_Essex_

"Is everyone done eating already?" Essex asked in some surprise as she led the new children towards the table.

"Okay, no more till tonight!" Rosie whispered harshly from under the table, transforming into puppy form with a little bark. She scampered up to Essex, tail wagging, and sat at her feet.

"Hahah. Well, everyone, if you're finished, shall we go into the living room? I've got some activities for you all to do."

YAY FOR KREIGG!

*Rosie waves pom-poms*

Oh, and that reminds me.

Rosie came from me and my boyfriend and my best friend's desire to make a story/cartoon/comic that was a fusion between Ghostbusters, Beetlejuice, and CSI. 'Rose' is my middle name, and Rosalind is my mirror character. Her partners, Emry and Pherelith, are my boyfriend and my best friend.

You'd never know it, but Rosie's the cheerful, uplifting one when she's around Emry and Phe.

((Hey, Hal, since Reginald and P&N have met in-game, d'you think they've met in-thread?))

"Calm yourself, madame." Pariku lifted his hands placatingly to Azuria. "We only wish to assist you. Please, let us know what we can do to help."

The young man's psychic abilities made it simple for him to release a wave of calming energy - not incredibly potent, but soothing nonetheless.

Nena, on the other hand, had turned her attention to the grey-coated boy who had come in behind them.

"Hi!" she said cheerfully and rather loudly.

Mweeheeehee! </lite kefka laugh>

Every character I have mentioned/introduced in Tharomar Enterprises is based off a real person. :3

"Uagh!!" the red-haired young man spluttered as he shot into a seated position. His left hand scrambled frantically for his strange, outdated-looking spectacles and he fumbled them onto his face.

Pariku's breath heaved as he looked around the tiny apartment, wide-eyed. His eyes rested on the bedroom doorway at the end of the short hall.

Those resonations...

"NENA!" he barked, pounding on the door. "Get up, we are going to MAGI immediately!"

"NARGH." came a pillow-ruffled snarl of disapproval from behind the door.

"I know you're still sleeping, Nena, but this is important." the young man argued at the door. "I have not sensed this magnitude of magical manipulations since before we planeshifted here in the first place!"

He sighed in remembrance. That stupid, stupid girl had disrupted his planeshifting spell and sent them both to this frighteningly futuristic (yet fascinating) locale of Paragon City. Luckily for them, the kind woman at MAGI, Azuria, seemed quite used to such phenomena and kindly provided them both with a place to live in Atlas.

"What the HELL...." a female voice snapped as the door fired open, revealing a twenty-something girl wearing nothing but a blanket wrapped about her, "...do you need ME for?"

Nena was the type of girl that men took a second glance at, despite her oddities. Magical occurences back on their home world had transformed her into a lycanthrope, but via magical means instead of the standard occult practices. She was a werefox, but even in her human form she had perky, triangular red and black ears and a long, fluffy tail. Nena's hair was a striking sunset orange, quite similar to Pariku's, actually, except it curled and rippled down in playful waves down nearly to the small of her back.

Pariku promptly gripped his nose, his glasses filling with fog.

"Nena!" he gasped. "P-put some clothes on!"

"Yeah, yeah.....What, you think I sleep in my armor?"

"N-no, but --"

"You squishy cloth-wearers are all the same." Nena muttered, slamming the door in Pariku's face. "I'll be ready soon."

"Oh, dear oh dear." Pariku mumbled to himself, feebly reaching for a tissue.

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

The two of them walked into Azuria's office at MAGI not half an hour later, Nena in her glimmering green dragon-skin armor, the shining broadsword strapped to her back. Pariku walked along with her, nodding in greeting to Azuria.

"Greetings, madame." he said, with a bow. "I was wondering if you had any news regarding that great arcane disruption not long ago."

((A conversation to amuse you all:

Me on the phone with my boyfriend -
Me: "I don't know what powers to give Penny. *explain RP*"
Him: "Do they have to be in-game powers?"
Me: "Well, not really I guess, but..."
Him: "How about she turns into a ball of kinetic energy and can bounce off walls?"
Me: "...What?"
Him: "You know, like....her body turns into energy, and she just...zips around, bouncing off the walls."
Me: "...Her power would be bouncing off walls?"
Him: "Yeah!"
Me: "...................And what else?"
Him: "Isn't that enough?"))

Penny hesitated in front of Mr. Tharomar. Something was wrong, but she couldn't place her finger on it. All at once, though, she was self-conscious at how long she had stood there, and nodded her head.

"...I'll be going now, sir." she murmured, silently thankful that he didn't seem to pay attention to her large black eye.

