked. Which meant she didn't have to shatter glass she could have just walked into the front door.

"That's a security risk. Don't you have crazy fans who'd sneak into your house or something?" Mari looked around. "Oh, well, you have a security camera at least. So you can catch people after the crime."

"I got home late and honestly didn't care enough, as at that moment I was suffering from being hungover from the party before. It was an excellent party though." He replied, restoring power to his building.

"Ah, classic celebrity move-" Mari paused. "Why is there a wolf in your living room?" There was a life-size silver snarling wolf statue in the room. Shards of glass were still scattered around its feet.

"Well I once had a friend who liked stealing traffic cones on every trip we went, so one of them I found a silver wolf statue and that beat all his traffic cones. Now if you don't mind, I'll privately be in my room doing celebrity guy going to the astral realm with his two time removed second cousin stuff."

A silver wolf statue beating a traffic cone collection. Because of course. "Oh, is that my cover? I'm your second cousin twice-removed?" She wondered if she could take advantage of being related to a celebrity, and then she remembered that she'd kidnapped him and he'd probably call the cops on her as soon as they parted ways and her threats became ineffectual.

But he was already gone, the door shutting. Mari shrugged, took out a bottle and sprayed the shards of glass on the floor, then walked around. Might as well snoop a little. She passed by the wolf statue, then backtracked. Hold on a second. A silver wolf... There was no way she was that lucky. She'd chosen Ilias because his frequent disappearances meant a kidnapping for a few hours would raise less suspicion than someone else of royal blood disappearing for a while, but if he was related to him... No, she couldn't assume. She needed proof.

Mari scanned the room, noting the hallways that branched out. She padded down one hallway and poked her head into the first room she saw. Looked like a guest room. She looked into the next one. Musical instruments. Then Mari doubled back and knocked on the door of Ilias's room, just to make sure he wasn't trying to escape. "How long exactly does it take you to do your celebrity guy stuff? Because you take longer than my sister in the bathroom."

There was no response. Mari frowned and knocked harder. She got a very muffled response.

"What was that?" she called. "Your waiter's kitchen? You're waiting for a chicken?"

"Give me a second!" Came through the door, a little clearer.

"Humph. Fine." She wandered off again. Finally, she'd explored all the rooms on one side of the hallway, but there was no trace of weapons or other gear. But he must have had some kind of blade to scratch her arm like that. Possibly it was on another floor. Or he was just a regular person who'd panicked and used a kitchen knife... But no. She could tell that Ilias was many things, but he was not a regular person. Even accounting for his celebrity-ness.

She returned to his room and leaned on the opposite wall, waiting. She tapped her fingers on the wall. He still wasn't out yet. Mari pulled out a small book on enhancing the effects of synthetic diamonds in the astral plane for some light reading. Finally, the door opened, and he was wearing weird clothing that looked slightly tight.

Mari raised an eyebrow. He just held out what looked like a suit of the same type. "Trust me, you're going to prefer wearing this in the astral realm."

"None of my reading suggests that ridiculous suits are required for entry into the astral realm."

"No, it's not required, but gravity is strange and wearing normal clothes is just waiting for an embarrasing moment to happen."

Mari searched his face. He could be lying, but seeing as he was also wearing the suit... Well, at least the part about gravity being strange was true. She didn't know how, exactly, it was different, but the few books she'd managed to get her hands on suggested that it followed its own laws, separate from those of the physical plane.

She took the suit and walked to the bathroom, which was one of the rooms she'd found. A minute later she was back. "It's not the worst thing ever, I suppose." She frowned. "Well. Guest pass crystal, please?"

"Yeah no, you don't get this until we're at the airport." He smiled, swinging it around on a finger.

She huffed and made a grab for it. He snatched it in his palm and moved it away, laughing. "Too slow!"

Mari rolled her eyes. She half-hoped he was one of her two targets for this mission. It would be satisfying to wipe that smirk off his face. "Whatever. Now, the astralport-"

There was banging on the door, and Ilias stiffened. Mari narrowed her eyes. "The cops?"

"Most likely not." He replied, walking to the door. "Most likely people who are going to kill me for not meeting them, yes."

"Not literally, I hope." It would be unfortunate if she didn't get paid just because someone else had killed her target first.

"Oh, probably literally. Yep, it's them." He replied looking through the peephole.

"Are you going to open the door?" Was this guy involved in the mafia or something?

He opened the door, and it was a group of guys, who were clearly other celebrities. Ones she probably recognized. Even if she hadn't seen their fake smiles on billboards before, they just oozed pretentiousness.

"What came up now man? We were supposed to be talking about the new movie over some of Anio's Pizza." The guy in front said.

"I don't think you used the word 'literally' properly," Mari whispered to Ilias. "Unless these guys truly feel that skipping pizza is a crime punishable by death."

"Eyyyy, who's this one? A new girlfriend?"

Mari nearly puked. Ilias just laughed. "No actually, she's my twice removed second cousin of a second cousin on my mother's side."

Mari rearranged her face into a cheery grin. "Yep. Wouldn't hang around this dude if he wasn't family, you know what I mean?"

"Yeah, between my chances of you guys killing me, or her, I'd fear dying by her hand more than you guys, but we're kind of on a tight schedule so I'll see you guys some time, let's say next week yeah?" He smiled, but it was impossible to tell if it was forced or genuine. With some grumbling, the guys left, one punching Ilias in the gut. Ilias then dramatically groaned and fell to the floor.

Mari just stared at him. "That wasn't even a hard punch."

Ilias closed the door with his foot. "It's just a thing we do alright? Inside joke."

"Far be it from me to question the ludicrous rituals of celebrities." Mari put her hands up.

"Oh wait until you see to our cultist rituals that we all do together around a lemon tree."

"I prefer oranges, but to each their own." Mari pushed the door open again and led the way to the car. "Next stop: the astralport."

"Hey lemon meringue pies are delish."

"Have you ever tried an orange meringue pie? It might be even more delish."

"I have, and I still prefer lemon."

"Makes sense, actually. You're just as annoyingly bright as a lemon, and anyone around you is tempted to wrinkle their faces as if they've eaten something sour."

"Haven't you heard the phrase of when life gives you lemons you should make lemonade?"

"Actually, I've always been more fond of the phrase, 'when life gives you lemons, squirt them in life's eyes.'"

"That works too, now drive."

Mari stomped on the gas. "If we get into an accident, I blame you for distracting me."

He laughed, throughly enjoying the speed.

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

The astralport was a sleek, modern building with hexagonal tiles that shifted hues from magenta to sunrise orange to buttercup yellow. The doors opened automatically for Ilias, and Mari slipped through before they closed.

Inside, Mari spotted a few others wearing similar suits, so it was possible that Ilias did not actually use them solely to publically embarrass them. She recognized a few faces, as those from the ruling families were often public figures. No members of the middle or lower classes, though. Only those of the ruling families and their guests could access the astralport.

"Okay, Ilias. Where are the planes? Also, where's the crystal you promised me?"

"Well, you've got security to go through first, so I do hope you didn't bring any weapons along." He waved to someone he probably knew.

"Do complex chemical substances count as weapons?"

"If they can detect it, yes."

Mari scowled. "Alright, I'll leave them in the car."

"Good idea."

Once the chemicals had been safely deposited in the car, they walked through security. Ilias handed her the guest key at the very end. "Be careful, don't lose this because it's going to get crowded here very soon. And no scowling."

"Noted. Though not scowling might be a tad bit difficult with you here." Soon enough, as they walked down the corridors, said crowd appeared. Mari pasted a vague smile onto her face and wrapped the chain of the crystal around her fingers.

Her eyes darted back and forth, taking in details of the people in the crowd. Many were carrying crystals wrapped with metal, and a few were holding brightly colored drinks. "Where are they getting the drinks from?" Mari asked.

"There's a bar over there." He pointed to the left, where there was indeed a bar. "Best drinks in the physical realm."

"Perfect." Mari perused the menu, then ordered a tourmaline cocktail to go. It was rather overpriced, but who was she to pass up the opportunity to drink what the ruling families drank?

Ilias watched her as she did so, not moving, not trying to escape at all. "You better not puke all over me when we're on the plane."

"Oh, rest assured that I will absolutely puke over you if I get planesick. But don't worry, I'll try my best not to. Puking is unpleasant, after all."

There was a waiting area with plush chairs and some light refreshments. An attendant stood at a counter in case people had questions, and as Mari watched, people started lining up in front of him. A few held guest pass crystals like the one Ilias had given her.

"So. Is there a certain order we line up, or is it first come first serve?"

"Well, first come first serve, but it does depend on whether or not you get swarmed by a mob of people." He replied, looking in a different direction.

"Oh, great. Paparazzi?" Mari watched the wave of photographers surge towards them as if in slow motion.

"Yep. It's a real pain sometimes." He forced a smile.

"Tell me they're not aiming for you. Surely there are other famous people within the ruling families."

"Unfortunately, I'm in one of the more famous families." He muttered with his teeth clenched, smiling.

"Okay, well, that's my cue to melt into the background. I'll see you on the astral plane. That is, if you survive the paparazzi." Mari grinned and turned to join the line.

Ilias grabbed her arm before she could make it. "You're either joining me in the suffering, or you're pulling me out."

Mari grabbed her arm with her other arm and yanked it out of Ilias's grip, biting back a wince as the wound flared up. "I don't want my face plastered over the news, so guess I'm pulling you out."

"You wanted to get to the astral plane, this is what you get to deal with." He replied, his eyes narrowing. He had noticed her pain.

She groaned. The paparazzi would reach them in around ten seconds, judging by their current rate of motion, and they'd already spotted Ilias. The line was moving quickly as people boarded the plane, but not quickly enough.

Mari made a snap decision and pulled Ilias to the front of the line, saying, "Sorry, everyone! We're really in a rush. This guy will pay for your drinks once we're on board." She shoved the guest pass crystal at the attendant, who hesitated, then passed a scanner over it after Mari fixed him with her best glare. Ilias gave the attendant an apologetic glance and his pass card.

Then they were running down the gangway to the plane, while the paparazzi were held up by the attendant. "How did you get in here?" he asked. "Only those of the bloodline or with guest crystals..." Mari tuned the rest out as they boarded the plane.

This could not have possibly gone worse. Well, it could have but it didn't go as well as he'd liked it to have. This kidnapper was weird, and did not plan very well. In order to not get caught she'd have to be more careful. Like applying makeup to hide things. You didn't slather it on with a putty knife, you added just enough so that it covered with being noticeable. But she was hasty in her getting on the plane, and that was bound to raise a red flag if someone paid close attention. He didn't have much of a problem with it, he'd just need to get another alibi.

"You're scowling. Hypocrite." The kidnapper's voice interrupted his thoughts. "We're on the plane, aren't we? Don't tell me you actually wanted to get caught by the paparazzi and are now scowling at not getting your fifteen seconds of fame."

"I meant to not scowl when there's paparazzi. Also, I did mention that I hate paparazzi yeah? Worst part of being a celebrity." He replied, looking at her. They sat in the back, trying to be unnoticeable, or unworthy of being noticed. It also gave him a nice view of the wings of the plane. He just liked watching the flaps and ailerons move up and down, while the wings bounced. "Also, do tell me your name, unless you want me walking around calling you kidnapper."

"Ah, call me Camille. Let's see... Camille Iya. I'll say my father married into the family."

He narrowed his eyes. She was horrible at creating a fake name. "Try that again, your not being convincing enough and you're making it obvious that you made it up."

"What? Camille Iya is a perfectly good name. Not all of us can be named after food, Mr. Ravioli." She rolled her eyes. Hey, nothing's wrong with having food as a last name. Plus Ravioli is good on a sunday night.

"You really don't look like a Camille."

She scoffed. "Well, you have strong opinions about what I'm like. First you say I don't look like a unicorn kind of person, and now you say I don't look like a Camille. How judgmental. Do you have any better ideas?"

"Well I can either call your Oda May Brown or I can call you Mary Sue."

The kidnapper mimed throwing up on him. "I'll stick with Camille."

"Yeah, no, I refuse to have a twice removed second cousin from my mother's side being named Camille." He snorted.

"Fine then. Camira."

"That's worse. I'll call you Maria."

"Hmph. Don't expect me to answer."

"That's fine with me." He settled back in his seat as the plane started rolling. He then closed his eyes. Sleep-inducing poisons do not contribute towards your needed sleep, and it's always best to sleep when going from one realm to another.

Next to him, Maria started tapping her foot. She shifted positions five times in two minutes. He smirked, amused and opened his eyes to look at her. "Nervous Maria?"

She didn't answer. Maria pointedly shifted her position another time and closed her eyes. A minute later, she muttered, "It's Camille. And no, I just always have the need to be doing something. Drives my coworkers crazy."

"Sure, whatever you say, nervous Maria." He grinned, closing his eyes again.

"I want to puke on you," was the grumbled response.

He felt in front of him for the pocket containing the puke bag. He held it out to her without opening his eyes. "Puke in this, not on me. Since it's your first time, you'll definitely need it."

After a moment, she took it wordlessly and started fidgeting with it, the bag making a crinkling noise. He shifted position to get more comfortable.



Ilias woke up to puke. It smelled horrible. He didn't remember when he fell asleep. Maria was making retching noises and pointedly ignoring the purpose of the bag, which she was holding in front of herself to protect her own clothes from the puke. She threw up on the pant legs of his suit.

"Wretched woman!" He said rather loudly and dramatically, wiping off the puke.

Maria took a few moments to breathe, then said, "How old-fashioned of you, wretched man." There was a self-satisfied note to her voice. "Thanks for the bag, by the way. Very useful to keep myself occupied and to keep my suit clean."

Elias scowled at her. On the intercom, the pilot announced that they'd be arriving in the astral plane soon. He scowled at her, cleaning his clothes. Good thing they were waterproof. Which meant they were puke proof. He didn't know about the smell though. Now, for the fun part that Maria decided to puke before. Actually entering the astral realm. This time he'd be awake to avoid having her puke on him.

There was a wave of translucent energy that passed through the plane, from the front to the back. The crystals that people were carrying glowed at ten times their previous brightness for a blinding moment, then faded, though they remained much brighter than in the physical plane. Maria's eyes were wide open. He could have sworn her face just turned into another shade of green that he'd never seen before. Thankfully, she avoided puking on him. Instead, she turned her attention to the window.

Outside the window, the astral plane was doing its thing. Floating buildings held together by lines of metal, people walking in suits of various styles, chunks of crystal being propelled apart...

The plane landed. Maria opened the lid of her drink to take a sip and was met with an upwards surge of cocktail. She sputtered. "Why... why does the drink go upwards while we're still pulled downwards?"

Ilias would have answered, but he was dying of laughter. She glowered and tossed the rest of the drink at him. It moved weirdly through the air, and he drank half of it, the rest splashed in his face. Great, he'd have some to save for later!

"My question still stands. I'll count this as preliminary research," Maria said.

"Why does anything happen like it does in the astral realm. Look at that lady over there in the dress." He pointed, and there was a lady holding her dress to prevent the skirt from floating upwards. "If you were wearing normal clothing like her that's what would happen."

"I see. So, either there's a lack of consistency to the effects of gravity in this plane, or there are more subtle laws that you either are ignorant of or haven't deigned to inform me of."

"Basically we took a very chaotic place and gave it order where we could."

"Ah, and by 'we,' you mean the ruling families?" Maria had taken out a little notepad and was jotting things down. "I mean, we learned the brief history of the creation of the astral plane in school, but never many details."

"No, we had a single roly poly the size of a tiny pebble build everything." He replied, being slightly sarcastic.

She fixed him with a deadpan stare. "Really. And I bet that roly poly was named Sam, and his descendants are now revered and given itty bitty homes in the mansions of the families."

"Yes, that was exactly what happened." This time, he sounded serious.

People had started filing out of the plane from the front, but it was taking a little while before the back of the plane could exit. So, he just sat there in his seat. Maria huffed and started tapping the notebook with her pen as she stared out the window.

A few minutes later, the plane had mostly cleared out. Maria stood up and started walking up the aisle. Ilias was right behind her. He just hoped that he wasn't being too compliant, as he'd like to stay alive. He'd be defiant as possible, making this trip as hard as possible, which would be good, for then she'd keep her distance from him as much as she could. Hopefully. Hopefully, it would also speed up her need to use him.

The astral plane astralport glittered with crystal and metal keeping it in place. Ilias didn't bother with looking around. He's already done it so many times. So now he just started making a beeline to get out of the astralport. Maria followed, head craning back and forth a little but still keeping up. He exited, and found a cab. Well, it was basically the same thing, but it could take you to whichever chunk of rock you needed to get to. Those drivers got a good amount of money doing it too. He opened the door, and dramatically motioned for Maria to enter the cab.

Maria shot him a look. "Where are we going? You could just leave me here, you know. I can find my way around and do my research myself."

"Well, first, we're getting sleep. Second, I'd like my key back. Third, you'll still need me with you to get into any labs, or access official information, and just navigating in general since I am more experienced here. Your little drink fiasco proved that. Fourth, you'll need me to get back to the physical realm, and in general if you're not with someone known to be in a ruling family you'd be suspicious."

Maria pursed her lips and stared at him, then slid into the cab. Satisfied, Ilias slipped into the cab after her, well, after looking around. He held out his hand to her. "Now if you would, key."

"Won't I need it to get back to the physical realm? Or to allay someone's suspicions, seeing as you just pointed out that I'm not part of the ruling families."

"Well, yes, but you don't need to have it while you're walking around."

"I might as well keep it. I've taken rather a liking to it."

"Well too bad, it's mine. We don't move until I get it back."

She looked at him like she was pondering shoving him out of the cab and into the street, then she dangled the crystal in front of him and dropped it in his lap. He picked it up, and looked at the cab driver. "Hey Paul! Take me to my place, and while you're at it tell me how your family's been."

The cab driver stepped on it, and started talking mirthfully back to him. Ilias settled into his seat. When the conversation turned to Paul's children, Maria popped into the conversation with anecdotes about her siblings, laughing and chatting as if unfazed by the astral plane around her. If it was an act, it was a pretty good one. Ilias just sat there, listening and smiling.

