Shadow sat under a tree and looked around as he drank the water that he had in his flask. he looked out at the small town that he was staying in at the moment. he had spent most of the money that he had to rent the room in the tavern that he was saying in. he had the room for another 2 weeks before he had to pay again or leave. he had seen new people coming and going from this tavern and thats why he chose to stay at it for a while. most of the people that came by were normal towns people but some had weapons and armor that looked far different that what shadow had ever seen. some of them carried guns and others carried swords. he wondered why they would even come here to this tavern in the first place.

Orion awoke in his home. It was nice owning a place all to yourself. One of the benefits of rich parents and being head of a mob he guessed. Orion walked out of his home and took his motorbike down to a small town. A horribly medieval place, but always a nice place to pick up new members for a gang.

He walked into a tavern and spun around looking at all the people around. Figuring his reputation would attract anyone worth getting he asked for a glass of the whiskey he paid the bartender a fair amount of money to keep for whenever he kept by. Of course that was technically illegal as he was underage but that was nothing compared to things everyone here would have done. "How would you like it sir?" the bartender mumbled quietly.

"On the rocks of course, idiot," Orion shook his head, taking the glass and moving over to a table full of people. He looked them all over. None seemed worth the time of day, so he casually said, "Shoo, this table is mine," completely casually. Of course that wouldn't get the best response from a group of hardened criminals. One launched up and grabbed Orion's collar.

"Do you think I'd act so confident if I didn't have backup?" Orion asked with a smirk and without anything further the man let go and looked around carefully before getting his group to move. Luckily for them they did for one of his men were in that tavern with 2 pistols, as he always made sure someone was silently tailing him. He nodded to the man and that man walked out of the tavern. Smiling Orion took his seat, waiting for his renowned rainbow hair to grab someone's attention of his true identity. Surely someone had the basic mental capacity to recognise him. Orion sipped his whiskey and smirked at what he was sure to eventually come that day.

Sanguine emerged from her cave that she dwelled in just outside of town. She yawned and stretched, feeling tired due to the lack of sleep last night. The grass felt damp under her bare feet which sent shivers up her legs. " I hate mornings." She said holding her head, obviously hung over.

Volkir cawed and flew out of the cave, perching himself upon Sanguine's shoulder.

"You're right." Sanguine said to the birs as if she understood it. "Let's see if this place has anything to eat." Sanguine strapped Lady of Despair to her back and she walked into town, letting Volkir sit on her shoulder.

-as jack woke up in the woods where he normally slept he got up and walked to town alone-
-jack reports to the blacksmith shop that he owns and works at and waits for customers-
-he walks outside and says"The store is now open"

Shadow sighed having seen only a few new people show up so far. he shook his head and then stood up. he did a quick check of all of his weapons. he then walked into the tavern and ordered a drink. he then went to a table in the back where the lighting was from only the sun. he smiled as he enjoyed just watching people go about their day even when something seemed different. he could tell the others in the tavern were a bit nervous but he couldn't tell why just yet.

-as jack had put the shop on hold for a lunch break, he goes ahead and goes to the tavern and sits at table by himself and tinkers on his sword-