With that, she backed out of the office, and picked up her step towards the elevator.

It was more than time to go home. She needed a bath.

Nooooo....T_T We'll miss you!!

"Hm..." Rosalind thought, her black ears perked above the table.

"Treehouse." she decided finally. "We sneak out tonight after lights-out, and hit the treehouse for an emergency meeting. Pass the word among the boys. And remember. Nobody snitches to Miss Essex or Archie."

Rosie was under the table, and trotted to where Marcus sat, popping up between his chair and Craig's.

"Lissen, we'll have time to discuss plans tonight. If we're gonna do this, it's a big operation, an' we don't have time for Archie to find out 'bout it."

"No way." Rosie whispered between the two boys. "I seen this b'fore. Pass it on - secret meeting after lights-out tonight in the girls' room."

Essex ran to the door to pick up the new arrival, looking behind her to keep an eye on the kids at the table.

"Ah...Yes, I see. Thank you..." she said, kneeling to face the wolf. "Magdalene is more than welcome here." Smiling as Sienna seemed to respond to her right away, Essex began back towards the living room, when the phone rang.

"Ah, hello?" she answered it. Suddenly, the caretaker's face lit up. "Mikhail!" she exclaimed, turning a little away from the children.

Rosalind's head peeked up above the line of the table and she raised a hand for silence.

"How are you?" Essex sounded quite happy on the phone. "Really? ...Ohh, that's -....Of course! ...Tomorrow? ...What time? ....But the kids, I - .....Well, I suppose I could, but.... Seven? ....S-sure!"

Essex's cheeks were tinged with a little blush and she was smiling broadly as she spoke into the phone. "Okay, you'll pick me up at seven tomorrow then? ...Great! See you then!"

With that and a clack of the phone hanging up, Essex twirled to the stairs. "Sir Archlich!" she called up the stairs. "Would you be able to watch the kids solo tomorrow night?"

"....We got trouble." Rosie muttered.

((GAH! I knew I was neglecting something.

My humblest apologies, Leo.))

Essex suddenly burst out laughing...although it was a sad laugh.

"...What a good husband."

With that, she disengaged from the cleaning droid.

"We won't be learning much else from this unless we get someone who knows their way around magic." she said to Hal. "In any case, I say we check out the place where the bullet casing was found."

((Happy Birthday Halo!

And Experiment, you better hope that plastic armor of yours is strong. :P))

Essex sat the two kids down at the table, passing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to Virelai and a turkey and cheese sandwich to Devin. Rosalind was in her seat next to Ghoul, and had bitten a mask out of her little circle of turkey, mashing the slice of lunchmeat onto her face.

"Hey, Ghoul!" she whispered. "Lookit me, I'm Mister Archlich! BLARG. MY EYES GLOW WHEN I'M CRANKY. BLARG."

Nessie ate her PBJ quietly with her right hand only, her gaze flickering to the new children behind her thick spectacles. Cobalt, Toy, and Ani in particular interested her, but she was wary. Her huge robotic claw of a left arm hung down beside the chair, the spikelike fingers dangling effortlessly.

((XD;; Holy [censored]. ))

Essex listened to Devin, her eyes sad. Cleaning the mud from him a little more as he brushed his teeth, she spoke quietly.

"Well, there will be no pushing here. But there will also be no cutting people, okay? Archlich and I will handle things. Now then."

Carefully combing his hair a little, gently, she continued. "Virelai was hurt when you bit her. It would be nice of you to apologize to her, you know. She's a very nice girl."

Once he was cleaned up, she put a hand on both the childrens' backs and began to lead them out to the dining room.

"Now let's get you two some sandwiches. Devin, you look positively starved."

"Good evening, sir." Penny said in her polite, businesslike manner. It was true that she hadn't had much contact with Tharomar, but she knew how to act around superiors.

Turning the envelope so it faced him, she neatly placed it down on his desk in an area just to his left - not directly in front of him, as that would make it seem like it was the most important thing he had to do. If she played her cards right here, she could easily move up in the assistant hierarchy.

"Mr. Tharomar." she said respectfully, her head tilted down so she had to look up to make limited eye contact. "Here is the transcript for the meeting we had earlier. The electronic copies have been destroyed and removed from the temporary archive databases. There have been no copies made, so distribution is at your discretion, sir. The cover page contains a short synopsis and a roster of attendants."

Penny hesitated. She really wanted to go home, but...

"...Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?"

Penny roused herself from her reverie upon seeing Milly leave.