A few other cabs passed by, their exteriors wrapped in symbols formed of metal wires to keep them stable and enhance their performance. Pedestrians sauntered by between shimmering buildings. Outside the right window, he could see more floating cities, drifting lazily through the sky. He knew every one of those city's names, and had been to all of them.

The cab pulled up to Ilias' home, which really, wasn't that big. Not as big as his house back in the physical realm. It was simple grey, and one story. The curtains were pulled closed. There was a small old shack to one side. Ilias stepped out, and headed to the door. Maria said goodbye to Paul and wished him and his children the best, then hurried up the walkway as well. Ilias just opened the door with no key, and walked in. From the angle she was at, it would seem that he just opened the door, and it wasn't locked. But in truth, he did have a security system.

"So, do you also forget to lock your astral home after being out partying?"

"Yes, sometimes yes. Also people here can be trusted to not break into your home. Over there's the guest bedroom, I'll be in my own bedroom. If that bed is too uncomfortable, there's couches in the living room."

Maria peeked into the guest bedroom, nodded in approval, then wandered off towards the living room. Soon enough, she came back and asked, "Why? I kidnapped you. Why are you actually treating me like your second cousin two times removed?"

He stopped in the hallway and turned around with a smile. "It's just common courtesy. Adieu."

"Hm. I don't think holding a door open for someone is equivalent to offering your guest bedroom to a practical stranger. You have ulterior motives."

"Yeah, not getting killed. I do wish to see you suffer, but dealing with a grumpy person for an entire day is not my idea of you suffering, but the door to my own death."

She narrowed her eyes at him, clearly not convinced, but she didn't press the point. "I'll be preparing for my research in the guest bedroom." Maria disappeared into the room. Ilias turned back around and went into his own room, and laid on the bed. Waiting. He'd need to be careful, it seemed like Maria was suspecting things. After an hour's worth of waiting in the astral realm, he quietly got up, and hopped out of his window to go for a short walk.

It was probably around evening, but who needed sleep, really? Mari had tried her best not to show it, but she was buzzing with excitement at being in the astral plane. Like, her! In the astral plane! If she'd known just kidnapping a celebrity was the way to gain access, she would've done it a lot sooner. Actually, scratch that. She'd been woefully underprepared for this kidnapping, and she wasn't sure she'd want to kidnap anyone again.

The guest bedroom had a neatly-made bed on one side, a window, and a desk. Mari spread out her notes on the desk, then fished out the roll of bandages she'd brought and re-wrapped her wound. It didn't look infected, which was good, but she'd probably have to go easy on her arm for a bit. Good thing she'd taken a few days off her job-- well, one of her jobs. The chemical engineering one, of course.

Mari pored over her design notes, brushing the curls of her dyed-brown hair out of her face. She kept an ear pricked for signs of Ilias moving around even as she made a list of research priorities. She was working on a special kind of container that would increase the effectiveness of her concoctions, and she suspected the key was in the astral plane.

After around an hour, she paused her work to scrounge up a glass of water (this time, she'd be prepared for the floating liquid). As she returned from the kitchen, she examined the house. Silence from Ilias's room. She'd taken care to memorize her surroundings and the exits in case she had to escape. And... there, that window. It looked slightly different. There had been a sliver of a gap under it when they came in, but now it was firmly closed. She hadn't heard Ilias moving, but there were ways to get around practically soundlessly, which one would be likely to know if one was an assassin like her...

Mari finished her water, returned to the guest room and slid her notes back into a pocket, and slipped out the window, making sure to close it firmly behind her.

She landed softly in an alleyway. The ground was made of chunks of crystal with lines of metal spiderwebbing across it. It didn't do wonders for her confidence in its stability, but it wasn't actively crumbling, so it was probably fine. She glanced both ways, then decided that Ilias had probably gone in the direction with more lights.

Mari climbed up to the rooftop of the house, relying on her right arm to pull herself up and using tiny cracks in the wall as purchase for her shoes. Once on the rooftap, she could see buildings reaching up to the star-studded sky a short distance to the right, and more houses to the left. Mari ran to the right. There was a figure walking down the side of the road. She quickly caught up to them and peered down. It was difficult to make out details in the dusk, but the person's build looked similar to Ilias's. She followed them. They just had their hands in their pockets, walking with their back slightly hunched. He looked to the side, and then crossed the street to the more lit side of the road.

Mari ran lightly across a roof, then hopped to the next house and crouched behind a turret of crystal that jutted from the roof. Yep, looked like Ilias. Now, where could he be going? He turned a corner. Mari followed. The landscape was gradually becoming more urban, and while she had scaled a few high-rises before, she had none of the proper gear right now. She looked for a good place to descend to the street.

Then Ilias turned a corner and started walking back towards the more suburban area. Mari continued creeping across the rooftops. Eventually, it just led back to the house, and he went back inside. Mari frowned. All that for just a stroll? She climbed down to the window outside the guest room and eased her way inside, then spread out her notes again. Well. At least the excursion had given her a chance to familiarize herself with the layout of this portion of the neighborhood.

After a while of poring over her notes, she started to yawn. If she remembered from her research, physical needs like eating and sleeping weren't as necessary in the astral realm, but sleeping was still a good way to rest the brain. She put away her notes and went to bed. Tomorrow, Mari would start her research-- both into utilizing crystals in combination with her chemicals and into Ilias's true motives.



The light never really changed in the astral realm. Mari had assumed it was evening since the light was dim, but even after what felt like a few hours of sleep, the light was still the same. Outside the window, the stars had shifted position, and a few different floating cities were in view.

Mari opened the door of the guest room. "So, not to be an annoying houseguest, but is there any food around here?"

There was no one out there, just dead silence. Mari raised an eyebrow. Did he really trust her enough to leave her alone in this house? She ventured out into the living room, then to the kitchen. She scrounged around in the fridge and found some translucent, cold, yet bread-like thing and munched on it as she wandered the hallways.

In one room, she found a chair shaped like a cow. In another, there was a desk with a surface that looked like waves. "Well, that must be difficult to write on," she muttered. The bread-like thing tasted pretty good. It was soft and slightly sweet.

"It is. Also you're very trusting of the food in this place. They've been here for awhile."

Mari whirled around and found herself face-to-face with Ilias, who was leaning on the doorframe. "Well, I've eaten moldy tomatoes before and been fine. It's another kind of tolerance. I'm pretty sure my immune system and the bacteria in my gut are invincible now. Super-bacteria, if you will." She bit into the thing she'd decided to call astral bread again.

"Great. You're tolerant to bacteria. Good to know. I can't overload you easily with rotten food." He snorted. "Good Morning by the way."

"Yes, cross that off the list of ways to murder me." She looked around. "Is it morning? I couldn't tell."

"Mhm." He sipped coffee from his mug, which had a protective lid on it. "Don't worry, I've still got a very long list of ways that I could kill you."

"Oh? Do you have experience with killing people?"

"Admittedly, from movie scenes. Would those really work?" He asked, setting his mug down on the wavy desk. Surprisingly, it sat well.

"Depends on the method, I'm sure." Mari finished off the bread. "Well, thanks for the food. Now, I've been informed that there's a research laboratory here, so that's where I'm off to. As soon as I figure out transportation to City Beryl-3."

"Hey I've got to have at least 3 more cups of coffee." He replied, taking another drink.

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. Could you spare a fourth for me?"

"Sure. Coffee maker is in the kitchen."

"Very kind of you." Mari returned in a few minutes with three mugs of coffee. She set two of them down on the desk. "Here. Chug them. It'll speed things up."

"Coffee is not to be drank speedily."

"Oh yeah? Who says?"

"I say so."

"Are you coffee-dictator supreme now? Do you set the standards for drinking coffee?" Mari sipped some coffee. It tasted... richer, somehow, than the kind she usually drank. It could be an effect of the astral plane, or perhaps it was just made from more expensive beans.

"Yes, I do. If you haven't noticed, my face was on that box. And if you get bored or hyper just go around the block." He replied, going into a different room.

"Didn't know being paid to advertise coffee gave you authority over all coffee," she called as he left.

"Now you know, Miss Maria." He called back.

She scoffed and drained the rest of her coffee. Might as well explore more of the surroundings while prissy Mr. Coffee-is-not-to-be-drank-speedily savored the rest of his coffee. He made really loud slurping sounds to annoy her from the other room.

Mari rolled her eyes-- oh dear, she suspected her eyes would be suffering by the end of this-- and left the house through the window in the guest bedroom, leaving it open just a crack.

Although the lighting was the same, there were more people out and about than there had been on her previous excursion. Mari sipped her coffee as she walked towards the urban area. A city floated overhead, but instead of casting a shadow, the crystals underneath it glowed and provided additional lighting.

It took only about fifteen minutes to reach the outskirts of downtown. Mari reached into one of her pockets. She had ten gold pieces, two diamonds (diamonds being a greater unit of currency than gold pieces), and three small garnets her mother had given her years ago, just in case.

She glanced around, scanning the glowing signs and faceted buildings. Public transportation... Surely there was something of that sort around here. Aha! "Astral transport," written in large, blocky letters. Mari hurried into the domed building behind the sign.

A few minutes later, she was being hurried out in handcuffs. "What?" she protested, glaring at the two officers escorting her out.

"Miss Camille Iya, you've broken law 113-19 of the Astral Accords. You have the right to counsel and the right to silence. You do not have the right to fight back against your imprisonment in anything other than words."

She sputtered. "I just- I just walked in and asked if there was public transportation! Pray tell, officer, what's wrong with asking a simple question?"

"Nothing. There is, however, an issue with picking a lock to enter a restricted government area."

"There was no one in the lobby. What was I supposed to do?"

The female officer glared at her as if it should've been obvious. What, was it really not other people's first instinct to jimmy a lock to find other people to talk to? Well, she supposed it wasn't her best day, as she genuinely had no idea where the officers had appeared from. Possibly one of the seemingly-empty walls had concealed a door.

Thirty minutes later, Mari was sitting in a jail cell. She stared at the citrine walls and hummed. It was a pity they'd confiscated her items. Otherwise, she could've gotten out of here in no time. And now her kidnapped celebrity was free. He didn't have to bother with calling the cops on her now, huh?

Speaking of her kidnapped celebrity, he was strolling up to her cell with 2 guards, holding a cup of coffee.

Mari raised her eyebrows. "Oh? Come to gloat? Sip some coffee while staring at your poor second cousin twice removed who accidentally broke some obscure law and is now rotting in jail?"

He stopped in front of the cell, just a foot away from the bars. Punchable distance. Mari resisted the impulse. He then took a sip of his coffee, and waited a second. "Save it."

She narrowed her eyes at him. If she could just get a hold of the coffee, she could possibly use it to help her escape... she'd only need a few other materials.

"So, exactly what did you do for the one minute that I looked away?" He took another sip.

"Nothing much. Just walked into the Astral Transport building." But the guards would take away anything she took, wouldn't they? Hm.

"Which one?" He took a sip.

"Does it matter?"

"Yes." He took another sip.

"Okay then. The Astral Transport building ten blocks to the east," she said. She didn't know why it mattered, but if it did, of course she wouldn't say the one she'd actually entered.

"That's not for our category." He took another sip.

"Category?"

"Mhm. There are different categories, and each category has a different transport station. That one was for the highest of status. Or, if you wish the obvious answer, the Churros." He took another sip.

Hm. Well, good to know. "Which transport station is for the peasants?" She eyed his cup. Was it some magical cup of never-ending coffee?

"There isn't one. That's why I told you that you have to wait for me." He took another sip.

She huffed. "Well, looks like I'll be doing nothing but waiting for a while." If he took another sip, she'd-

He took another sip.

Mari gritted her teeth. "Please, leave. Your coffee-sipping is irritating me. Seriously, how long does it take you to drink one singular cup of coffee?"

He stood there for a second. Then took another sip, and waited for a second. "Well, I was here to bail you out, but if you'd like I'll gladly leave you in a dank, miserable cell."

He started to turn to walk away. She stared at him a moment. "You're joking. There's no way you were gonna bail me out."

"Now, why wouldn't I bail out my twice removed second cousin?" He replied loftily.

He was aware that Mari wasn't really his twice removed second cousin, wasn't he? She analyzed his expression. No, he definitely still remembered. So, why? He started walking away, slowly. Very slowly. Mari raised an eyebrow. "Well, far be it from your dear second cousin twice removed to insult you and your coffee drinking habits when you can bail her out of jail. Do me a favor and wipe the last two minutes from your memory." She could question it later. Priorities.

He smacked himself on the forehead, and walked back grinning. "As you wish. Now let's go, shall we?"

"Yes, lettuce."

A guard unlocked her cell, and Mari walked out. She gathered up her items, then looked for Ilias. Ilias was waiting for her at the end of the hall, sipping his coffee. Mari bit back the urge to comment on the coffee again, then joined him. "So, where would you like to go while you finish the rest of your coffee? Note my patience and lack of commentary on your slowness at drinking coffee- wait. Whoops. I did it again. Another memory wipe, please."

"Not this time." He replied, opening the door.

"Alright, alright. Smacking your forehead can't be good for your brain cells anyways." Mari exited the building. "So, why did you really bail me out?"

"Because it's bad for my image. Really, how do you think the public will view the fact that someone I brought to the astral plane got arrested for breaking into the transport building of the Churros, aka, the most important family? People like to make assumptions, therefore assassination attempt will come up. Also did you really have to leave by going out the window rather than taking the door? If people hear about that they'll definitely scream assassin, and that would completely and utterly destroy me." He replied, looking forward.

"Woah woah woah. First off, how did you jump from transport building to assassin? Secondly, I bet the public would react with empathy towards you and hate towards me. You're the one whose face is on coffee containers, after all. They'd go all, 'Oh, poor Ilias Ravioli! He couldn't have known that awful Camille Iya was a lawbreaker. We must protect our precious celebrity!'" Mari made a face. "Yeah, so, that reason doesn't add up." What she didn't say was that another thing didn't add up-- he knew she'd gone through the window. Clearly, Ilias was more than he let on.

"Your theory is even more outlandish. Trust me, they'll just be looking for a way to make me go from famous to infamous." He replied, sounding bitter for once. "Besides, who else is going to break into the astral transport that belongs to the family that basically rules all families that totally isn't heavy duty in protection?"

"I wouldn't call a simple Steel-X lock and a retinal scanner heavy duty, but the point about making celebrities infamous is fair enough. The media does love its crash and burn stories."

They walked along the sidewalk. A few others were walking as well, but Mari noticed that most people out and about were in cars or inside buildings. "Well. I think there's more that you're not saying, but until you stab me in the back, I'll go along with it." She was silent for a moment, then said, "Thanks, by the way. For bailing me out."

He just shrugged. "Like I said, I like not being thrown into a highway full of moving cars by the public."

"Yeah. And I like not having my pride hurt, so I'll refrain from getting into more sticky situations that require you to step in. Probably." They turned a corner. Mari actually had no idea where they were going now. Elias threw his cup away, and continued walking.

Mari kept being aware of her surroundings, familiarizing herself with the layout of the streets. The suit was surprisingly comfortable. Eventually, she asked, "Surely you're not just walking in circles. Would it be too much trouble to share where we're going?"

"It's a surprise." He emphasized the syllables in 'surprise.

"A surprise. Lovely. I hate surprises, unless they're guaranteed to be positive ones, which they usually aren't."

"Oh, this is going to be absolutely terrible. You're going to die." He agreed.

Mari looked at him skeptically. "I'm not a fan of dying." Across the street, someone flicked a sapphire into the air and created a glittering illusion of a flock of birds. A street performer was Mari's first instinct, but then she realized only the ruling families and there chosen guests were here. Showing off or testing a crystal, perhaps? Ilias walked over to a building, and opened the door and held it open for her to walk in.

"Doesn't look particularly deadly so far, unless those chandeliers actually detach from the ceiling and shoot spikes or something." Mari walked in. "Also, next time, don't hold the door. If we're going somewhere unknown, you can go first."

"Well, pretty much anything can happen here." He replied, going to the front desk and signed a few papers. He then returned with two lanyards, and handed one to Mari.

"Fancy." Mari looked at the name on the lanyard after she put it on. Maria. Honestly, as expected. It was a little uncanny how close it was to her actual name, but at least she wouldn't forget to respond to it. "What now?"

"You wanted to see the labs, yes? Well we're going on a tour."

Mari gasped. "No way." She looked around again. The lobby of the building was fairly generic, but when she looked at the people walking back and forth, holding tablets and discussing properties of crystals... Yes, this was one of the research laboratories she'd heard about. She felt like bouncing up to the chandeliers and whooping in excitement, but before she could act on that, she was tempered by suspicion. Why was Ilias doing all this? The little clues were coalescing into a conclusion about his identity that she dreaded, and if it was true, he had no reason to do any of this to appease his "kidnapper." The media reason was partially convincing, but not fully.

She tapped her fingers on her lanyard as she followed Ilias to meet a scientist standing near a door. Assuming she was right... it'd be best to get out of the astral plane as soon as possible. She was out of her element here, while he was in his. Just one tour, she promised herself. Then I leave and get back to my own lab.

"Yes way. I'd like to get you out of my hair." He snorted. Their guide opened another door, and waved them on to follow. Ilias strode on.

Mm. Maybe that was a good reason, actually. If she annoyed him half as much as he annoyed her, getting rid of her would probably be a priority. Mari turned to the guide. "Hi! My name's Camille. It says Maria on the badge because my lovely second cousin twice removed here calls me by my middle name... Anyways, what field of research do you specialize in?"

"Astracrystallography," she replied. Mari perked up and started peppering the scientist with questions on the properties of crystals on the astral plane versus the physical plane. The scientist looked delighted to ramble on about her research, and they became so engrossed in their conversation that the tour didn't start until half an hour later.

The scientist, who Mari had found out was named Dr. Goldencracker, took them to a few labs, where researchers were experimenting on quartz, emerald, diamond, and other crystals, as well as various metals. Mari took note of labs with chemicals she could use.

They were about to go downstairs and grab some food at the cafe on the first floor when a shockwave threw them across the room. The glass of the lab across from them shattered. The sound of destruction crashed against their ears like a boulder. The wires snaking around the floor started to bend as the floor cracked, and as the structure failed, the floor gave way to gravity.



