_Essex_

Essex let out a little squeak as she was placed back on the ground, adjusting her upper armor indignantly as she shuffled to hide behind Solid.

"I'm fine, sir, thank you." she said gratefully, peeking out from behind the larger android's leg to look uneasily at Rosalind.

Rosie just sighed with a little wave of her hand. "Awh, chill, I'm just funnin' the kid." she said carelessly. "She can take it. But if the big bots say lay off, guess I better."

The were-human's attention was abruptly shifted to Kairaishi. She sniffed the air, her eyes widening a touch.

"...Oooh. An Oni." she breathed. "Murasaki class as well. Maybe this isn't a total [censored] waste of my time after all."

"Hrro Fr Mrgmff..." Essex greeted Morgant piteously from where she hung. The next moment, she wheeled in surprise at the scream from inside, struggling to get down from Rosalind's grip as Hal dashed off into the building.

Rosalind just yawned at the scream, the were-human just examining her claws as she kept her grip on Essex.

"Jeez, your little boyfriend sure ran off hella fast." she said coolly. "Can't say I blame him."

"Hz nt my bffrnd!" Essex said indignantly, struggling to raise herself above the collar of the armor.

Rosalind quirked an eyebrow. "Yeah, right."

With that, she began walking into the mansion nonchalantly, carrying Essex aloft by the collar as she went.

"...Rikti." Pariku remarked, narrowing his eyes. "And they appear to be trying to harness arcane power. As extraordinarily interesting as the result may be, I highly doubt that it will prove beneficial to us."

Nena's left ear twitched and bucked a little, and she turned her eyes to another tunnel mouth.

"I thought I heard great justice." she said mildly.

"Ian!" Essex cried as he seemed to go pale. Looking in distress between the conflict and her friend, the little android set her jaw.

Shaking her head at the Phantasm with an embarassed smile, despite the situation, she sighed. "Thank you Phantasm. I'll do my best, too."

With that, she hovered into the air, her eyes sharp. She let her Adrenalin Boost go to Hallucinogen even as she dropped Fortitude and Clear Mind on Ian, staying near her classmate protectively.

"Ian, what's going on? Who are these people!?"

"Wah..." Essex said, looking around wide-eyed. She was quite overwhelmed by the number of people she knew in the area - Helper, Toy, Solid, Tomanton, Morgant, Hal, Moonscribe, Experiment...Just to name a few.

"H-hello..." she murmured, suddenly quite shy and inching behind Rosalind.

"Shees." the were-human scowled, turning around and lifting the little pink robot by the back of her armor where a dog would lift its puppy by the scruff of the neck. "Why you hidin' from your friends, movie star?"

"Mm noffa muffy stir." Essex protested quietly, face red, as she kicked helplessly in the air in Rosie's grip, the armor shifted up so the collar covered the bottom half of her face.

Her kicking intensified as Cortianna all but shoved flames in her face.

Rosalind only chuckled, turning to Toy while still keeping a grip on the hapless little android.

"Sup TD?" she said, with a duck of her head. "Where're the boys? Y'all in this 'social experiment' [censored] too?"

((Okay, I'm somewhat confused. I think we skipped a significant amount of time here - If I recall correctly the explody goodness was in October, and now it's December 19th. Oo;;; ))

Tomanton and Kaloaten were soon interrupted by the sound of two voices arguing.

Well, one voice arguing and one voice apologizing.

"Jeezopetes, why do I have to be saddled with you AGAIN!? I mean, seriously. It's like the cosmic entities hate me or something. You're just baggage, you know."

"I know...I'm so sorry, miss Rosalind, I'll try not to bother you."

"Then don't talk."

An older girl with dog ears laid back aggressively against her black hair dragged along a little pink android. The dog-girl seemed angry...the android sheepish and frightened.

"This the place in the letter?" Rosalind growled angrily.

"I believe it's the correct address..." Essex murmured quietly in turn, nodding in greeting to Tomanton and Kaloaten.

"Gawd, you're so formal all the time." Penny joked to Percy, re-lifting the paper bag. "You can just call me Penny, you know."

Just then, the elevator stopped on the second floor, and she nodded. "Here's my stop!" she said. "Have a good one, Percy!"

Trotting into her office, she plopped the bag on the front desk and began distributing bags.

"Merry Christmas, everybody!" she called out cheerfully, passing out the still-warm cookies, the heat preserved via the paper bag.