"Hey, Milly!" she greeted the other girl cheerfully. "Burnin' the midnight oil? Don't stay here too late. This place'll eat your soul if you're not careful."

Waving to her as she headed down to the elevator, she once again tapped on Tharomar's door.

Freakin' finally. she thought, the transcript still neatly tucked into a manila envelope under her arm. She thumbed through it to reassure herself it was still there and secure, and awaited his call to enter.

Leeni muttered to herself as she continued composing, now working with a strange, enlarged set of headphones so that none could hear her composition but herself.

"Minor fifth, never works, minor fifth...." the little creature chittered admonishingly to herself. "Shoulda known better than to try the extended chord in this measure."

"All right then." Essex said with a smile, leading him towards the bathroom.

She set Devin up on a little chair, and began cleaning the mud and blood from his face with another washcloth, shaking her head. "How in the world did you get this messy?" she mused. "Oh well." Essex pulsed nanites around Devin, healing his wounds, and placed a little colorful band-aid on his cheek with flying toasters on it.

Reaching up into a cabinet, she got out a new toothbrush, and held it out to him. "You might want to brush your teeth." she said with a smile. "If you don't take care of them, they won't stay strong, you know."

"Ah..." Essex said, looking over the papers.

Her brow creased with sympathy, and she crouched down again to regard Devin.

"At ease, soldier." she said softly. "Now if you're going to be staying here...You can't go around biting people, all right? If someone makes trouble for you, come and find me. I'm Essex, and I'll be taking care of you."

Standing, she offered the small boy a hand. "Now let's get you cleaned up. Everyone's just sitting down to lunch. Would you like a sandwich...?"

Rosalind was watching from under the table, her luminescent nocturnal eyes flickering slightly.

She tugged Ghoul's shoe from under the table.

"That guy's carrying a doll." she whispered in disbelief.

Penny looked dully at her watch as she waited outside Tharomar's office.

Six o'clock already.

Oh well, it wasn't like she was going home to anyone, she thought glumly.

Oh no. I'm going to miss my date. she mocked herself dryly. The washing machine will be so upset that I stood him up tonight. And me looking like the belle of the ball, too.

Her mind drifted to Big Falls, as it often did. She hoped her ex-boyfriend was happy. She had honestly liked him - loved him, even - but he wasn't able to handle a distance relationship with both of their schedules, and the two of them had mutually agreed to break it off.

Oh, James. she sighed to herself. I wonder what you're doing.

It had been a year and a half now, more than enough time for her to start looking for someone else - but she hadn't really felt it. She was cute, but she wasn't exactly the pretty one in the office - Irma, for one, was much more attractive than she, and there were so many of these willowy little secretarial waifs flitting around...

...She remembered what her best friend, Marie, had told her over the phone.

"Women are like apples, Pen." her friend had advised. "The best ones are near the top of the tree. A lot of guys don't want to take the effort to climb that high, because they're afraid they'll fall and get hurt. So they'll settle for the ones near the bottom, because they're easier, even if they aren't as good. So the apples near the top of the tree feel all bad because they think nobody wants 'em, when in reality they're the best of all.

"Now guys, on the other hand, are like a fine wine. They start off as grapes, and girl, a woman needs to stomp the [censored] out of them to make 'em into something decent to take to dinner."

Penny smiled to herself. That was Marie, all right. She wished her friend hadn't moved to California.

Now, she just tilted her head up, waiting for Mr. Tharomar to finish his appointment, her mind filled with nostalgia for the past.

((OMG overactive imagination FTW. He's going to be so much fun when a few of the ministories start up. :P))

"What?" Essex was instantly alert, hurrying to the hallway and scooping up Virelai. "Virelai! What on earth happened!?" she cried, sprinting to the bathroom with the girl. Wetting a washcloth, she began to clean the blood from her wounds, quickly disinfecting the bite on her neck. Nanites pulsed from around Essex, quickly closing the little blue girl's wounds.

"Hold this here..." she cautioned, holding the washcloth to the bruise, before going out to the hallway to greet the newcomer.

"Well, hello..." she began with a friendly smile, crouching down to face the boy. "What's your name?"

She kept her pose nonthreatening, but was ready to move. If the first thing this kid had done was attack another child unprovoked, things could get interesting...

Zealstorm thinks she's in love. XD

Rosalind: AWWWWH!

*glomps Toy*

And I don't think it's realistic to have everyone lose their memory at the end of Final Fight anyway. Maybe the memories are just a little fuzzy - you remember you met these people, but the fight part just...doesn't seem important, and you have trouble picking up the details?

I guess I started a trend... <_<