Mari winced and opened her eyes, coughing twice. The wound had probably re-opened. That wasn't great. Neither was the fact that something had just been detonated in a research lab full of experimental substances. As soon as she'd assured herself that nothing was broken (thank Darkness), she looked around for Ilias and Dr. Goldencracker.

Dr. Goldencracker was slumped against the remains of a lab table, likely concussed but alive. Mari held out her right hand. "Come on, doctor. Let's get you to the nearest hospital. Do you think you can walk?"

She nodded feebly, and Mari helped her up. They stumbled down the stairs together, avoiding the rubble strewn across the moonstone steps. On the first floor, some survivors were gathered. Mari guided Dr. Goldencracker to the remains of a couch, then hesitated. Should she look for Ilias? If he was... she forced herself to think it. No point in dancing around unpleasant theories. If he was Skater, he'd be better off dead. But if he wasn't... she'd be dooming an innocent civilian who'd been--well, she didn't think kind was the word, but... willing enough to take her to the astral realm and to this lab--to death. She sighed and trudged up the stairs.

The room was worse than when she'd left. The opposite wall had fully collapsed. Mari waved away some stone dust in the air, then started casing the room from left to right, front to back.

She was about halfway through when she spotted blood near the back of the room. Mari paused. She wasn't bleeding, and Dr. Goldencracker had been a bit banged up, but she hadn't had any serious injuries. So unless there had been another person there... "Ilias?" she called. She started using her right arm to pull away chunks of rubble. There were more streaks of blood on the ruined floor. Suddenly, she came across a body.

Mari was a little proud at herself for not screaming her head off. But really, it was overshadowed by... she couldn't find the word. Some mixture of horror and guilt, she supposed. She examined the face. A streak of blood covered half of the body's face, but the other half had short black hair like Ilias, and, oh, who was she kidding? There had been no one else in the room but the three of them.

The body was pinned down under a chunk of the ceiling. She didn't want to risk moving it, in case there was still a spark of life in him. Mari flew down the stairs and called for help, feeling slightly detached from the scene as some first responders organized their gear and went upstairs. This was unreal. Well, everything about the astral plane had felt unreal. But an explosion? Perhaps even an attack? That was unheard of in the astral plane.

She felt dizzy. She sat down in an out-of-the-way corner.

Unbidden, her mother's voice came to mind. "Mari, you must stay focused. Kill efficiently and painlessly, because that is the greatest mercy one can be afforded. Now, aim for the target again." The target. Right. What was the target...? Dr. Ghee. Dr. Ghee and Skater. Oh look, she could say his name now.

Mari rose as if on autopilot. That had been her real reason for coming to the astral plane. Now, for a quick and painless assassination. There was a lab with chemicals she needed a few floors up. So, she went there. It was straightforward enough: no more distractions.

When Ilias came to, everything hurt. He had no idea how much time had passed, but he felt pressure, and he heard voices. He couldn't remember the last time he was in this much pain. Well, there was the time that he had to endure his limits of pain to gain tolerance. Take it easy, assess the situation.

He was buried in rubble, great. He started to assess himself. He wasn't completely crushed, which means he could maybe get out. He listened to the voices, and none of them was his kidnapper. Which hopefully was good and she wasn't sobbing in a corner quietly. But then again why would she? If she even survived, she'd already be gone. She got what she wanted. Just like having a girlfriend, just they were never in love. So it didn't hurt that bad. He was finally free of her, and he got to keep his celebrity image mostly in one piece. He started to attempt to move, some pieces of rubble moving. That got people's attention. He felt weight being taken off of his body as he dragged himself out of the rubble. He was picked up by two arms.

"Is there a visiting woman still here?" He asked, groaning in pain.

"No, she's gone. We don't remember when she left." Good, good. Now he could get back to his target.

"Hey, you're lucky I saw you when I did. I nearly missed you on your walk." Mario replied cheerfully.

"Really, thanks guys." He grinned, fistbumping another one of his neighbors, Mrs. Macaroni.

"Just paying back for when I got kidnapped. Gotta get back to work clearing this stuff out you know. Have a good day!" Mario walked off to go help continue removing rubble. Ilias smiled and waved. He then remembered and called to Mario.

"Hey where'd you put my clothes?"

"It's in the men's bathroom, 3rd stall." Mario went back to work as Ilias signed cool and went off to change to be a little less noticeable as Ilias Ravioli.....



Ilias decided that it would be too risky if he were to just walk out of the building. So he went up all of the steps to the roof. The crystal surface gleamed dimly under the stars. He wore no shoes, as it was easier to sneak around without shoes. He wore pants with straps going around certain parts of it. They were handy for both keeping his pants from rustling, and storing weapons. His shirt was long sleeved, and the straps also went around his arms and waist. On his forearms he wore thin sheets of silver to deflect things, and very classically he had a jacket with a hood that was designed to be able to hide his face mostly, if he kept it down. It also kept the straps and armor out of sight.

He pulled the hood over his head. He kept the wolf mask off though, he didn't want to be noticed quite yet. Well, not at all really. Above him, a city-- some number of Prehnite, judging by the color-- passed by, washing his surroundings with a mint green light. Without hesitating he jumped off the building.

He landed on the next building over and started running. Jump, keep going, jump, keep going. He got into the rhythm. He started thinking about Maria. He's pretty sure she got suspicious near the end. But she also didn't seem like all she was talking about. One of his neighbors had told him of hearing someone on their roof. So, he must have been followed. Normal people don't play parkour on rooftops. And no, he didn't count as normal. Once where he wanted to be, he swung down to the ground like spiderman, and found himself a cab to get him to his destination.

It only took an hour for Mari to concoct her usual weapons. She missed her bow, but throwable crystal containers (grenades, she supposed) would do in a pinch. It was inconvenient to have to hop between different labs when certain sections of one was wrecked, but it didn't slow her down too much.

She heard voices coming up the corridor, so she ducked into a stairwell and climbed the steps two at a time. She'd wrapped the crystals with cloth so they didn't clink together. She'd also stolen a lab coat for its additional pockets, and now it flared behind her as she flew up the stairs.

The roof had collapsed in some areas, but Mari was able to avoid them. Now then. She still had her gold pieces and diamonds, so she should be able to hail a cab. The only problem was determining Dr. Ghee's location. The person who'd hired her had mentioned that he was famous for being a recluse who spent most of his time in the astral plane. A few days of poring over astral plane texts in the library (the few texts that had been approved by the ruling families, meaning the ones that were sparse in information) had done her no good. She'd had to visit an old friend for more useful information that had revealed a few options.

Diamond-19 orbited this city, albeit at a large distance, Topaz-10 was on the far side of the plane, and Onyx-11 was on the other side of the plane as Topaz-10. Each of them had fewer than ten inhabitants.

Mari ran across a few roofs, analyzing her options. Diamond-19 housed a contact of Dr. Ghee-- Mr. Glee. Her information was a few years outdated, but it couldn't hurt to stop by.



She knocked on the door, and in a few seconds it was opened by a man in his mid-40s. Mari gave him a bright smile. "Mr. Glee?"

He gave her a faint smile. "That's me."

"Hi! I'm Camille Iya. Do you have a few moments to talk?" She stood confidently, as if it was totally normal to show up at a stranger's front door wearing a lab coat.

"Depends on how long your 'few moments' are."

"Ten, fifteen minutes tops," Mari promised.

"Come on in." He opened up his door completely.

Mari nodded in thanks and entered the house. Inside, a few pieces of furniture were arranged around a living room. There was a coffee table made of marble. Mr. Glee invited her to sit down, and Mari took out her notebook and a pen.

"So, getting straight to the point-- you know a Dr. Ghee, correct?"

"Yes, I do." He smiled, with a gaze going off in the distance like he was remembering a great time.

"That's wonderful. Would you happen to know where he is right now? You see, I was interested in his research, and I'd love to speak to him." The thing about lying was that it worked best when you believed what you said. In that moment, Mari forced herself to believe that all she wanted was to talk to Dr. Ghee about his research on the properties of fluids in the astral plane.

"Well we haven't spoken in quite awhile, but I suspect he's still living in the same place. You know when we were around your age, maybe younger, we first travelled to the astral plane, since it was considered a safe place for us to experiment with the crystals. It was so beautiful, before they put all these cities in. Of course it's still beautiful, but it had more of a natural beauty."

Mari listened and nodded along. "Yes, I wish I could have seen it as it was years ago. And pardon me, but where would that same place be?"

"Ah yes, where he lives. The last time I was there he had a grand party. That was a few years ago, but he had just gotten his third child, a son."

Mari tried her hardest to be patient. "That sounds lovely. Where was that party? Which city?"

"You know I saw that city being built. Each and every building I saw start from a foundation and build upwards."

"Yes, and that city is called...?" Mari prompted. She'd come here for one thing: a location. Not a history lesson. Although, she supposed, if Mr. Glee didn't mind exceeding the fifteen minutes, the history lesson was alright too. Anything that could educate her on the astral plane.

"That city's name changed 5 times. If I remember, it was Avolado. No, that's not it. Avolado is the third city that I watched get built."

"Mhm... what's the city's current name?" Mari wrote down "Avolado" in her notebook, just in case.

"Well, one of them was Scaltine, that might have been the second one. The third one was Malcium."

Mari smoothed her face into a slightly-strained smile. "Those are great names. But what I'd like to know is, using the modern-day naming system of crystal dash number, what is the name of the city?"

"Relax, I'm getting to it. The fourth was Grant, and the current one is Garnet-13. They've made such unoriginal names. You can mix up 13 and 12 and miss an appointment."

Finally! Mari jotted down "Garnet-13" and stood up. "Thank you so much for your time, Mr. Glee. I really appreciate it." This time, her smile was genuine. "I'll tell Dr. Ghee you send your regards."

"Thank you, young miss." He smiled.

Mari nodded and left.



The cab ride took two hours, even with the use of citrine to speed the travel. Afterwards, Mari was down to seven gold pieces and a diamond. But if things went well, she wouldn't need to spend any more money here.

Mari found herself on a deep red rock. It was too generous to call it a city, seeing as the only building on it was a slightly scuffed one around halfway between the center and the edge. Shrubbery of silver filigree covered the ground, and there was a dying pomegranite tree sagging under the weight of its stones.

She took out a rainbow mask from her pocket and pulled it to expand it. The material unfolded like an origami flower blooming. Then she put it on, chose a few potions, and crept towards the building.

There were no signs of life. Mari cased the building and pulled herself through a window, landing lightly on the floor. She slipped through the rooms, most of which looked to be unused. The silence was heavy.

Finally, she reached a kitchen-like area, and a study that was adjacent to it. She entered the study and stopped in her tracks.

Dead. Dr. Ghee was already dead.

A few minutes earlier

He couldn't believe it. Dr. Ghee had been dead when he got there. There was no assassin's mark, so he left one. Both to take the credit, and leave a message. To the other assassin, that, essentially, he was declaring war. To the man that hired him, that he knew he'd been betrayed. And to anyone else, that he was upping his game. He went out the window, and climbed up to the roof. He sat there in the middle of the roof, looking over the city. People wouldn't see him so he could quietly sit there enjoying the view while steaming.

There was a soft sliding sound as the hatch to the roof opened again. He got up into a crouch. A head poked through the hatch, spotted him, then froze. That rainbow mask... that was Veilnom for sure. Had she been the one to assassinate Dr. Ghee?

"You. Should've known you'd steal my target." She glared at him. Hm, perhaps not. Or she could have been faking it. Of course, of all people it had to be her. So this was the real reason. Not going to the labs. Good thing he wasn't known for making a lot of quips while killing. He definitely wasn't talking, because then he'd actually have to kill her.

In one fluid motion, Veilnom--or should he say, Maria?-- pulled herself onto the roof. She muttered, "Well, I can get one out of two." Then she tossed an object that glittered blue as it arced toward him. Upon impact, it exploded and released a smoky blue gas. Great. His second explosion of the day. Also, one out of two? Someone sent another assassin to kill him? Might as well have hired him to kill himself. It would save them a lot.

There was another boom. Shards of topaz sliced through the air. He leaped to another roof, glad to have his mask as one shard bounced off of it. He pulled out knives. He debated, while keeping his distance from her. If she didn't kill Ghee, then he didn't have much of a reason to fight her. No money from it. She didn't know his identity, so he wasn't in any particular danger. Well, besides getting killed at the moment.

Speaking of getting killed, a chunk of quartz landed in front of him and hissed as some sort of acid seeped out and started eating through the roof. There was a pitter-patter of footsteps behind him as Veilnom gave chase. He just dropped through the growing hole created by the acid, and then swung out the window landing on the street. He started running as soon as his feet hit the ground.

The streets were deserted. This might have been a city once, but the buildings were crumbling and the metal binding them had started to come loose. He'd need to find transportation to get to another rock. He continued to run, although not on top speed. He'd just wear himself out. So he ran somewhere in between top speed and jogging.

It was quiet for a minute, and then the road erupted. He fell to the ground. Vines of steel shot out from the cracks, reaching for him with blinding speed. He tried to roll to his feet, but the vines partially entangled him before he could. Veilnom dropped to the ground in front of him.

She reached out and flipped up his hood and tore off his mask. She was silent for a moment. Then: "So you survived. I'm sorry, but-- goodbye, Ilias. I'll make it quick, even cleaner than what you did to Dr. Ghee." Maria held up a garnet.

"It wasn't me." He hissed, dazed. He continued speaking quickly, keeping his eyes open so that he could look at death if his plan didn't work. Well, the one he was currently working on. He was about 1% actually planned. "There's someone else in this equation."

She hesitated. It was just enough time for him to loosen the vines. "You mean in the problem of Dr. Ghee's death? But the scratches. Your mark."

"Yeah. A little act of defiance. A message because that's definitely going on the news, and specific people will see it. Aka, the guy who hired me and the other assassin." He continued to loosen the vines a little more.

"That's risky. Every lawkeeper would also see it, and they'd have it out for you even more than they already do, Skater."

"And has law enforcement ever caught me?"

"There's a first time for everything." She turned the garnet over carefully. He was surprised. "To be honest, I did think it was strange. Kill a scientist, and then an assassin?"

"Hey, I've been sent after other assassins before. Well, once."

"Yes, but that wasn't all. The research Dr. Ghee was working on-"

She never finished that sentence, because for the third time that day, the world exploded.

Ilias broke free of the vines, and grabbed Maria's arm as he ran for shelter behind a building. A heat as intense as the engines of an astral plane emanated from drops of liquid that flew through the air. A few of them hit his back, and even through the clothing they felt HOT. He held out his hand. "Mask." She slapped it into his hand, putting away the garnet using her other arm.

He put it on, and then started to climb up the building. He needed a better view. Maria kept pace, hissing as she looked towards the source of the explosion. He crouched on the roof, looking for anything that moved, a knife in his sleeve. As for why he wanted his mask back, well, let's say the other person had a camera, and put his picture up. Then he'd definitely have a hard time staying hidden. Also, it was made to deflect blows, and flying projectiles. It was great for very close combat, as the bottom jaw was able to move, and either be set in a position or taken off. The teeth were sharp, and able to pierce flesh. That was his second favorite part.

Maria's mask looked flimsier, but it was probably very practical, at least in terms of resisting poisonous gases. Next to him, she was frowning down at the explosion. The road was ruined now, with shards of crystal sticking out in every direction and jagged lines of metal piercing the air.

"Great. If we ever want to die we can just come here and jump off a roof!" He muttered.

Maria gave a short chuckle, then shook her head. "We were targeted just now by someone with access to explosives of a kind I'm unfamiliar with. Clearly, a dangerous kind. I don't think we'll need to jump off a roof to make ourselves dead."

"Clearly, a dangerous kind." He mimicked.

She glared at him. "Are you ever serious? Someone just tried to kill us. I know it's a weekly occurrence for an assassin like you, but dying isn't something to be taken lightly."

"Well, no, I'm never serious. I'm just less serious when someone is trying to kill me."

"That makes absolute and total sense." She rolled her eyes. "Not. Anyways, Mr. I-try-and-fail-to-be-funny-when-in-a-life-threatening-scenario, the other assassin--oh gosh, there's three of us now, aren't there--will probably come after us to finish the job. So, where do we make our stand?"

He turned to look at her, gaping under his mask. Not that is was noticable. "Nooo! There's only two of us and a figment of our imagination! Of course there's three of us!"

"Great, you can count. And you can avoid questions. So, I'll give my suggestion. We're both not in top condition from the explosion, so our best bet is to stay here and prepare for the other assassin. I can rig up some traps around the perimeter. You can find the hatch into the building in case they come up through there."

"That's the stupidest way to get to us. Of course, they'd be able to get close, but assassins are more likely to be on a neighboring rooftop. It's a waste of a trap, trust me."

She stopped fiddling with a crystal. "Right. I..." She sat down. "It hasn't been a great twenty four hours." She muttered to herself, "Ugh. Focus, Veilnom."

Ilias started laughing. She shot him a dirty look, then walked to the hatch. "If these buildings store any kind of acid, I could rig up a fancy long-range explosive as well. The ones I used on you were my best ones."

Ilias was trying to smother his laughter. "You? Having a bad twenty four hours? You've destroyed my living room, kidnapped me, I've been drugged twice (one of those was my own fault though), you puked on me, I had an entire floor dropped on me, then you used your explosives and metal vine things. Don't tell me how you're having a bad twe-"

Maria toppled sideways and sprawled onto the roof. Well, that was unexpected. Surely it wasn't the guilt at her atrocious deeds just now hitting her. No, no, there was blood. Fresh blood. Judging by the angle, the other assassin must be...

A dark shape darted across the roof of a neighboring building. He pulled out a bandage and wrapped it on her wound. It was one of the ones that would aid in the healing process, mainly to stop the bleeding. He decided that instead of leaving her out to possibly be a freebee target, he'd put her inside. He also snatched a garnet from her, the one she nearly killed him with. He'd still have to talk about that later. Then he went off assassin hunting.

She did a rather good job with wrapping it, and she used brass. Brass was alright, it was a combination of metals though. Besides the kind but he had another trick. So, he took off the metal, and using his own supply of silver, he started wrapping it. He'd been taught to do it so many times he could probably do this with his feet. He'd probably have hell to pay when she woke up, and money won't cut it. So while his hands were busy with that, he surveyed all he could see. The other assassin was on that building headed that way so... the best place to jump would be there, but it was too obvious. So he settled for the next best and jumped, momentarily pausing his work on the garnet.