"What's got you so fired up?" one of her co-workers asked.

"Eh, what, couldn't you finish those yourself?" another laughed. "Better look out or you'll have some 'Penny rolls' to cash in."

This co-worker was greeted with a sharply flung bag of cookies to the face.

Once everything was distributed, Penny sat down to begin work. The good thing about the Christmas season in her division was that most everyone was ramping down for vacation - and that meant a much smaller, more relaxed stream of purchase orders.

"...Awh, I gotta go hunt down Milly." she muttered, remembering another of the bags. "Not like I'm busy."

Penny obligingly hit the third floor button with her elbow, shifting the weight of the large bag.

"Oh, I'm good!" she said. "I'm tired, but good. I got up way early to bake these cookies for everybody. Oh, that reminds me - I guess I spoiled the surprise."

She set the bag down and rifled through it, before producing a little bag and handing it off to Percy.

"Merry Christmas, Percy!" she said with a grin. He was one of the people whose name she actually knew, so she had labelled his - the little gift-bag holding the cookies decorated with little stars. "And you better take it. I put your name on it and everything."

Penny's mother had always nailed one thought into her head - everyone's friends around the dinner table. Her mother was an Italian woman and had taught Penny her cooking secrets - not the least of which was to share whatever it was you were cooking.

Of course, along with the cooking, Penny had also inherited her temper.

"...Though I swear I'm gonna sock someone if it gets much colder." she proclaimed, pulling her jacket tighter around herself with her shoulders. "I freakin' hate being cold."

Nena just blinked.

"Less talkie, more swordie." she repeated, shouldering her blade again.

Pariku facepalmed silently.

"Oh yeah!" Nena said, turning towards Hotaka. "Why are you evil folks helpin' us out?"

"I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation for everything." Pariku said, as he attempted to do a surface scan of the ninja master's mind. It was relatively non-invasive, just the equivalent of reading the back cover of a novel.

The young man tended to neutrality, himself....but he was also quite suspicious.

"Oh dear." Essex said simply.

Glancing down into her lap, she paused. She got these kinds of children every once in a while...and they were always somewhat difficult to take care of.

Rosalind's eyes widened.

"...Is human good?" she asked Devin, eyes saucer wide and tail wagging wildly.

"Regardless of whether it is or not..." Essex said with a little smile, "...I'm afraid I've already decided that we're having strawberry shortcake for dessert. But thank you, Devin. I'm glad to know what happened. Now."

Turning her eyes to Burning, she lifted a hand to him placatingly. "Don't any of you worry. Your powers will be back soon. I just don't want anything distracting you while we have a talk, all right? Now then."

Looking at Blightlord, she wagged her finger slightly. "Now then...Playing is one thing, but I won't tolerate bullying. It's like I said, we all have to learn to play nicely with one another. Some people can take roughhousing better than others. So please respect each other."

"And as for right and wrong..." she said, smiling at Devin. "...It's very true that people do things that are wrong. But right now...you're all still learning what right and wrong are. So give each other a little breathing room - there are a lot of situations where it's difficult, or people don't know what they're doing is wrong. We'll sit down and talk about it in more detail later."

With that, she let out a good-natured giggle.

"But no. We certainly won't be eating anyone today. I try to make it a habit not to eat my friends."

((OOC: And to respond to an earlier comment, YES...playing Essex like this is driving me INSANE. But I love it. XD; This is actually how I'd imagine her to be if she got older and ...omg...STOPPED WORRYING ABOUT EVERYTHING.))

"Fascinating." Pariku murmured, adjusting his glasses.

"Less talkie, more swordie." Nena complained, hefting the Heart Render over her head.

((And by the way, DV, how could you be waiting on my reply when the only character I have in this thread is asleep? XD;;

...Well, she's not anyMORE, but...))

"Gah!...woah...Guah!"

Penny nearly slammed into Percy from behind.

"[censored] mother [censored] new shoes! No traction, no traction at all!"

New shoes + an overnight coating of ice + Penny's inherent clumsiness = not good.

Penny in particular hated ice. Snow she could deal with, but there was something about winter she couldn't stand. She hated being cold, and she above all hated the feeling of being unsteady on her feet.

"Sorry Percy." she apologized to the programmer with a sheepish smile as she walked through the X-ray thing. "You know me; still learning to walk."