There, someone moving. He crouched low, staying as still as possible. The person darted from shadow to shadow, slowly getting closer. Ilias moved to a shadow, and also started hopping. This was how they'd play? Fine. The game was on.

A shot. The crystal bullet whizzed through the air next to his head, missing by a good few inches. The figure darted closer. No more explosives? Maybe he'd only had one. No, don't think that. That was for careless people. Being careless would get him killed. He pulled out two small crystal disks of a sort, which was also wrapped in wire. He threw them, one directly at him, the second slightly to the left, which the assassin had yet to travel towards. If he were to go the other way he'd lose progress.

The assassin dropped to the ground and rolled to the right. The disks burst in mid-air, dark blue triangles expanding rapidly through the air in a geometric pattern. The assassin was barely caught in the blast. Immediately, his motions slowed to half their speed. The assassin had fired a bullet before he dropped, but it wobbled slightly as it crept through the time-warped area. It gave Ilias time to advance, and dodge a bullet. He hopped over to another roof. The assassin fell out of the time warp a few seconds later as it disappeared. Maybe he would start making quips while assassinating people.

"Too slow, eh?" He yelled, taking cover from another bullet. How long would it take for him to seriously make this guy mad enough to be irrational?

"You're clearly not an experienced assassin, or, if you're Death's Head, a freelance peacekeeping agent. If you were, you wouldn't be so brutal you personification of a wart." He hopped to another building.

"The saddest part of your predicament? You're alone. No help." Well, Ilias was also pretty lonely. He would most likely part ways with Maria, if not go back to complete and utter war.

The bullets came faster. Good. Let him get reckless. He almost didn't notice when one struck him. He felt sticky wetness spread from a spot in his thigh. Good thing was, it passed right through without hitting any arteries. Bad thing was, he'd put all his weight on one leg if he jumped. But at the moment, too much adrenaline ran through him and he couldn't feel the pain. More bullets whized by, and Ilias thought of something to try. And so, he collapsed.

The bullets gradually tapered off. A minute passed. Then, silently, the assassin approached. When he was a couple of feet away, he pointed the gun at Ilias. Before he could pull the trigger Ilias launched up and forward, the bottom jaw of his mask partially opened. He'd probably get shot in the process. But the teeth in the bottom jaw connected with the assassin, and he attached the garnet to the other assassin. Then ran the best he could to the edge of the roof-

The concussive blast still reached him, propelling him over the edge. He fell down and hit ground. For a moment, the sky lit up in a lurid crimson red, with golden sparks flickering in the air, burning the eye. Heat waves rolled over the buildings. It sounded like a summer thunderstorm. There was no way the assassin had survived that. Ilias just laid there for a little bit, breathing hard.

But he had to get up. He didn't know how Maria was at the moment, hopefully, not dead. That would be a pitiful way to die. He walked somewhat normally back, and this time went inside the building and took the stairs. He looked where he had left Maria. She was fine. He picked her up like a sack of potatoes and started walking.

Then a searing pain shot through his back, and there was the echo of a gun being fired. It felt like someone had managed to very specifically hit him in one spot with a baseball bat. Like his ribs had been broken in that area. He turned around to look in the direction of where the pain had came from, nearly dropping Maria, who had started to stir when he picked her up.

A figure in a bowler hat walked towards him, gun still raised. But before he could fire it again, the figure was embroiled in an explosion of fireworks of deep garnet red and gold. For the second time, Ilias was pushed off a roof by a blast. The heat singed his hair.

The air slowly cooled down. On the ground behind him, Maria huffed in satisfaction. Then she said, "Hey again, rock-head. What happened? You're clearly in worse shape than I am now."

Ilias just nodded from where he laid, huffing. He stared at the sky, the pain in his back was in a slow crescendo. The cooler ground did feel nice against it. "Yeah. I know."

They were quiet for a few minutes. Then Maria said, "We're both bleeding out. Come on. I'll get us to the hospital."

He groaned. "Just, go."

"I'm going to take that as an insult to my strength and willpower and laugh in your face." She slowly got up, then eased Ilias up and started wrapping a length of bandage around his torso. He allowed it, not caring enough at the moment to be embarrassed. The blood loss was messing with his mind.

"We probably shouldn't show up in a hospitial wearing this clothing." He said between breaths.

"Yeah, we'll have to ditch the weapons. I'll hide them here." Maria finished with the bandage. "Where do you keep your blades?"

"Legs, arms, waist."

"How do you move without sounding like a walking piggy bank?" She shook her head, then collected the weapons. She bundled them up using another bandage to tie them together.

"Strap keeps them in places away from each other."

"Okay, okay, that was a rhetorical question. Don't talk more than you need to. I'll be back."

"Where?" Fine with him. Hope she understands millions of questions into a single word.

"Pomegranite tree. Its branches bend over enough to provide some cover, and it's dropped some fruit I can bury the weapons under."

He took off his mask and held it out to her. Maria nodded grimly, removed her own mask and added it to the load, then took it and left.

It was silent for a while. Just Ilias and the ramshackle buildings and the stars. He carefully started removing the straps that wrapped around his body. The best part was that he would be able to blend in just like that. Besides the fact he looked like he had gone through all 7 rings of hell.

Finally, she returned. "Alright, I'm going to raise you up now. Try not to die. Our story will be we came here to do some research--my lab coat will support that--and some chemicals exploded. We know nothing about the murder of Dr. Ghee."

"Yes, that would definitely explain why I have a bullet in my back and am getting close to cuddling with death himself."

"Revision: We came to talk to Dr. Ghee about his research. Dr. Ghee's murderer chased after us because we were witnesses. 'Kay?"

"I'm not a scientist. Just consider me your curious cousin who helped you, and was curious." He grunted, lifting himself up. Probably not a good idea.

Maria glared at him and reached over to take some of his weight. "That works. Now, no more talking. Save your energy for, y'know, not dying."

"Well at the current moment, I'm dying. Talking helps me forget that fact."

Maria stumbled forwards, half-lifting Ilias, half-dragging him. "Figures. You won't shut up even when you're literally almost about to divorce with life." She walked around the place where the assassin had thrown the new explosive.

"Good one. Also stop walking weirdly, I can't walk properly."

"Define weirdly," she retorted. "Considering both of us are barely on speaking terms with life right now, I think I'm walking fine." They were almost to the outskirts of the city.

"You're mostly dragging me. Do note I'm larger than you. Just stop for a second so we can make this easier."

She huffed in annoyance, but stopped. "You know what would make this easier? You being less irritating. Oh, wait, I forgot that's an impossible task for you."

"Like I said, helps me forget the fact I'm dying. How about this: you don't drag me and I use the walls for support?" Well, that wasn't the entire point. People saw assassins, and thought they didn't fear, because they were death. Well they're wrong. Ilias was afraid. And being irritating made people focus on that rather than the fear.

"Sir, what walls?" She pointed her chin to the area a few paces front of them, where there were large gaps between the buildings as they approached the edge. There was a place to hail a cab about five minutes of hobbling away.

"Well, I should make it to the point where we can get a cab." He shrugged, then winced slightly. He really hoped that wasn't noticeable.

"Fine. The walls have ears, so they're probably better at listening to your yapping than I am." Maria brought them closer to the sides of the buildings.

"That's a great idea. Maybe I'll find a place with 3 walls and some bars and then I can say I'm surrounded by walls, don't tell me there ain't no walls."

"Oh no, you're becoming delirious. Well, more than usual." Maria increased the pace slightly.

"Probably."

Finally, thank Darkness, they reached the cab hailing area. It took an agonizingly long time for a cab to arrive, Garnet-13 being fairly isolated and all.

When one came, Maria handed over a diamond and said, "The nearest hospital, please. There... there was a murder. Dr. Ghee is dead. We were chased." She looked about to break down in tears. Fitting for the role of a near murder victim. The cab driver looked horrified and stepped on the acceleration pedal.

Ilias tried thinking. Thinking of some good times he had. It felt weird. He felt like his head was a balloon, and he couldn't feel the rest of his body. Darkness engulfed him.

The lights were bright. Mari's eyes weren't accustomed to it. Neither was she accustomed to being attended by doctors using crystals. Apparently this was what it was like to be one of the rich and privileged.

A doctor leaned over her, filtering light through an emerald wrapped with gold to analyze her wound. "It's healing nicely," he said. "A couple more days and you should be good to go."

Mari nodded thankfully and closed her eyes again.

When they had arrived, she was separated from Ilias who passed out once they were in the cab. When she could leave her bed she'd have to go and look for him... She slipped into sleep.



The next time she woke up, the light didn't hurt as much. She waited for a nurse to come by, then asked, "Excuse me? Could you please let me know how my second cousin Ilias Ravioli is doing?"

"He's currently recovering from surgery." She smiled. "Your cousin is very lucky to be alive."

She breathed a little easier. "Thank you." Then she fell back into unconsciousness.



Finally, they let her move around the hospital. Mari missed her chemicals and the one garnet that was left (she'd have to ask what happened to the other one later), but she was counting being alive as a win, honestly. It hurt a little if she moved too quickly, so she suspected she wouldn't be jumping off rooftops anytime soon, but otherwise she was fine.

Mari poked her head into Ilias's room. A nurse greeted her, and she smiled. "Can I come in?"

"Come on in cuz." Ilias called from were he laid, sounding like one would expect when they'd lost a lot of blood. He wore no makeup, meaning his scars were for all to see.

Mari rolled her eyes, then walked in and took a seat by the bed. "Hey there, cuz. Glad you're alive. Probably." The nurse nodded at Mari, then left the room.

He softly laughed. "Quite literally by an inch, yes, I'm alive. Don't make me laugh, it kinda hurts."

"Oh. I shall refrain from making funny faces, then." She stared at him with an extremely neutral expression.

He just smiled. "That's still a funny face."

She threw her hands up. "Shouldn't have even bothered trying. Hey, well, is talking okay? Does it still work as a distraction?"

"Well, currently I'm not dying. But yes, it's a great distraction from being confined to a bed."

"Good. Now, you have a few options: one, tell me about all your greatest mishaps, two, we debate on whether hot dogs are tacos, or three, I ramble about acid-base reactions and covalent and ionic bonds. I've been told the third option is helpful for putting non-scientists to sleep." Why was she humoring him? Mari wasn't entirely sure, but it was likely a combination of guilt for kidnapping him and attempting to murder him when he'd done nothing but bail her out of jail and pretty much save her life and plain old boredom.

"Yeah, I've slept a lot in the past few days. I'm good. Also, for option one that would need to go both ways and hot dogs definitely are squaricanized tacos."

"Depending on how well you tell your stories, I mayy be convinced to share mine. Also, wrong. You're wrong. Hot dogs would be an embarrassment to tacos, honestly. It's unfair to tacos to lump them in the same category."

"Hey! All it is is essentially meat, with veggies, beans if you're having it with chilli beans, and cheese."

"Hot dogs have sausage. Tacos have much more variety, and can have cheese, lettuce, tomato, carne asada, avocado, guacamole, lemon, cilantro... I could go on. Tacos are clearly the superior food here."

"Yeah, hot dogs are literally just squaricanized tacos. They have the same gist. Why not just call them squarican tacos?"

"Because that's misleading. Attaching the word 'tacos' would give people the expectation of flavorful rhombican delight. And then they'd bite into a dry bun and a greasy sausage that ketchup, mustard, and relish can't cover the taste of and it's just an utter disappointment."

"Hot dogs are one of squarica's wonders! You're probably thinking of the poorly cooked ones from vendors and schools."

"Oh, excuse me for never having tried a gourmet hot dog with whatever atrocities the ruling family puts on top." She rolled her eyes. "Such as whipped cream. I bet someone somewhere in the ruling families has put whipped cream on a hot dog before."

He wrinkled his nose. "Now that is atrocious. No, one day I'm having you come over when I'm having a barbeque and you're having a real hot dog. Assuming you're up for that."

"Huh. Well, it's not so much the hot dog as the rest of the family that's a concern..." What was she doing? This ruse would be over soon. She shouldn't still be talking to him, much less talking about future barbeques.

"My family tree is not a tree. It's a shrub, a burning one. You'd still be welcomed, family or not."

She raised an eyebrow. "Really. I'm just a second cousin, you know. And maybe I'd prefer to stay away from the flames." She wasn't even a second cousin. They were practically strangers. Alright. As soon as he got better, she'd be leaving. Mari had a mess to clean up, after all... they'd pretty much killed their employer. He did try to kill them first, but still. It wasn't a good look for an assassin to turn on the person who hired them.

"I didn't say you had to come. I just gave you the option." He closed his eyes, tapping his fingers on the bed..

"Sure, sure. You want to sleep now?"

"No. I'd rather be up and running."

"Okay, 'want' was the wrong word. You should get rest now."

"I can't." He opened his eyes again.

"Well, it's not like I can forcibly put you to sleep. So. Ionic bonds happen when there is a transfer of electrons. For example, potassium tends to give away an electron-"

"Why didn't you kill me?" He asked rather suddenly.

She blinked. "Well, why didn't you kill me? I did kidnap you, after all."

"Because I wasn't getting paid to do so. But you had me right there, on the ground. You could have just taken the information and killed me. You weren't able to take out one target, why leave your other one alive?"

"If you'll remember, I was going to kill you, but running from a large explosion makes it rather hard to do that. And then I killed our employer, so it's all moot anyways."

"You stopped when I told you. You hesitated, and talked to me. And you could have killed me after killing our employer."

She frowned. "Well, without someone to pay me, killing you would've been unnecessary. But... you're right, I suppose, in that I hesitated that first time." Mari thought for a moment. "There were multiple factors. Curiosity and likely-misplaced gratitude were two. Curiosity because hiring an assassin to kill another assassin is only done when that assassin is out to get you, or if they know something they're not supposed to. So, I was wondering, what do you know about our late employer?"

He was silent for a second. "His plans. Not the part of there being other assassins mind you. But Dr. Ghee's research."

"Ah, his research on fluids in the astral plane."

"Yeah. He and a few others were going to take it after Ghee was dead. Cause some big time damage to the government. Of course, after the assignment, once I wasn't in his employ I'd consider it worth it to take him out. I don't know how he knew that I knew though."

"As I said, the walls have ears. Probably these do as well, actually." Mari glanced around the small hospital room.

"I am the ears in the walls. Relax, I checked for bugs and whatnot."

"You are the ears. Great. That didn't sound weird at all." She chuckled.

"You know what I mean, it gets the point across."

"Whatever you say, Ears."

"Hey! That reminds me, you never told me your actual name."

"My actual name? Camryn, duh." Mari smirked.

He put a hand on his face and groaned.

"Or Sasha, maybe. Ooh, no, Annazelle sounds better."

"Couldn't you just say you didn't want to tell me?" He replied, staring at the ceiling and dramatically waved his hand around.

"No, no, that wouldn't be as fun. One of these days I'll slip my actual name in and you won't be able to tell if it's real or not because you'll be way too suspicious."

"No, I'll know. I just will. There's a difference between a real and a fake name."

"Well, what about a nickname? Is that a real or a fake name?"

He stared at her. Well, with a few blinks. "What I've been calling you is close to your actual name, isn't it."

"Is it?" She stared back, with her aggressively neutral face on again. No blinking from her side.

"It is. Your expression says it all."

She pulled a face, crossing her eyes and sticking her tongue out of one side of her mouth. "An thi? Wha doh thi thay?"

"That you're clearly trying to cause me pain." He smiled, unable to stop himself.

"Weh, I thin-" Mari relaxed her face and started again. "Well, I think laughter is supposed to be good for you. Unless you're recovering after surgery, of course. But then you can just laugh mentally." Laughter was one of Mari's best tools, honestly, even more than her chemicals. Funny how a joke could immediately make someone warm up to you and provide crucial information.

"I'll try laughing emotionally. My head hurts and my emotions aren't destroyed yet."

"Great. That works too." Mari glanced at the clock on the wall. "I know time works differently here in the astral plane, but I mean it, you should rest. Once you get better you can actually laugh. Also investigate the fluid bombs, if you wish. I know I'll be going back to Garnet-13 once I can leave and getting a sample to run through the lab."

"Well you're up and walking, you could probably leave right now if you wished."

"Up and walking is different from up and able to fight. I'm planning to stay until it doesn't hurt too badly to climb buildings. Right now I don't think I could even climb over a table."

"There's such a thing called stairs."

"Thanks for pointing out the obvious. Too bad assassins won't wait patiently on the roof while you climb up twenty flights of stairs to catch up to them."

"I doubt you'll have any more assassins going after you. Unless our employer's friends decided otherwise. Even then, a hospital isn't safe. Even if there's taboo. With what I know that was shared with you, they'd ignore it."

"Hey, I bet some of these nurses can throw a mean punch." She shrugged.

"With the patients they deal with? Probably. Probably have sedatives in their pockets. Still, don't underestimate anyone. Or overestimate."

"I'll just estimate, then." Mari sat there for a second. "You're not going to sleep, huh."

"Like I said, too much energy." He shook his head.

She got a mischievous glint in her eye. "Okay then, care to use that energy to put on the show of, 'Ilias Ravioli's top ten mishaps and/or embarrassing moments and/or failures'?"

"How about I use my energy in a different way that doesn't involve being utterly embarrassed because I told someone who won't even tell me her real name about these incidents. I will tell you, this right here, being shot in the back is definitely on my list of failures. The only thing good is that I can tell people that I got shot and the bullet stopped an inch away from my heart and some person decided it was worth the trouble to keep me alive. And I can't tell whether that was stupid or not."

"Ear? More like Mouth, because that was a whole waterfall of words. Anyways, I think that decision was the opposite of stupid. We assassins snuff out enough lives. When it's not to make a living, I think it's more worthwhile to save them. Unless, of course, said life tries to snuff out your life, and... Yeah. Well. I meant to say, Lavinia here is open to any other ideas you might have for burning off your energy."

"Lavinia."

"Yes. Lavinia Soledad, if you want to go with the full name." Mari's poker face made another cameo.

"That sounds like Lavatory Shoe Dad."

"You botched it on purpose. This is an insult to people named Lavinia everywhere."

"Well, it doesn't insult them if they haven't heard it."

"I've heard it, Eel Eyes."

"Well you aren't a Lavatory."

"What an astute observation! No, I'm a human."

"In name as well, Maria." He was still tapping his fingers.

She watched the pattern of his tapping. Morse code? Or just a way to release energy, like she did sometimes? "Yes, my name is not Lavatory. Lavatory diverges from Lavinia after the letters 'Lav'. If you must know, Maria is close to a nickname of mine."

"Mmm. What letter do I have to remove?"

"Well, do you think 'Mria' would make sense?"

"No, but what if I removed the other letter? Mari?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Bingo."

He raised an eyebrow. "Actually?"

"Noshtril, it's actually Mria- Yes, it's Mari." She counted the taps of his fingers. He seemed to be unaware that he was tapping them.

short long short short. long long long. short short short long. short.

love, she deciphered.

long short long long. long long long. short short long.

you

short short.

i

short long short short. long long long. short short short long. short.

It just repeated. Mari figured out the order of the words in her head. "I love you?"

He froze, and clenched his fist. Red went to his face, except for the scars which were more noticable.

It seemed to be an unconscious habit. "Sorry. Sensitive topic?" She glanced away. "You don't have to answer that." Well, she was a little curious. And tempted to make fun of the way he'd turned the exact color of a maraschino cherry. But she could read a room.

He didn't answer her.

"Soooooo I'm going to even things out from my brief jaunt in jail and wipe my own memory of the last minute." She slapped her forehead. "All gone. Now, what's your favorite element of the periodic table?" Mari couldn't help it. She defaulted to chemistry. Chemistry was a safe topic.

"Ay you guys!" Ilias said in the low dumb tone of the goonie.

"Gold guys? Last I checked, 'guys' wasn't an element."

"Kidding. Gold's too rich. Blends with my skin. Silver's my favorite if you haven't noticed."

"Ah, the wolf mask. Of course. And of course you'd still choose a precious metal."

He just shrugged. "It doesn't matter to me. Yours?"

"Ooooh boy. I'd have to go with hydrogen. Lots of acids release hydrogen ions when dissolved in water. But oxygen and the noble gases are also neat. And carbon is great-- we are carbon-based life forms, after all, and diamonds are made of carbon. Oh! Speaking of gems, would you happen to know what happened to my third garnet? I used one and hid the other, but I'm missing one."

"How about I just tell you when I fell off of the roof after getting shot in the back, that was my second time falling from a roof. And the other assassin is crispy last I saw him."

"Crispy." Mari gave Ilias a look. "My mother gave me those three garnets to be used in emergencies. It took her weeks to get the wiring right to create such a powerful explosion."

"Admittedly, she did good." He wilted slightly, looking guilty. "That would have been strong. Admittedly, I took that wiring off and redid it with silver rather than brass."

Mari couldn't help but feel like it was a waste of a garnet, but she'd be a hypocrite if she said anything. She hadn't used it to its full potential either when she'd tossed it at their employer. "...Fine. Evidently, it worked, and we're both not dead."

The door bust open. "Mwahahaha, but you'll be dead soon!" A nurse held up a syringe as she- no he--ran into the room. It was a dude with a full on wig and makeup.

Ilias just groaned, and muttered a curse under his breath.

Mari looked at the newcomer, unamused. "And who might you be?"

"Midnightravenguard the Glorious, aka your doom." He struck a pose, lifting a leg and stretching out his arms and contorting his face into an expression that was probably supposed to be threatening. It was decidedly not. Especially not with the smudged lipstick.

"If you were James Bond, you'd keep us here all night with that name." Ilias mocked. "And at the moment you look anything but glorious. You know what, you kind of look like my horse when a child gave it lipstick."

Midnightravenguard--Mari decided to just call him Mid--dropped the pose and glared at Ilias. "You die first."

"Yes, I at the moment can not do anything." Ilias stretched his arms out, hands splayed open to show he had no weapon. "So, do it. Kill an unarmed and severely wounded human."

"You're taking all the honor of it." Mid frowned.

"Who hired you?" No offense--actually, yes offense, he was a joke. Ilias still laid there, just taunting the guy to stab him with that syringe. His expression was stone cold, but you could see in his eyes he was laughing hysterically. Laughing emotionally. Mari was proud. One of his fingers started twitching.

"It would be against my code of honor to disclose that information, as..." Mari tuned out Mid and watched Ilias's tapping instead.

Fork. Under. Pillow. Rid. Annoyance.

Mari made brief eye contact with Ilias, just long enough to confirm that the message had been received. Then, in the space of a second, she reached under the pillow, whipped out the fork, and threw it at the syringe. It flew out of Mid's hand and bounced off the wall behind him. He blinked.

Mari retrieved another fork from under the pillow. "Next target is your eyes," she declared. "If you value your life or your eyesight, you'll run."

Mid gulped, turned around, and ran. As he left, he called, "You'll regret threatening the Glorious Midnightravenguard the Glorious!"

Inside the room, someone coughed. Mari whirled around. A lady in a neatly pressed suit was leaning against the wall next to the window. "Sorry about that," she said. "But Midnight is an effective distraction and attention-grabber, even if his character is... questionable. Now, we have about five minutes to get you out of here while everyone else is focused on him."

"Hold up. Stop. Rewind. How do we know that's not a trap or something? And does it look particularly like I can move quickly?"

The lady uncrossed her arms and held out a badge. "Agent Emily Potash. I work in a classified division of the government."

"Yes, that doesn't particularly answer my questions. More the second than the first."

"Who said anything about moving quickly?" She tossed a set of clothes to Ilias and another to Mari. "We're going to stroll right out of here."

"That works. Mind giving some privacy?" Ilias asked as he inspected the clothing. More than likely looking for bugs.

The agent nodded and took out a chip of mica wrapped with platinum from her pocket. She tossed it into the air, and it expanded into a folding screen about a foot taller than Ilias, blocking off his side of the room but also preventing access to the door. Then she did the same for Mari. "You get one and half minutes," Agent Potash said.

Mari shook out the clothing. A shirt with an elastic band around the bottom--likely so it wouldn't float up in the astral plane's strange gravity--and trousers. She felt along the linings. Nothing that would indicate bugs, but who knew how much government tech had advanced? Well, it was still better than a hospital gown, and she could find other clothes later. Mari was dressed in forty six seconds.

When the folding screen went down, Ilias barely got his shirt fully on. Which allowed a glimpse of the many scars on his lower back. A fight with a tough target? Or... something more purposeful? Mari frowned, but before she could ask, Agent Potash clapped her hands. "Let's get a move on."

The corridors were quiet. In the distance, there was the sound of raised voices, with Mid's prominent among them. Agent Potash directed Mari and Ilias to the elevators.

Ilias was quiet, jaw clenched. It was hard to tell whether it was pain, distrust, or both. He walked with a limp and his eyes were a darker grey, like oxidizing silver. So probably both.

Mari shot him a glance. If they weren't careful, his recovery could be delayed. Inside the elevator, Agent Potash pressed the button for the first floor and stood there with her eyes leveled carefully at a spot directly in front of her. Ilias looked at Mari. Mari lifted an eyebrow. She gestured at his wound. "How are you doing?"

"Fine." He feigned, looking forward again.

In Mari's experience, "Fine" rarely meant fine. It meant he was hiding his pain so people around him wouldn't worry. It also meant he didn't particularly want to be questioned about it. Yes, she was speaking from personal experience.

The elevator dinged. Agent Potash stepped out, waited until the receptionist was distracted by talking on the phone, then walked confidently out of the hospital, with Mari and Ilias following. There was an onyx-black car parked outside.

"How are you doing?" Ilias looked back at her.

Mari considered the question. On the whole, she wasn't doing bad. The wound hurt occasionally, but she could move, and she wasn't in danger of losing her life at the moment, at least, she thought. She was rather suspicious of Agent Potash, and eager to retrieve their weapons, and curious about Dr. Ghee's research... "Fine," she said simply. After all, it could also mean one was thinking too many things that would be out of scope as an answer.

Agent Potash opened the doors for them, and Ilias motioned for Mari to get in first. "Ah yes, ladies first, right into a potential kidnapper's car," she said. But if it were someone associated with their employer, they would be dead by now. She wasn't entirely convinced Agent Potash was really a government agent (badges could be faked, after all), but Mari was convinced that she knew more than Mari currently did. And her philosophy was that more information was always a worthy pursuit. She got into the car.

"I just feel like it would be much harder for me to slide in than it is for you." Ilias got into car after her.

"Fair enough." Mari watched Agent Potash's face through the front mirror. Her dark eyes were focused, and her black hair was tamed into a bun with near-surgical precision. "So, Agent Potash, where are we going?"

"We have a facility on Quartz-2. Our trained medics will take care of the rest of your recovery, and you'll be further briefed upon arrival."

"Exactly what do you mean by 'taking care of the rest of our recovery'? What does that entail?" Ilias asked.

"Rest, nutrition and hydration, etcetera. Possibly an experimental treatment." Agent Potash left the city and directed the car through the space between floating cities.

"Experimental treatment?" He looked appalled.

"Nothing much, just some edible crystals. Our doctors will explain more."

"The words 'nothing much' and 'crystals' do not go together in a sentence."

"As I said, our team will brief you." Agent Potash refused to say more.

"Yeah, alright. But why us? Why particularly now? So you can use experimental treatment that could possibly make us explode?" Mari sat back and let Ilias interrogate the agent. They were good questions, she had to admit.

"No one said anything about explosions. There is a 99.999% chance that there will be no explosions."

"So there's a 0.001 chance that we'd explode. That's reassuring. How about the other unpleasant ways to die?"

"Information overload from asking too many questions. Fries your brain."

"Also, did you ditch the weird guy?" Ilias asked, looking out the back window.

Through the mirror, Mari could see that Agent Potash's hands clenched on the wheel, as if she wanted to strangle it. "Yes. Unfortunately, he'll catch up later."

"I can't blame you. Although I did find him amusing. Would he really consider killing me?"

"Pfft. That guy? No. I wish. Then he'd get fired, and not even nepotism could save him." Agent Potash rolled her eyes. Apparently Mid was annoying enough to crack her cold, information-on-a-need-to-know-basis facade. Good progress, yes?

"How'd you get stuck with him?" Mari asked. "Some kind of punishment?"

Agent Potash suppressed a groan. "Suffice it to say I had... a disagreement with the higher ups, and now I'm forced to babysit him for the next few months. Which, as you can see, is no easy task."

"That sucks," Mari sympathized. They passed by an emerald city. Up ahead, a large city of quartz was orbited by smaller cities of rose quartz and smoky quartz. Agent Potash directed them towards the rose quartz. A lot of the buildings were pyramid shaped.

Soon enough, Agent Potash was landing the car outside one polished pyramid. Somewhat unnecessarily, she announced, "We're here."

"Really? I thought we were stopping to get some gas in the tank and snacks, maybe stopping at the astralport to send me back home." Ilias replied sarcastically.

"Maybe getting a quick taco," Mari chimed in. "Saying hi to a few of your friends."

"Having a barbeque in my back yard so you can actually have a proper hot dog."

"Going to a fast food restaurant so you can experience the atrocities of cheap hot dogs."

"My dear cousin, if it's bad, I don't think I'd like to try it."

"That's the point."

Agent Potash looked like she was barely refraining from rolling her eyes. "Great, you two are chatty. Let's go have you be chatty in the interrogation room, eh? Don't worry, it has snacks. And comfy chairs."

"Those chairs don't happen to be electric chairs, right?"

"Of course not. Who do you think we are? Wait, no, don't answer that." Agent Potash pinched the bridge of her nose. She muttered, "Midnight or these two, which is worse."

"You sure you don't want me to answer that? Either of those questions." Ilias leaned forward from where he sat.

Agent Potash sighed, then got out of the car and opened the door to the backseat. "Come on, before you talk yourselves to death."

"Would that be suicide or murder?" Ilias got out of the car.

"Accidental suicide, I think," Mari said. "Or suicirder. Murdicide? But then you're killing murder, or murdi, so that doesn't make sense."

"And to answer that second question of yours, we're worse. Much worse." Ilias smiled at Agent Potash.

Agent Potash rubbed her eyes. "This is going to be a long day." She was right.

"Lead the way our illustrious tour guide. I love seeing the inside of a classified government building." Ilias said.

She seethed, then snapped, "This way," and led them into the pyramid.

Ilias loved getting on the agent's nerves. At the current moment, they were being led to an interrogation chamber. He could practically see the smoke coming out of her ears. It turns out, it was also great for forgetting pain. He did hope the agent would be around more, as he'd need that later.

It was great that Mari knew morse code. It was also kind of embarrassing. Especially the first time she decoded it. It was even worse because he was sure his face was completely red. But if he needed to get a message across silently, at least he had a way that for sure could be understood.

Speaking of morse code, he saw that Mari was tapping her fingers against the side of her trousers. Once she noticed that she'd gotten his attention, she restarted the message.

short long long. short short short short. short long. long. pause. short short long. pause. long. short short short short. short short. long short. long short long.

What u think? He translated.

short short short. long. short long. long short long long. pause. long long long. short long short. pause. short long short. short short long. long short.

Stay or run? That was a good question.

I think I found a way to forget that I hurt. He responded. For now, stay.

Mari raised an eyebrow at him, but nodded.

Agent Potash stopped by an arched doorway. "Here. No electric chairs, see?" The room was furnished comfortably, with four armchairs around a low onyx table. There was a bowl of fruit on that table, and paintings of crystals hung on the opaque walls.

Ilias prodded at the chairs. "What, no massage?"

"I said they were comfortable, not that they were luxury massage chairs." Agent Potash remained standing.

"Well then. Not that comfortable. You've got a small table anyways so I'll settle with sitting on the ground with the cushion." He snatched the cushion off the chair, dropped it on the floor and sat on it.

"Because clearly the ground is more comfortable than a chair." Mari snorted in amusement. She perched on one of the arms of an armchair.

"You try being over 6 ft tall at a small table."

"Hey, don't let your actions be dictated by a mere table. It doesn't have to have power over you."

"I'm quite sure they won't appreciate me breaking their table."

"In case you weren't aware, sitting next to a table does not mean stomping on it and breaking it."

"Well, I wouldn't stomp on it. One leg can't move like that, and it also can't support my entire body weight." He turned to look at the Agent. This conversation needed to change to something more interesting, that hopefully would get the agent to open up. "So, how long until your cool partner gets here?"

Agent Potash groaned. "It could be anywhere between a minute and an hour. My bet is on five minutes."

"So, do you think a hot dog is a squaricanized taco?" Ilias asked.

"Do I think a what is a what?" Agent Potash blinked at him. "No. Hot dogs and tacos were invented independently."

"Well tacos did exist first, I'm pretty sure. They're basically the same. you've got your carbs in a u shape, with meat, cheese, beans, and veggies, plus sauce of your choice."

"Carbs in a u shape. Wow. I'm so convinced," Mari chimed in. "Not." She glanced over at Agent Potash. "You know, I think a little better of you now."

"Yeah. Taco shell and bread have carbs." Ilias picking himself off of the ground as quickly as he dared.

"Simply being in a u shape does not mean they're the same thing." Agent Potash crossed her arms. "You can bend silver and gold into u-shapes, but they'll still have different effects."

"I'm not saying they're the same thing. I'm saying they're similar. One was based off of the other."

"That is factually incorrect," Agent Potash argued. "According to The History of Squarican and Rhombican Relations, first contact was made in 3005 AA, and their cuisines had already developed unique foods, most likely including the hot dog and the taco."

"That's the first actually written in history meeting. They probably have met before. Besides, Rhombicans have been around a lot longer than Squaricans, as Squaricans used to be tetrahedrish." Ilias just sort of flopped onto the table.

"'Probably,' you say. You can't base your argument off of speculations that aren't supported by facts." Agent Potash put her hands on her hips. "Get off the table."

"Yeah, Ilias. Weren't you worried about breaking the table before?"

"Not anymore." He replied.

"What changed?" Mari asked.

"A certain person not being open minded." He looked at Agent Potash. She had a bit of an interesting name. Maybe her last name was a reversed mix of mashed potatoes.

Agent Potash sputtered. "Me? Not open minded? You're the one who's delusional. Saying hot dogs are tacos?"

"Stop twisting my words woman. I said they're similar, and possibly based off of one another." He pointed at her.

"You did not say that. There was no 'possibly' in there. You're the one twisting your own words."

And that's when Midnightravenguard the Glorious made his second dramatic entrance of the day. His voice boomed through the room. "I HAVE ARRIVED."

A second later, his physical presence followed. Now, he was dressed in a bejeweled, hot pink suit and sparkling yet rinky-dink sunglasses. He even had jewels in his hair, somehow tied in. He lifted his sunglasses and beamed at the room with bright blue eyes. Midnight stuck out an arm towards Ilias and Mari. "Sorry about, ya know, trying to kill you and all. No hard feelings, right? Also, why are you lying on the table?"

"Well, I'm still alive at the moment, so no hard feelings, no. As for why I'm on the table, your buddy was about to cut me open and take a look at what's inside me to see why I'm not working properly. Although I think it should be the other way around, as she thinks that tacos and hot dogs are not similar."

Agent Potash's eyes grew round. "Lies! I was doing nothing of the sort." She took a breath and calmed down. "Let's start over, now that Midnight's here."

She paced to the other end of the room, as if trying to distance herself from the events of moments before. "Welcome, Ilias and Camille, or, should I say, Marisol. We simply have a few questions about the assassin who killed Dr. Ghee. You were witnesses to the murder, correct?"

"Wait. How do you know my real name?" Mari narrowed her eyes.

"Oooooooh, so that's what your real name is." Ilias grinned.

"Yes, yes, the secret's out, and I'm sure you're very excited."

"I'm ecstatic."

Mari (Marisol) rolled her eyes. "Agent Potash. I asked you a question."

"You happen to be rather well-known in the chemical engineering circles."

"Yes. Circles that you aren't a part of."

Agent Potash shrugged nonchalantly. "Our first question is, did you get a glimpse of any identifying features of the assassin?" Midnight dropped into an armchair and propped his chin in one hand.

"He had really good aim." Ilias inputted.

"That could describe any number of assassins. Did you get a glimpse of their face?"

"With all due respect, we had just witnessed a murder. We were too busy trying to stay alive," Mari retorted.