Penny was in a good mood, though. Her arms were full of a large paper bag, her purse dangling from her elbow. Penny loved the Christmas season - as sharp-tempered and snarky as she was, she loved giving presents to people. Even if it was somewhat juvenile.

"Merry Christmas, boys!" she sang as she plopped the bag on the security desk. Shuffling her arm through the contents, she brought out three little neatly wrapped bags, each containing about five homemade chocolate chip cookies.

"I made 'em myself!" she said with a grin. "Stayed up to make this batch so they'd be warm for ya. Figured you guys'd be cold staying by the door all the time."

Glancing at her watch, her eyes widened. "[censored], gotta bail!" she cried, sprinting to the elevator as she always did.

Essex picked up Magda, cradling the little fairy as she knelt down next to Virelai. The caretaker's powers still worked, so she carefully took the naiad's thumb in her hands, concentrating to release a pulse of nanites to the injury directly.

Magda in one arm, she sat, pulling Virelai into her lap to comfort her with the other arm, looking around the room sternly.

Rosalind trotted over to the boys, looking unsure. When Miss Essex got upset, it was rarely a good sign.

"...Remember..." she said, sternly, but still gently. "We all have to live with one another. If anyone has a problem with someone else, come and talk to me. Don't take things into your own hands, because then someone will get hurt...and I don't want any of you to get hurt. Now what happened here?"

Essex simply shook her head.

Her hand moved to a small button on her left buster arm.

Suddenly...there was nothing.

All powers in the front room were nullified, the entry-way cut off with a thin blue ephemerial film.

"Now then..." she said. "It seems to me we need to learn how to get along."

OOC: THE END. XD

"Of course." Essex said with a bow of her head. "And here....take this."

She held out a little keyfob to Solid, looking up at the taller android.

"This will get you into the base whenever you need it. Please drop by, whenever you need anything. And...If you see Hallucinogen..."

She glanced down at the floor.

"....Let him know that I might not see him for a little while."

"Maybe it would be better if we let him sleep." Essex whispered back nervously. "He's awfully grumpy when he wakes up...and he has his business trip tomorrow anyway."

Taking a few tentative steps towards the doctor, she turned back to whisper to Solid, "...Do you want to look around? Or would you rather head out?"

Penny curled up on the hospital's couch, her face creasing with the noise.

"[censored]." she muttered in her sleep.

Essex nodded emphatically. "After all, Dr. West expressed some interest in meeting you."

She entered a code into the door as they approached it, hidden as it was. A tiny machine emerged from a port, and she held out the palm of her hand as it scanned over with a thin line of light.

"Dr. West engraves designs in the palms of our right hands." she explained to Solid. "They're only a few nanometers deep, and, though they resemble actual pictures if you're able to see them, they're actually composed of intricate fractals. The fractals are each unique, like a fingerprint."

With that, the door slid open obligingly, and she led him in.

The laboratory was mostly dark, blue edgelights providing most of the illumination in the base.

Dr. West sat, slumped in a large chair in front of several monitors, his head ducked against his chest...asleep.

He had his assault rifle in his lap, and his laser pistol resting on a remote table next to him.

"Oh dear." Essex whispered.

Pariku silently continued his work at disorienting the Kraken with flames, but was analyzing Ryuu suspiciously. He appreciated the help, but this man seemed...evil. The psychic could sense his mind was heavily guarded.

Nena was less discerning.

"YAY!" she squealed as Ryuu's ninja came in beside her to tank the Kraken. "Hey, ya know I thought you might be evil but you're doing nice things so we can fight later okay?"

Pariku turned his eyes to where he last saw Reginald, reaching out with his mind to gently place a message in the bowman's own.

Keep your eyes on that one. the magepriest warned.

Essex spent some time on her communicator without saying a word.

She sighed, and hung it up after a little while.

"No response." the android said, a little worriedly. "Usually there's someone managing the communications systems, but I guess they stepped away."

Skimming back to the entrance to the lab, Essex gently alighted on the ground.

"Thanks, Solid." she said with a bow of her head. "Sometimes I just need to get away, I guess."

Oh, I hate those damn Sky Raider FFG's.

*FUME*

I was helping Hal with some of his missions last night and we unwittingly were set against some Malta.

AWK-WARD....

But it was my first time fighting them.

Gunslingers are scary as [censored].