"Also, don't assassins wear masks?" Ilias frowned from where he laid on the table. It was actually comfortable. It was a little cool, which was nice on his back.

Agent Potash sighed. "Alright. Moving on, how much do you know about Dr. Ghee's research? Marisol, you were going to speak to him about that, correct?"

"Yes. All I'd heard was that he was doing some innovative research on fluids in the astral plane."

"Fluids this, fluids that-- who cares?" Midnight lounged across the armchair. "What was it going to do?"

"Do?" Mari asked. "Well, sorry to disappoint you, but not all research is conducted to later be turned into government tech. Sometimes it's done to simply learn more."

Ilias closed his eyes, remembering the weapons with the fluids.

"I see," Agent Potash said. "We investigated the scene of the crime and recovered samples from a powerful explosion. Multiple explosions, actually. Two were determined to be caused by garnets, but the third has yet to be identified."

Ilias continued to listen quietly with his eyes closed.

The fabric of Mari's armchair creaked softly as she shifted in her seat. "Oh? Do you have any theories?"

"We were hoping you could tell us."

Midnight's nasal voice added, "We have a super duper super team working on it right now. It's glorious."

"Good to know. Are they finding evidence of any alive assassins that could possibly come after us? I really like my life being in existence." Ilias drawled.

"They could be. If you decided to join us." There was a quality in Agent Potash's voice that signaled that this conversation had just entered a new territory.

He frowned, keeping his eyes closed. "Is that what all of this is about?"

"We could use a chemical engineer like Marisol and a celebrity with contacts like you, Ilias. In return, your lives would be protected. Our salaries are also quite competitive."

"So you just want me for my contacts? Why not acting like your friend here?"

"Acting as well," Agent Potash agreed.

Ilias tapped on the table. "And you couldn't wait until we could actually walk out of a hospital?"

As he said that he tapped out thoughts?

"Time is of the essence. If Dr. Ghee was killed, that means whoever needed him no longer does. It means they've found out all they need from Dr. Ghee and could be using his research to build something very destructive, very soon."

"Like, boom," added Midnight. "Huge boom."

"Thank you for your contribution, Midnight," Agent Potash said sarcastically.

keep listening, Mari responded.

"Define huge boom."

"Well, Ilias, how would you like it if your city was wiped out?"

"Well, that'd probably get rid of any nearby assassins."

"Thank you so much for that insightful answer. Now, how about the capital city? Can you think of any problems that might cause?"

"Well I do prefer to see the good in a situation rather than the bad, normally. But if I were to actually think about it hard enough, I'd say chaos and confusion."

"Exactly." Agent Potash sounded more sincere this time. "And chaos and confusion, while obviously being bad for us, is also bad for you. No security? No time to watch movies. No funds for chemical research. Of course, we're hoping it won't get to that point. And that's why-"

"Ya in or not?" Midnight interrupted.

"What, no time for questions?"

"Make it snappy."

"What resources does your lab have?" Mari asked.

"Cutting-edge ones. High performance chromatograph, high resolution mass spectrometer, specialized microscopes... And what's more, if there's a particular piece of equipment you need, we can secure the funds to provide it for you. Within reason, of course. Next question."

Ilias raised his hand lazily. "Yeah, exactly what would I be doing besides being just another connection? And nothing will involve me having to take my shirt off, yeah?"

"Depending on how well you prove yourself-"

"-you'll be turned into a hamster or a parrot," interjected Midnight.

Agent Potash sighed. "No. Depending on how well you prove yourself and respond to training, you may be entrusted with other missions involving infiltration or social engineering. You do not have to take your shirt off unless it's to change your clothing. I'm assuming you won't want to stay in those clothes for the rest of your life."

"I do prefer having clean clothes that aren't soak in sweat." Ilias replied. "So, field work. Meaning more chances to get shot in the back again."

"Yes, well, we have some of the top medics in the country. And not all missions involve shooting. Many are simply reconnaissance. More boring stakeouts than anything else. Trust me, after a few hours on a stakeout with Mid, you'll be hoping to get shot in the back."

"Hey!" Mid protested. "So what, are you Chromedome? Then I must be Prowl I guess. A master planner who is completely drained of all humor."

"Master planner?" Agent Potash scoffed. "You're more like Swerve, except with half the braincells and none of the humor."

Ilias had no clue what they were talking about. Judging by Mari's silence, she didn't either.

"Oh yeah? Well you're like Ore. Dead and mashed into an engine block because you worked for Prowl."

"Clearly you have zero observational skills, and even less intelligence than Riptide. I'm alive, I don't work for Prowl, and I'm more like refined metal than ore, thank you very much."

"Puh-lease. You've got the understanding of Tailgate, who doesn't even understand when he's being used."

"Oh yeah? You're more impulsive than Whirl, and Tailgate is so much more than you'll ever be."

"At least I don't go around shooting and socking my friends." He snorted.

"Well, you did threaten to murder Marisol and Ilias."

"Yes but I didn't actually do it. It was all part of the act. You're worse than First Aid when it comes to obsessions. Especially when it comes to not being partnered with me!"

"Please. Anyone would be obsessed with not being partnered with you. Heck, I'd rather be partnered with Megatron, or even Getaway, backstabbing 'bot though he may be. At least he wouldn't wear ridiculous costumes and act so immaturely."

"You'd end up in a tank as nothing but a spine. At least I've always gotten the job done!"

"Barely."

"It still gets done."

Ilias started to tune them out at this point. He couldn't decide who was worse, them or his parents. Well, his parents did it affectionately. These two were trying to see how they could bite the other's head off. But he was getting bored, which meant he was getting drowsy. His head kinda rolled to one side.

Finally, Mari coughed. Neither agent stopped their tirade of insults. She coughed again. Then again, sounding like she was hacking her lungs out and dying.

"What?" they both snapped.

"Oh, I'm so sorry to distract from your evidently essential insult battle, but I was wondering what's next."

Agent Potash cleared her throat. "Right. Yes. Just sign here." A piece of paper and a pen were placed in Ilias's hands. He didn't move.

"It's only an agreement to keep quiet about any tech or information you learn about here. Classified government agency and all." He still didn't move.

"What is it, Ilias? You do realize we have voices we can use to communicate, correct? Sorry if I don't speak corpse-on-a-table." Agent Potash seemed even snippier than before. It was probably the presence of Mid.

After a moment, there was an aggravated sigh. "You have got to be kidding me. There is no way you just fell asleep." Someone started shaking Ilias's shoulders, and pain flared in his back. He threw the punch before he opened his eyes. He heard a yelp as his fist connected with something.

Mid staggered backwards and nearly tripped over a potted plant. "What was that for?"

"Being your annoying self," Agent Potash said triumphantly. "Ilias, you're a solid one in my book."

"I'll assume that's good." He let his head drop with a small thunk and he looked at the ceiling.

"I'm afraid both of you still need to sign the nondisclosure agreements, though."

Ilias heard the scribbling of a pen. "Done," Mari said. "Now, would you be a dear and take me to the labs, new friend Agent Potash?"

He groaned and sat up. He clicked the pen and scribbled his signature.

"Thank you. Yes, Marisol, Mid will escort you to the labs, and Ilias will be with me."

"Great." He got off of the table. Time to go get a tour of the place. "Lead the way illustrious tour guide."

Agent Potash gave him look, but led him out of the room.

Mari was not happy to be stuck with Mid. Agent Potash seemed saner, and she disagreed with Ilias, which was more points for her in Mari's book. But at least she would be going to see the labs. That is, if Mid would stop pausing in front of every room to tell long-winded stories that were absolutely irrelevant. His eye was starting to swell where Ilias had punched him.

"So, this is the break room where I once pulled a prank on Agent Potash. Her expression was absolutely priceless when I put some salt crystals in her coffee. Now, salt crystals don't do much other than flavor food, but I said it was an experimental ability-enhancing crystal that only tasted like salt." He guffawed. "And guess what? I said there was a slight chance of them making you disintegrate. Just, like, eighty percent."

Mari was losing the battle against her urge to roll her eyes.

"Oh! Here's the swimming room. Once, I removed the crystals keeping the water down and Agent Potash just about defenestrated me. The only thing stopping her was that she went up with the water, and I was at the very bottom of the pool, and dropping down would have been sure death."

"Great, great. Can we skip the dialogue and just get to the labs, please?" Mari asked. Normally, she would enjoy hearing stories, but she was itching to explore all the equipment they had. And, to be honest, Mid was almost as annoying as Ilias.

Mid tsked. "So straightforward. Honestly don't you ever just slow down and enjoy something? Is that how you eat your chocolate? You just straight up swallow it? Oh! There's the conference room, where I got to see Agent Potash's livid face when she realized she'd be paired with me. She turned all possible colors in that room within 5 minutes."

Mari laughed. "Okay, that one was a little funny, because I can totally imagine that. Anyone would probably react like that, honestly. And usually, I do like a good chat, but I actually cannot wait to see the labs. As in, I'm going to sprint away from you and search for it on my own if you don't take me there in the next minute."

"How many cups of coffee did you have?"

"One. Unlike a certain coffee addict I know." She meant Ilias, of course.

Mid scoffed. "I'm not that addicted to coffee. I only have ten cups a day. It's not that much."

"Never mind. You have now gained the distinction of 'Most Coffee-Addicted Person I Know.' Also, that explains a lot." They passed by a few doorways. Thankfully, Mid didn't stop in front of them. Perhaps the key was to distract him by engaging in a conversation, sans long-winded stories.

"Wait- who were you meaning before?"

"Ilias. He drinks three cups of coffee and takes an eternity to finish them. Every sip takes longer than it took the Earth to form."

"Ah, at least he takes his time to enjoy it. And I must say, I do agree with him on hot dogs being based off of tacos. It makes so much sense!"

Mari glared at Mid. "No. I can't even get into this with you right now. How much longer until we reach the lab?"

"No."

"'No'? Explain 'No'." Mari narrowed her eyes. "And don't tell me no means no."

"No means no." He smirked, and opened up a door to reveal the lab.

Mari's eyes widened and she forgot that she was ever annoyed with Mid. "Oh. My. Stars. This is amazingthankyousomuchbye." And then, Mid forgotten, she entered the lab.

Unlike Mid, Agent Potash was relatively quiet, and Ilias was asking questions about every door they passed.

"So, what's that room?" He pointed at a door they were approaching.

"That's the gym. Agents go there to train. There's a strict schedule, but if you rise in the ranks, you may be able to secure a spot." Through the glass window in the door, Ilias could see mats, punching bags, climbing equipment, and even weapons. A few agents were sparring. Maybe he'd bring Mari at some point to try sparring. That'd be amusing.

"And how about that one right there?"

"The pool." Agent Potash didn't bother to elaborate this time.

"What exactly do you do at the pool? Do I have you reserve a time there?"

"Well, let's see, what does one do at a pool? Oh, right, swim. Or train for underwater missions. You only need to reserve a time at its peak hours, which are usually on weekends. And whatever you do, do not tamper with the pool's crystals."

"What happens if I do so?"

"Nothing, if you're Mid. If you're not Mid, you get kicked out dishonorably."

"Just for tampering with a few crystals in a pool?" He frowned. That didn't seem to add up.

"We take tampering with the equipment and facilities seriously here."

"And why can Mid get away with it?"

"Nepotism." The lines around Agent Potash's mouth tightened, then she stopped in front of a nondescript door. "Here. These are the dormitories where agents who don't have other homes can sleep. For now, it'd be most convenient for you two to stay here as you recover."

"Well it's better than being in a mediroom. I'm not going to have to share a room with her, am I?"

"No, no, each agent gets their own room. We aren't that lacking in funding." Agent Potash waved her hand in front of a crystal sensor to turn on the lights.

"Good. So if you aren't that lacking in funding, how much are you lacking in funding?"

"That is an unnecessary question. I'll take my leave now." Agent Potash handed him a small piece of Octagon sunstone. It was clear and multifaceted, slightly yellow or amber colored, with portions of light and shadow where the light either hit it or was blocked by another side of it. "This is a communicator. Press it to get in contact with me if you need an essential thing. Don't contact me if you're simply bored."

"Alright. And if I press it to get the gist of how it works?"

"...Don't expect a response." Agent Potash smoothed her suit, then turned snappily on her heel. "We'll collect you in the morning."

"That sounds like I'm a bag of garbage on a sunday."

"You're the one who said it, not me."

"You're the one implying it."

Agent Potash simply closed the door, leaving Ilias in his new room. There was a bed, which looked more like a cot. A bathroom, a kitchen, all the minimal necessities. He explored the entire place in under half an hour, which included a thorough sweep for bugs and cameras. As he didn't have much better to do, and it did sound like she wanted him to stay in the room, he walked out to go explore the place by himself.

The punching bag really didn't deserve the beating it was getting. It would be more satifying if it was Mid's face. Or Mr. Ravioli's. Agent Potash punched the bag again, putting all her irritation and rage behind it. It swung backwards wildly and she heard the sound of the cover tearing.

"That poor punching bag, what did it do to you to deserve its wrath?" A very familiar and punchable voice asked.

"Oh, the punching bag didn't do anything. It's a stand-in for two people who I'd like to punch but would probably get fired for punching." Agent Potash turned around to face Mid. Mid stood against the wall, right next to the door, with an irritating grin on his face and a floppy, hot pink wizard hat. He waddled like a penguin, then strutted like a fancy penguin. He hopped onto the ceiling, then the wall, then left the room. Quite literally, as the astral realm had it's weird ways. Mid soon came back with a celery cupcake that he proceeded to devour while Agent Potash watched with a look of extreme disgust.

"So, what's your impression of the two. Personally, I like the guy. I forgot his name though. The woman is too straightforward for me. I forgot hers too." He asked, while eating the cupcake. He had some icing on his upper lip.

Would it be too obvious if Agent Potash punched him, using the excuse of wiping away the icing? She decided it would. "Ilias and Marisol. Neither is particularly inspiring--you should have heard the two when they first came in--but relatively speaking, Marisol seems slightly saner. Both have good skillsets, however."

"Well Marisol has good skillsets. I don't know what Liliac's is. Besides being a celebrity of some sort."

"You know how you're a distraction? Well, Ilias can be a better one. Not only that, but he can use his acting skills and contacts to infiltrate various places. Have you never watched his movies?"

"Well no, I haven't. You seem just about as sane as them. You think an actor can infiltrate various places? Have you ever seen a movie that is actually accurate???"

"Admittedly, the plots of Season's Greetings From the Special Agents and the Spies and A Squarican Quest, a Rhombican Heist were unrealistic, but with some training, he could be a valuable asset. At least, that's what the boss thinks." Agent Potash gave the punching bag another good whack. "And clearly I'm the sanest one here."

Mid howled with laughter. Agent Potash seethed and punched the punching bag again, imagining Mid's face on it.

"So, are you going to want me to familiarize myself with his skillset?"

Agent Potash paused. A slow grin spread across her face, and she let the punching bag have a much-needed rest. "Excellent suggestion." She stalked across the room towards Mid. "Why don't you start by watching his movies and listening to all of his albums?"

"He made albums too?! Darkness!"

"Darkness is right. Why don't you listen to all thirteen of them, in chronological order? No skipping tracks. I'll know."

"Thirteen?! Darkness!!"

"Divine Darkness, indeed. Better get on it! Oh, and if it's not too much trouble, could you write up a report with a critical analysis of his albums and his best tracks? Always good to have something to make conversation about."

"Yeah, no." He snorted and tossed his wrapper away. "You may have some sway over what I do, but not everything. In this current moment, your rank is on hiatus, which includes power."

"Hm. And would you like me to report that you were uncooperative in working with the two new recruits towards the agency's best interests?"

"Well, I am being cooperative. I'm just not writing out a report when I have other tasks to do. Marisun is currently having the time of her life in that lab. What's Nelson currently doing?"

"Settling into his new room. And, fine, skip the report if you must. Find some productive use of your time." Agent Potash aimed at the punching bag again, and with an unceremonious clank and a thump, it detached from its link to the ceiling and fell to the floor. That was a pity. What would she punch now?

"Well, at this current moment, I'm being very productive by doing my best to cooperate with you."

"Oh, please. This isn't cooperation. Now, I'm training, so it'd be in your best interests to leave the room before I 'accidentally' punch you in the gut."

"Oh hey, isn't that your guy?" Mid looked out the window of the door, where Ilias was walking past.

Agent Potash stopped short. Then with one last kick, she sent the punching bag flying across the room. She brushed past Mid without a word and chased after Ilias.

"That poor punching bag." Was all Mid said as she left, looking at it sorrowfully. There was still icing on his upper lip.



"Ilias!" Agent Potash called. Her knuckles stung from beating up the punching bag, but she ignored the pain.

Ilias stopped his limping forward, and turned around. His expression was hard to read.

"If you wander around here before you have an official badge, you might be mistaken for an intruder. You should have called me or Midnight."

"Well you already said that I'd be ignored. At least by you, and I don't know what to make of Mid yet." He shrugged. "Also if I was an intruder, I would not just be walking around in the halls. When does that ever happen?"

"Social engineering. Confidence helps people blend in. You know, you could be a good social engineer," Agent Potash mused.

He wrinkled his nose. "Nope. Not going into the engineering field. Wiring crystals is as far as I go."

Agent Potash laughed. "Well, it's called engineering, but it's not really a hard science. The premise of social engineering is that you take advantage of typical human behavior to achieve a certain aim. For example, tailgating into a building: people generally consider it common courtesy to hold the door for someone, but that can be dangerous if the building is supposed to be secure."

"Not hard science, but it is still in the scientific area." He started walking again. "I'm pretty sure I'm doing fine at that without having to get blabbered to about it by a teacher."

"Hm. Well, we could give you a practice assignment, perhaps. It wouldn't be anything with real consequences, but just a test of-"

In front of them, a door opened and green smoke poured out. Mari stumbled out of the room, coughing but grinning madly. "Oh, hey, Ilias and Agent Potash! I pronounce this lab fantastic." She was practically bouncing on her toes. Strands of her chestnut brown hair were sticking up and there were smudges of color on her face, except where she'd worn safety goggles. "Can I stay here forever? Like, I don't need a bed. I'll sleep on the floor."

Ilias just stared. "So she gets to go start with the fun and I'm just shown my room?"

Agent Potash raised an eyebrow at Mari. "She was supposed to be familiarizing herself with the equipment before starting work tomorrow."

"Hey, Mid didn't tell me anything about that." Mari lifted her goggles and propped them on her head. "Though I guess I did 'familiarize' myself with the equipment. Cool spectrometer, by the way. And particle accelerator."

"I mean, she did familiarize herself with the equipment. You don't familiarize yourself with something without handling it." Ilias agreed.

"See? He gets it!" Mari beamed. For the first time, she didn't seem annoyed with Ilias at all. Oh, Darkness, if the three of them teamed up to annoy Agent Potash, she didn't know what she would do. Actually, she did know. It would involve violence and words unfit for polite company.

She took a deep breath. "Well, since you two are both conveniently here, why don't I show you to dinner, and then to your rooms?"

"Do please, show us where to get dinner. Just don't show me where my room is again unless I'm drunk."

"Inebriation is discouraged in this facility," Agent Potash informed Ilias. "We do, however, have healthy and allergen-free food options." She led the way down the hallway.

"As long as there are no square needles, human body parts, or live monkeys anything's fine."

"So round needles, non-human body parts, and dead monkeys are alright?" Mari asked. She smirked and fell into step with him, dusting off the sleeves of her lab coat.

"Well, I don't see why there'd be needles, but I am allergic to square needles, non human body parts are fine, and so are dead monkeys. Preferably, I'd like it if their brains are chilled. I've heard it's a great desert."

"Clearly needles are to inject frosting into the hollow interiors of cakes. And I've never tried chilled monkey brains, but if eating them can give you more brain cells, I would gladly find one and serve it to you. Or maybe to me. I do need more brain cells to analyze that fluid."

"That's true. If it can give me more brain cells, gladly I'll eat it. Better fighting tactics." Ilias knocked on his skull and laughed.

"Alright, two chilled monkey brains, coming right up," Mari joked.

Agent Potash waited for them at a corner. "Ilias, did I hear something about fighting tactics? Would you happen to have those skills?"

"Only if you count what I do in movies." He shrugged it off. It seemed like he wasn't telling everything. Agent Potash narrowed her eyes, but decided not to pursue the thread of conversation. That could wait until she and Mid built up more trust with Ilias and Marisol.

She stopped at a final set of double doors and pushed them open. "Here is our dining hall. It's buffet style, starting from the left side of the room. Sit wherever you want, provided the seat is unoccupied."

The dining hall was large and lit by bright fluorescent lights. The buzz of conversation filled the room as agents in various styles of attire chatted at round tables. The buffet was laden with food of cuisines from all over the astral plane, and even imitations of physical plane foods.

"Great! Good to know." Ilias grinned clapped his hands together. "At the moment I'm not very hungry, so I'll continue walking around."

Agent Potash fixed him with a glare. "Do you purposefully act so contrarily? Is it your life's goal to cause as much trouble for those around you as possible?"

Mari nodded emphatically, then sneakily left to grab some bread rolls.

"Yes, absolutely." He agreed, grinning at her.

Agent Potash pinched the bridge of her nose, then said, "Fine. But I'll accompany you until you have your own identification."

Mari appeared again and offered a bread roll to Agent Potash. "I want to come!" she said.

Ilias shrugged. "Cool."

Agent Potash wearily accepted the bread roll. This was going to be an even longer evening, wasn't it.

"Do I get a bread roll?" Mid asked from where he stood on the wall. Agent Potash wasn't even going to question it. Well, maybe she questioned it a little.

Mari stared at him, then said, "Sure. The lab's got me in a good mood. Bread rolls for everyone!" She chucked one at him.

He caught it in his mouth perfectly. Ilias was already at the doorframe of the dining hall and walking out. Mari threw a bread roll at the back of his head. "Everyone means you too, E-lie-as."

"The name starts with an I, not an E." He responded, spinning around. In one smooth movement he caught the bread roll, and then continued walking. He didn't eat any of it.

"Alright then, Eye-lees." Mari followed him out of the dining hall. Ilias laughed.

Agent Potash glanced at Mid. "You going to keep standing on the wall, or are you planning to come with the new recruits?"

"I'm coming of course." Mid walked onto the ceiling. "Let's go!"

She rolled her eyes, then mustered up her energy and patience and followed Ilias and Marisol. Mid followed her, eating his bread roll. Ilias ahead wasn't eating his, just holding it in one hand. Mari happily devoured her bread roll.

Ilias turned to walk down a hall he hadn't explored yet. "So, what parts of the place are restricted?"

"The ones that you can't enter," Agent Potash answered shortly.

Mari rolled her eyes. "Obviously. But, like, where would they be on a map?"

At the same time Ilias said. "Thank you for the astute observation, sherlock."

Agent Potash ignored both comments and crossed her arms.

Mari turned to Ilias. "How much do you want to bet it's the doors that are locked with seemingly-impressive yet astoundingly weak mechanisms?"

"A bread roll." He grinned.

"Oh? Would that happen to be the same bread roll I so generously gifted to you?"

"Uh, maybe, maybe not." He shrugged.

"It's not Schrödinger's cat. It's either yes or no. True or false. One or zero. Not 'maybe'."

"I don't see the world in black and white. I see it in a multitude of colors."

"Great, thanks for informing me that you aren't colorblind. Good to know you can tell garnet from emerald. That isn't relevant to the original question, which was..." Mari trailed off. "I forgot. Ah, this must be one of your dastardly tricks. Distract your opponent until they have an unfortunate lapse of memory."

"Huh?"

"Or maybe it's unintentional."

"Yeah, that. What makes you think I'm going to pull a trick? I'm not that much of a demon."

"Not 'that much' of one? That implies that you are somewhat of one." Mari raised an eyebrow. Agent Potash tried to tune out their chattering and focus on peace of mind. Gardens. Meditation.

Mid crashed down right in front of her. It was the part of the building where gravity fluctuated, meaning that the ceiling could claim them all at any given moment. Would it be too obvious if she took the opportunity to "accidentally" trip over him as if she hadn't noticed him crashing down? It probably would be. Everyone knew her reflexes were better than that. Well, maybe the new recruits didn't... The moment passed and Agent Potash stepped coolly around Mid, sighing internally. Next time she'd seize the opportunity. Mid stood up, groaning.

"I think one of my ribs broke near my spine." He groaned.

"You know where the med center is." Agent Potash stared at him neutrally, then relented. "Do you need help getting there?" Much as she despised him, he was still technically her partner, and that meant she had a responsibility to make sure he didn't die.

"Pretty sure I'll be able to walk alright. Just don't murder those two while I'm gone if you choose to stay." Mid jutted his chin at Ilias and Marisol, who were having a conversation about the bread roll that Ilias wasn't eating.

"I think my task will be tougher than yours. Well. Don't die." Agent Potash gave him a halfhearted wave.

Mid waved back fullheartedly, and started walking off, his pink wizard hat flopping with each step.

Now. To make it through the night without any blood on her hands. She looked over at the recruits. Perhaps this would be an even harder task than she'd thought.

Ilias was still refusing to eat the bread roll. Mari was insisting it was a psychological tactic.

"What psychological tactic? I just don't want to eat!"

"Sure you don't." Mari produced another bread roll out of thin air and waved it under Ilias's nose. "Smell those delicious warm carbohydrates? How could you possibly resist this bread roll?"

Ilias wrinkled his nose, looking slightly sick. "I just don't want to eat."

Mari's face creased in a frown and she put away the bread roll. "Are you alright? Is your wound acting up?"

"It's fine. I'm fine."

"'Fine'. Yeah, no. You're not." Mari turned to Agent Potash. "Where's the med center?"

"Jeez! Seriously, I'm fine."

"Fine is what dying people say when they want to pretend like they're not dying." Mari said it with a straight face.

Agent Potash cleared her throat. "This way." She didn't know Ilias well enough to tell whether he was truly fine, but it couldn't hurt to check. They had been abruptly brought from the hospital, after all.

Ilias scowled, but didn't protest any more. They set course for the med center.

Mid loved the gravity in the astral realm. He also despised it. He was getting it fixed when the group came into the medroom.

"Either you all love me a lot and came to visit me, or someone did something stupid." He looked at his partner.

"Why don't you take a guess." Agent Potash looked around, possibly looking for Dr. Pepper. The person, not the drink. Yes, it was a widely shared joke at the agency. He did quite enjoy giving the newbies a can of soda telling them this was their very skilled doctor.

"I think you knocked their heads together."

Agent Potash rolled her eyes. "Decent guess, but no. I wish. Ilias needs to get checked up. Marisol too, honestly."

Finally, Dr. Pepper made his way out of a back room. Mid noted Ilias was tapping his foot in agitation. Based on how the doctor was acting, he got tails this morning. Meaning, c razttttyyyyyy. (You see, dear reader, Dr. Pepper had a rather unique personality. It was like he flipped a coin every morning. If it landed heads, he was grumpy the whole day. Tails, c razttttyyyyyy. If it landed on its edge, normal. But you know how infrequently coins land on their edges. (Hint: very infrequently. More infrequently than Ilias and Mari not driving each other crazy. More infrequently than Mid not being awesome. Actually, that was never.))

"w-w-we-he-helllll there younglings!" Both Dr. Pepper's brown mustache and hair curled up at the ends. The spielanx had seven fingers, which was on the better side of things. Much better than Mid's cousin, who'd only had two, the poor thing... Though, of course, not as good as nine fingers.

"Hey there, gramps." Mid grinned.

"I'm not sure whether that's a compliment or an insult," commented Mari.

"Take it how you take it. How's your spleens?"

"Good, good," said Agent Potash brusquely. "Now, Dr. Pepper, could you take a look at these two? We retrieved them from a hospital. Ilias here was in worse condition."

"Well then first I'll look at him. Dr. Coke can look at the girl. I can have Dr. Squirt check you while Dr. Dew stays with Mid."

Mid slightly scowled. Dr. Dew was grumpy 24/7. In any direction the man frowned, even if he was upside-down. But he wasn't going to get in the story of doing that now.

"That is acceptable." Agent Potash nodded. Dr. Pepper yodeled for a minute, then was joined by three other doctors. Dr. Dew was frowning as normal. Dr. Squirt was very short, Dr. Coke was very enthusiastic and his hair went in every direction. Ilias was being dragged off to one bed by Dr. Pepper, and a mica wall was put up for privacy. Ilias looked miserable, like this was the last thing he'd want to be doing, just right before ending his own life.

Mari was led off by Dr. Coke, who practically bounced every step. She stayed a few feet away, as if wary of Dr. Coke's energy. "Right over here, there's a good chap! Now, this'll just be a basic examination first, and then we'll take a look at what had you in the hospital--a bullet wound, if our records are correct--and..." his chattering was muffled slightly by the mica barrier.

Similarly, Agent Potash complied with Dr. Squirt's guidance, leaving Mid and Dr. Dew in a section of the room. Oh, joy. Now he was alone again, with a grumpy doctor. He'd prefer being with the other three doctors rather than this one.

"So." Dr. Dew frowned at Mid, more than he already frowns. "What happened to you?"

"I fell from the ceiling. Y'know, in one of those sectors."

Dr. Dew tsked, then took out an emerald from one of the pockets in his doctor's coat. He waved it over Mid. "You know better than to stand on the ceiling. It may seem like a fun, flamboyant, and utterly Mid-like activity, but it's a dangerous and unsustainable one." His eyebrows scrunched up as if they were trying to attack each other.

"Well I can't be Midnightravenguard the Glorious without doing Midnightravenguard the Glorious-like activities." He grinned, and wiggled his eyebrows.

To this, Dr. Dew's eyebrows engaged in an even fiercer battle against each other. "I would say it is highly inadvisable, but you would just ignore me."

"Doctors know what's best." He continued to wiggle his eyebrows.

"Stop that before your eyebrows turn into caterpillars and crawl off your face." Dr. Dew put away the emerald again. "You have a fractured rib."

"OW!" Mid heard from across the room, along with a thunk of flesh hitting metal. Specifically, a fist. Probably Ilias.

Dr. Dew ignored it. He scribbled some notes on a pad, then turned back to Mid. Now it looked like one of his eyebrows was trying to devour the other. The frown lines on his face were deeper than the Great Fissure. "Non-displaced, thankfully. I recommend a rose quartz treatment, then plenty of rest and ice." Dr. Dew pulled out a drawer with various crystals that were carefully labeled and annotated. He handed a sphere of rose quartz banded with strands of gold to Mid.

"Yes sir! That shall go onto my shelf of never-been-used crystals." Mid winked, pocketing the rose quartz. He stood up as the mica walls went down.

Dr. Dew frowned even more deeply. His forehead looked like the Chasms of Citrine. "You realize all you need to do is activate the crystal and keep it near the wound. Surely even one of questionable sanity like yourself can manage that."

"Someone such as you should also know that your face would get better excercise if you smiled instead of frowned." Mid looked around for the others. It still hurt when breathing. Unfortunately, he'd have to use the crystal. Can't run while doing the chicken dance when it hurts to just breathe. The mica shield was still up around Ilias.

As for Potash, his lovely partner, she was stepping out of her partitioned area, nodding at something Dr. Squirt was saying. She would follow any instructions about crystals down to the letter. No, down to the punctuation. Down to the spaces. Down to the itty bitty serifs in the font.

And Marisol was chatting very enthusiastically with Dr. Coke about new treatment methods and the possibility of using synthetically modified crystals to make healing more potent yadda yadda yadda.

In front of Mid, Dr. Dew only scowled harder. "And that's my cue to urge you to leave the room. Come back in a week and we'll check if the rib has healed."

"Ah, well I have to wait for my partner to be completely done, as well as our underlings." Mid replied. On cue, Ilias walked out of his area, looking down at the crystal in his hand. Dr. Pepper was right behind him.

"On a scale of fish to pepperoni, how bad is it?" Mid asked.

"Salt." Ilias replied, pocketing the crystal.

Potash finally stepped away from Dr. Squirt's mini-office and joined the group. "Dr. Pepper. What is your professional opinion? Will Ilias be able to participate in training tomorrow, or should he continue to rest?"

"Participate? HAH. Depends on what he's doing."

"Basic sparring, perhaps?" Behind Potash, Mari was holding a small piece of rose quartz and asking Dr. Coke the purpose of every loop of metal.

"Nope!" He jumped up and down.

Potash glanced at Ilias. "Alright. Sounds like a classroom day for you then. Or maybe not, depending on what Agent Midnight feels like."

Ilias looked at her with a really? "So I'm going to be stuck with Mid for an entire day."

"Yes, it's a tragedy, I know. I thank you for your sacrifice and will use it to the fullest to enjoy my Midnight-less day." Potash gave him a dry smile.

"Yes, the sacrifice of my soul which I will make sure you your personal self drags my corpse out, incinerates it, and scatters my ashes in this realm."

"Hey! I'm not that bad." Mid complained.

Potash ignored him and shrugged. "If that is your will, Ilias, it shall be done. Any last words? A last meal before you go to spend the day with Agent Midnight?" Mid rolled his eyes and attempted some disco dance moves.

"Yeah, hot dogs are based off of tacos. For my last meal I'd like a hot dog and a soda. With a bag of chips. But for now, sleep would be nice. "

Potash nodded. "I'll show you two to your rooms." She called to Mari, who reluctantly said her goodbyes to Dr. Coke. She spun the rose quartz between her fingers before pocketing it as she walked over to them.

"I already know where my room is." Ilias said.

"Right, but I don't trust you not to go wandering off instead of going to your room. So, four-person trip it is."

"Hey, Mid can escort me while you go off with Mari. I'll only put up with him that long."

Potash looked at Ilias for a second. "Hm. Well, if you're offering to take Agent Midnight off my hands a little early, who am I to refuse?"

"Great. Get yourself ready to drag my heavy corpse. Come on Mid!" Ilias started walking out, leaving Mid to rush after him. Mid didn't quite know what else to do. Well, maybe eat a banana peel. But there were no bananas around at that moment. Also, these were funny people. They were cooperative, sure. But they weren't completely. They had their own rebellious acts. Mid did admire that. But it also made his job harder. Ilias knew where to go though.

"So, Ilias, is your name really Ilias?" Mid did the crab walk down a hallway.

"As far as I know, that's what it's been since I was out of the womb." Ilias responded.

"But imagine, in another universe, you could have been called Oliver, Jr," Mid mused. "Or Chancelbury. Or Jonathan."

Ilias twitched at the first name. "My turn. Is your name really Midnight?"

"It sure is!" Midnight produced an identification card from his wizard hat. It said "Midnightravenguard the Glorious" in sparkly teal letters.

"So your parents actually named you that?"

"No, no, they called me Hairy. Hairy Pan, to be precise. But really, Midnightravenguard the Glorious is a much better name."

"If that was actually your name, I can see why you'd want to change it."

"Thank you. Glad you get me."

"Hey, I'd be concerned if you still went by Harry Pan."

"No, no, I can hear the extra 'r' in your voice. It was Hairy, as in H-A-I-R-Y. And yes, I would be very concerned too. I was tempted to sue my parents, but they'd never be able to stop playing pickleball long enough to appear in court." Mid gave a dramatic sigh.

"I would have still tried." He shrugged.

Mid brightened up. "Hey, do you have a good lawyer you can recommend? I know celebrities always have good lawyers to get them out of scandals and things..."

"I'm sure I could get you in contact with one." Ilias grinned. "They could probably get some guys to drag your parents away from their game too."

"Thank you kindly, Mr. Ravioli." Mid swept an elegant curtsy, then a fancy bow. They turned the corner towards the dorms.

"Thanks for the escort." Ilias opened his door and stepped in.

"No problemo. Don't die!" Mid gave a cheery wave. "Also, don't lie, do question why, eat some rye, get some hair dye, and eat some pie."

Ilias groaned, and shut the door. Mid whistled as he made his way back, eventually finding Potash.

Potash was sitting on a paisley couch in the lounge, watching an old episode of "Answer 52 Questions For Free Pasta". On screen, the guests' names showed up as "Maho Elewyn" and "Oliver Ravioli".

"Research on background?" Mid asked, sitting down next to her. She nodded.

On screen, Oliver said, "Then you owe me twice the burger pizza at my funeral" as he smirked at Maho.

"I am not giving you a burger pizza. That doesn't even exist. I'll give you a burger and a pizza. Separately." Maho snorted.

"I think," Potash started, "this explains quite a bit about him."

"About the uh, tacos and hot dogs?"

"Yes. And his personality in general." Potash turned down the volume and glanced at Mid. "So, anything you needed from me, partner? Or did you simply come to annoy me-- I mean, to chat?"

"All three." Mid replied, pulling out a banana from his wizard hat.

Potash rolled her eyes and cranked up the TV's volume. Mid started munching on the banana peel.

"Vote Oliver Ravioli, speeding up my death since we first met."

"I rather relate to Maho," Potash commented. "I am surrounded by people who are speeding up my death." She reached over to the bowl of small live crabs next to her, and popped one into her mouth. Its delicate carapace went CrUnCh as she bit down.

"Aren't there parts in those that you can't eat?" Mid asked

Potash turned her head slowly and stared him directly in the eyes. "Everything is edible if you put your mind to it." She deliberately continued chewing the crab, making more cROncH sounds.

Mid stared at his banana. Then put one of the very large seeds in his mouth.

Potash watched coolly. She picked a bit of crab shell out of her front teeth. Mid tried to chew on it. Very awkwardly. The best parts of most fruits were the peels, as they were the most nutritious and not too sweet. You also were not at risk to choke on a large hunk of a seed. As for eating the seeds... well, Dr. Pepper had once said you wouldn't die if you chewed carefully.

"You're actually a normal human being that keeps your money in your wallet?" Came from the TV.

"Surprise surprise!"

"So, how's it taste?" Potash asked.

"Bland. I'm pretty sure I can taste a hint of cyanide."

"Ah. Well, it was your decision. I'll leave some banana peels on your grave." Potash reached for another live crab.

"Hopefully someone steps on it and goes flying."

"That would be a waste of food. Who would want to eat a stepped on banana peel?" She shook her head scornfully.

"Well, I'll be dead so it won't matter anyways." Mid replied cheerfully.

"Week old olives.", said Maho on the TV.

Oliver raised an eyebrow.

"Well, seems like the whole family has.... odd taste in food," Potash commented, crunching down on another live crab.

"Eh. I'm pretty sure she's messing with him." Mid shrugged, throwing the rest of the banana away after finishing with the peel.

"Think they'll ever find a good use for banana flesh? Seems like a waste to just throw it away, even if it's not as healthy."

"I know right? Maybe they'll use it as a natural sweetener in chocolate or something."

"Chocolate sweetened with banana. Hm. I could see an advertisement for that."

Right on cue, an advertisement started on screen. "Have you seen this dastardly assassin?" An image of Skater's wolf mask popped up next to the bright blue letters. "They are a suspect in the death of the late Dr. Ghee, and are also responsible for a string of other assassinations. Please inform the government by calling this number. Now remember, folks, an informed government is a good government!"

"Like they have to tell us that." Potash rolled her eyes again. "We're literally in charge of bringing Skater in."

"If only the bugger wasn't so hard to catch. How do they manage to make a trail go cold like that?" Mid snorted.

Potash grumbled and bit down on a crab with rather unnecessary force. CRONCH. She swallowed, then said, "Does your sister--the director--have any directions for us other than 'continue tracking down Skater'?"

"Nope." He sighed, and then jumped onto the ceiling. "I would have made a better director."

"Yeah, no. You would be walking on the ceilings instead of doing any productive work in ensuring the safety of the government. Your sister isn't bad, other than her tendency for nepotism and bribery." Potash tore the leg off of a crab and ate it.

"But only once has a director given a speech in the ceiling, and he was a great director. I mean his motto is literally everywhere." He pointed to the motto which was on the wall. It said, "I.D.K."

"Investigate, defend, know." Potash nodded. "Admittedly, it's a good motto, and Grainstorm Vanepps was a good director. Doesn't mean you need to copy him and stand on the ceiling all the time."

"Hey, I'm not going to be like Rodimus and say 'Till all are one' all the time."

Potash gagged. "Oh, thank Darkness not. It wouldn't be bad if you got into poetry like Megatron, though," she mused. "At least with writing, no one is forced to listen to you." But she didn't look quite as annoyed as usual.

"Please." He snorted. "I'm a great poet. I could write the entire speech in rhymes like Wheelie."

"Do it. Right now." Potash smirked as she finished off the bowl of live crabs.

"Potash paid me cash to speak, hoping that I will look weak. But you see, we're avenging Dr. Ghee by following the footsteps of Director Vanepps."

Potash raised her eyebrows and slow-clapped. "Quite right, Agent Midnight. You rhymed in plain sight. A rather good feat, and though it can be beat, to hear it was a treat."

"Well look at you, rhyming too." He grinned.

"Indeed I do; rhyming can be a game for two."

"Well why not three? Why can that not be?"

"Any suggestions as to who? Is this something we shall rue?"

"No, not now. If I become director, rhyming I shall vow."

"That's a mighty task. Many questions I would ask."

"All which I would answer, with some banter. But alas, sleep calls, you will hear my snores echo around the halls." Mid jumped down onto the floor.

"Farewell and good night, the bed bugs you shall bite. Remember, everything is edible; even December can be nibbled." Potash blinked. "I fear the more I rhyme, the more I lose track of sanity and time."

Mid laughed and bowed. "Farewell and goodnight, from your fare and well partner, Midnight."

Potash nodded, then gave a half-wave and turned off the TV, just as Oliver said something about a million-dollar taco. Mid skiddadled and skipped out of the room.

Mari was delighted that bread rolls were a 24/7/365 constant in the dining room. At breakfast, she grabbed a warm bread roll and spread some creamy butter over it, then bit into the soft food with delight. The evening before, she'd returned to her room, activated the rose quartz to finish healing up her bullet wound, then slipped into sleep. She thought she'd dreamed about some kind of garden of olives, but she wasn't sure.

Now, she stood as she ate her bread roll, scanning the dining hall for Ilias or anyone she knew.

Ilias was sitting alone at a table, slowly munching on some food. Mari strolled over and sat across from him.

"So, where's your fan club?" she asked. "Taking a day off? Chasing a different celebrity?"

"They've found another celebrity, thank Darkness." He pointed over where the director herself was.

Director Pan was sitting elegantly at a long table, chatting with the crowd around her. Unlike Mid, her raven-black hair was long and clean. As Mari watched, the director took a bite out of her omelet. Her bright blue eyes briefly swept over their table, and Mari started.

"Ah yes, her. My family always favored the females." Mid plopped down next to Ilias.

"Oh, hey, Mid. Well, she does look rather... saner than you," Mari commented. "She doesn't have a neon yellow wizard hat, for one. Do you have a collection of wizard hats in garish colors?"

"Yes, yes he does." Agent Potash sat down at the table with her food.

"Where are those wizard hats even sold?" Mari scrutinized the hat. Despite its lack of taste, the material looked to be of decently high quality.

Mid started, "Well, If I were a celebrity I'm sure it would be everywhere."

"But he's not," Agent Potash finished. "Speaking of celebrities, how's your wound healing, Ilias? You're following the doctor's orders, I trust?"

"It's doing better." He grunted. Mari squinted at him. She didn't completely believe him, but he didn't seem to want to talk about it.

"Potash, did you see my sister? You should go up and shake her hand. At least you'd be able to do it with her. I still wish Grainstorm Vanepps was still alive."

Agent Potash pushed around the potatoes on her plate. "Sure, maybe later." Her eyes hardened. "Grainstorm's death was uncalled for. And Skater will pay."

If Ilias was alarmed, he didn't show. Just kept his eyes on the plate as he ate his scrambled eggs.

"Are government agencies usually in the business of exacting revenge on assassins?" Mari asked. She lifted her eyebrows slightly, but focused on her food. That would make her look like she was just asking out of curiousity.

Agent Potash glaced at Mid, then said, "Not explicitly. But Skater is the prime suspect for Dr. Ghee's death. So, with all our resources dedicated to tracking them down, I hope Skater will soon face justice."

Ilias just nodded. "Good." Mari glanced at him, then ate a mango peel.

Around them, the din of clinking silverware and conversation slowly tapered off as agents finished their breakfasts and headed off to start their work days. Mari cleared her throat. "So, am I back in the lab today?"

"Yes, and I believe you'll be meeting our lead scientist, Samuel Lotus." Mid snickered, as if thinking of a joke.

"Great. Why the snicker?" Was Samuel as quirky of a character as Dr. Pepper? Or, Darkness forbid, was Samuel as Mid-like as Mid?

"You'll find out."

"That sounds vaguely ominous and not at all comforting."

"Good. Now's where we divide and conquer. Potash will take you to see Samuel, and I'll take Ilias to get some training in." Mid stood up and jumped onto the ceiling.

"Alright." Mari finished her breakfast and carried her plates to the bussing station. Well, she would hope this Samuel was a character closer to Agent Potash than Mid on the Potash-Mid scale. Although another Agent Potash wouldn't be ideal either. Hm. Perhaps she would hope for someone off the Potash-Mid scale entirely.



Mari bounced into the lab with a grin on her face. Ah, the scent of a high-tech lab! A hint of acetone, annnddddd smoke? She glanced around the lab for the source.

"Wait. Ilias?" The person standing at a counter in the center of the room had the same black hair and a similar build. When they looked up, Mari could see that they had light grey eyes, just like Ilias. But Ilias was supposed to be with Mid, and on second thought, the person in front of her didn't have the same Ilias energy. He also had slightly longer hair that was an absolute mess, and he wore no makeup. He also bore no scars.

"No, but it is a running joke around the agency."

Mari looked at the contraption in front of the person. "I see. Uh, hi. I'm Marisol, or Mari for short. Who are you and is it just me or does that look highly unstable?"

"I'm Samuel Lotus, just call me Sammy. At the current moment, yes, it is unstable." Sammy smiled, and held out his hand to shake. All the hair on his arms were singed.

Mari took it cautiously and shook it. Something bubbled in the contraption. "Good to meet you, head scientist. Is that for analyzing the sample recovered from the explosion?"

"Yes, it is. We're going to find out how it works, which means changing different variables and seeing how many explosions we can cause."

Mari rubbed her hands together. "Blowing stuff up? Count me in. What can I do?" Behind her, a few other scientists filed into the room and gave friendly nods to Sammy and Mari. They headed towards workstations around the room, apparently picking up their work from the previous day. Mari hoped no one was assigned the workstation that she had, er, experimented on yesterday. The green stain wasn't all the way out of the surface.

"That's the spirit! First, heat up that bunsen burner. Find a container of liquid nitrogen, I'll get the samples."

Mari got some goggles and a lab coat, tied up her hair, then found a match and struck it as she turned the bunsen burner on. Liquid nitrogen... liquid nitrogen... aha, she remembered that it was in that corner of the room. She secured a container of it.

Sammy returned to the table holding small containers. He carefully poured one into the beaker above the bunsen burner, and then the other went right into the liquid nitrogen. The liquid nitrogen started to boil as it came into contact with the warmer substance.

"So, both heating and cooling it?" Mari asked. "Or just making ice cream," she joked.

"Well, we don't know what triggered it to explode. There was no evidence of any gunpowder, or other explosives."

Mari nodded. "Well, garnets can be wired to explode on impact. Or, in certain cases, they can explode after a programmed amount of time."

"I'm including garnets in the area of 'other explosives'."

"Got it."

Sammy scribbled down notes in chicken scratch writing.

A minute passed, and the liquid nitrogen stopped bubbling as it reached an equilibrium temperature.* The sample above the bunsen burner was still and utterly non-explosive. "What other methods have you tried?"

"Well, we're only just really starting. Could you get another sample? We're going to try pressure next.

Mari nodded and went to fetch another sample. It felt slightly heavier than expected. The liquid was likely denser than water. She hefted the container in her hand, trying to determine just how much denser it was.

Then an alarm blared through the room.

Mari dropped the sample. A purple light flashed from the top of a wall. "Intrusion threat level four," blared a voice. "I repeat..."

Mari tuned it out. The container hadn't broken. She stumbled forwards and tried to bend down at the same time. As the klaxon finally stopped, Mari tripped over the sample, kicking it right towards the side of the room where the workstation she'd used yesterday was. (Unintentionally. Clearly.)

And then, as the voice said, "Please keep an eye out for those without badges and suspicious characters," the workstation exploded.



"So." Mari surveyed the ruins. At least no one would have to complain about a greenish stain now. "I think we've learned two things from this. First, the substance didn't explode upon impact with the floor, but it did once it reached the workstation, so possibly it needs to reach a certain amount of movement to explode. Second, loud alarms are not advisable in chemistry labs. Or possibly second, I need to be more careful when handling dangerous substances. Or, I should be reckless because I can then learn more about said substances."

As a safety protocol, all doors had locked, so everyone was stuck in the lab. Sammy stood there with a hand on his hip and the other one was pressing his hair back. He looked amazed. "Well, that alarm should have gone off sooner. Well, besides the fact that alarm wasn't a drill, everything is locked, and we'll probably suffocate to death in the next hour."

"Sounds lovely," Mari said. "Wanna experiment on the samples and find a way to neutralize them while we wait?" The remains of the workstation slowly stopped smoldering.

"Sounds good to me. I was mostly kidding about that last part though."

"So, this place is connected to the ventilation system?" Mari looked up, trying to find the air ducts. An intruder could possibly use them to get around undetected. At least, that's what she would do.

"Yes, but they are closed off in sections, just in case someone tries to access rooms that way. There are also backup air systems that can be routed in here slowly."

Ah, that made sense. Good to know this building wasn't completely lacking in security. Mari tried not to look disappointed. "Right. Well. Neutralizer. Have you been able to determine the fluid's chemical composition?"

"Half of it."

"And what's the issue with determining the other half? Is it some kind of mixture?"

"Well, we can't identify it quite yet. There's a possibility that they're chemicals we've never seen before that was found on the new moon."

"Oh! The lander brought back some samples of the material there a year ago, didn't it? Do you think we'll finally be able to fill in some gaps in the periodic table, perhaps with the outer ring?"

"Yes!"

Mari practically danced with excitement. "Okay, okay. If it's a mixture, we can distill it. Then we can try to isolate the unknown elements. We can measure their atomic masses, look at their groups and rings on the periodic table to predict their properties..."

Sammy looked excited. bouncing on his heels slightly. Mari appreciated that. It was always good to meet a fellow chem nerd. He examined the spot where the workstation used to be.

It was now a smoking hole. The crystal floor was smudged with soot, and chunks of metal were twisted strangely. The two workstations on either side were partially destroyed as well. Thankfully, no one had been working there.

There had only been a few drops in that sample, so to cause so much damage... Mari whistled. "This could be even more powerful than garnets if used properly. Or, well, would I say 'improperly' in this case?"

"Well, it could be used both ways. Whoever has this stuff probably won't be running." Sammy examined the twisting metal. "What of it after it explodes? We need to test what it's product is."

"How did you acquire the samples in the first place?" Mari asked. "Were there patches of unexploded fluid at the site of interest?"

"Well there were a few unopened containers in Dr. Ghee's lab that was still secure."

"I see. Well, the agents mentioned that there was an unidentified explosion on Garnet-13. Has anyone analyzed that site?" Mari examined the wreckage of the workstation. There was a slight dusting of green powder on some surfaces.

"We can use this result here and compare it to that explosion."

Mari acquired two pairs of latex gloves and handed one to Sammy. Then she found a sample container and used a micro spatula to scrape some powder into the container. She closed it, then did the same with other containers until the powder was gone. There were four small containers in total, each with less than a gram of powder.

"When can we take a field trip to Garnet-13?" Mari asked.

"Right after this lockdown." Sammy replied.

"Perfect." Mari took a moment to place the containers on a tray. "And when will that be?"

There was no response. Mari turned around.

Behind her, Sammy had slumped soundlessly to the floor. The other scientists were snoozing at their workstations. Mari sniffed the air. Some kind of sleeping gas? If so, it looked like one she had a resistance to, and she hadn't had the time to build up a resistance to anything other than... Oh. The intruder must have been sent by her mother.

Mari took off her gloves. "Who are you? Syrah? Marx?"

A short person dropped out of an air duct and landed neatly on the floor. She pulled off her mask and shook out her blonde hair.

"Sammy here told me the air ducts were blocked off," Mari commented.

Syrah winked. "Nothing a good diamond laser can't solve."

Mari smirked. "It's good to see you, Syrah. Don't tell me you're here to steal some fluid samples. I'm afraid we need them for analysis."

"Actually, your mother was concerned about you. The news about you and a celebrity being a witness to Dr. Ghee's assassination, and then how the hospital records indicated you were still there but how the peridot drone couldn't find you..."

"That's kind of you and Mother, but I'm perfectly fine here." Mari smiled. "Bullet wound is healed, and look at this lab!" She twirled around. "Oh, if you could call my work, though, that'd be great. Tell them I'm sick and will be out for another week or possibly longer."

Syrah nodded.

"Now, tell me the real reason you're here. There's no way this is only a 'rescue mission.'"

Syrah laughed maniacally. "Of course not. Though, truly, if you'd like to leave, now is your chance."

Assassination, probably. Of someone in this building. Mari ran through the possibilities. "Who's the target?"

"Someone in a high place." Syrah shrugged. "I'd like to assassinate an ordinary person for once. Too many scummy people that manupulate the public... the stench of it gets under your skin."

"I've got that narrowed down to two people."

"50/50 chance of guessing correctly." Syrah smirked. "Now, I really must be off, while the doors are still locked and people are kept in place."

She launched herself up and caught the edge of the duct, then pulled herself up and closed the grate behind her. Through the grate, her brown eyes twinkled briefly at Mari before she slipped away.

Mari slumped against the counter and closed her eyes, pretending the sleeping gas had knocked her out as well. So. The director or Ilias. What should she do? Nothing, if she didn't want to get targeted by an assassin from her mother's business. Interfering with a job was one of the worst possible offenses.

But the assassination of the director could throw the agency into tumult and slow down the investigation. And if it were Ilias...

Mari groaned internally, opened her eyes a crack to make sure everyone was still asleep, then launched herself up and pushed the grate into the duct, then pulled herself up into the duct.


* disclaimer: mint and Jazz have forgotten 90% of their chemistry knowledge and do not know if this is how liquid nitrogen actually works