Meep Meep Meep Meep.... Aery's telephone/alarm clock was ringing. She groaned, cracked an eye open, and smacked the phone, inadvertently hitting "answer" to Peter's phone call.
"Aery, come on, we've got to go on a training run!" He shouted through the phone.
"I don' wanna. Just let me sleep... We don't have to appear in a story for like five more months yet!"
"Aery, get out of bed NOW, or I'm coming up there with a bucket of water. With ice cubes in it."
That, at least, got her moving. She sprang out of bed. "Alright, I'm up. Five minutes and I'll be dressed."
Without bothering to hang up the phone she yanked on her running outfit, pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and checked her watch. Two minutes left... Maybe enough time to put on makeup. But actually she'd just sweat it off, probably, if she tried to wear it this morning. Oh well.
"Alright, where are you?" she picked up the phone.
"Waiting outside your door, where else?" Peter sounded amused. Aery ran down the stairs and yanked open the front door to see Peter and the rest of the other boys sitting on the porch, finishing a picnic breakfast. Without looking at her Peter tossed her an egg sandwich. She wolfed it down, not really bothering to taste it, and was done in time to help them pack the leftover food up.
Several of the boys kept looking at her out of the corners of their eyes. Finally, Aery snapped.
"What? Just... What?! Why are you looking at me like that?!"
They looked sheepish. "We've not seen you without makeup for a while..." Alex said, scratching his neck awkwardly. Kyle and Jon both flushed and looked away.
"It's slightly disconcerting." Adam tried to clarify. Aery bit her lip and looked away, trying not to show how much those words hurt.
"You guys know what happened. And it can hardly be my fault that I'm disfigured, not when YOU were the ones who ABANDONED me. For two years. Two years I was alone in that dark room forced to listen while other people were tortured and killed, forced to grit my teeth and bear things that I can't even find the words to explain." Tears threatened to spill over her eyelashes and she went to go back inside. "If you want the pretty Aery, you're too late. You're stuck with me."
Peter grabbed her wrist tightly. To the other boys he said "I knew it was a mistake to bring you all."
They all looked terribly guilty. "We didn't realize she'd react like that."
"Just let me go, Peter." To the others she said, "I don't want to spend time with you, not when all you can see is how damaged I am."
He just held her wrist tighter. "Come on, Aery, you can't mean that. You'll feel better after a run."
she sighed, but joined in when they all piled into the Prius.
Peter was right. She did enjoy the run. Up in the mountains, running through the meadows and jumping over streams and logs in an impromptu obstacle course.
When they finally got done, three hours later, they piled back into the Prius. "I was thinking that we could stop at the tavern and get something to drink...I'm parched." Peter said, a mischievous glint in his eye.
Wordlessly Aery handed him her water bottle. "I'm not going to go into a tavern, not when I might have to deal with people."
Alex nudged her a little harder than strictly necessary with his elbow. "Come on, Aery, it'll be fun."
"No! If you guys freaked out seeing me without makeup, think what the average person might do!"
Still, they outvoted her, five to one, and so she found herself being dragged into a tavern to get a soda. Then they had a dilemma. All the tables were full except for two, both of which held only a single teenager. One she got an intense sense of wrongness from, though he seemed charismatic enough. The other was sharpening a... God in heaven, what the bleep was a kid her age doing with a sword?!
None of them knew what to do. Aery felt her concealed pistol pressed up against her thigh. Absently she tucked her mechanical pencil behind her ear, the one with the poison leads, and went over to ask the swordless teenager if they might sit at a table with him.

-keeps tinkering with the sword and then talks to self-
"well it looks like i'll have to take it to the shop"-stops tinkering and slides sword in the sheath and puts it to the side-
-then jack pulls out a book from his travel pack and begins to read, but the book is over the ancient art mythical creatures-

Seeing someone approach him, Orion casually stands up and raises an eyebrow slightly to the approaching figure. Orion quickly stood up and in a cold voice asked, “How may I be of service?” scanning the perimeter for his men. Five. Very good. “In case you get any ideas being one of those dreadful assassins or something that seem to love trying to kill me, I’ve got five armed men surrounding the perimeter,” Orion says with a dark smile.

Aery flashed him a borderline-unfriendly smile too. "Oh, good. Then we're evenly matched." The boys were mingling with the crowd, but she knew they all had eyes on her. "Is it such a crime for a girl and her friends to ask to share a table with someone?" She sipped from her coke most nonchalantly, though she fiddled with her pencil, absently clicking the lead up and pushing it back in (without letting it break her skin, or she'd fall over dead.) She didn't think the boy would do anything with so many witnesses but it never hurt to be prepared.

-as jack keep reading he puts on his reading glasses and keeps reading but yet sighs of lonesome-

Orion's mind analyses the situation. Use of the word friends probably means that that was all of them. No other back-up. Good, Orion figured that probably put him in the advantage. Or maybe not, he can't figure anything for sure. Better to play it safe. "You're sure going to a lot of trouble to see little ol' me, and I haven't even gotten your name yet," he said, not stating his own name due to believing this young woman must've known who he was sitting here, not even considering the fact it was a coincidence.

Shadow sat and watched everything that was going on in the tavern. he sighed and then stood up and paid the bartender for his drink and then walked outside. he made it out the door when he remembered that he had left his lance on the chair. he went back and picked it up and then walked to the stairs and went to his room. he checked his weapons and armor that he had left in the room. he smiled and then locked the door behind him. if anyone broke in here they would be dead by the time they turned on the lights.

Aery also sized up Orion. There's something definitely... wrong about him. I know that much. The last time she'd ignored this instinct she'd wound up tortured to within an inch of her life. But... There were too many witnesses here. And anyway, he didn't strike her as the kind to physically hurt someone, more the kind to psychologically break them down. And that she could resist, had resisted, before.
She flashed her most charming smile. "I'd rather sit here than with that crazy-looking boy with the sword. And all of the other tables are full. As far as names, I'd rather not give mine, not until I know why such a charismatic fellow as yourself is so obviously on guard. Should I be afraid?" She leaned against the table, filing her nails with an emery board (she always kept one in her purse for encounters like this, so that she could hide her expression.)

"No need to be afraid, but someone in my line of work can't trust anyone who comes up to him just because they've got a pretty face," Orion chuckled, figuring out two main ways that she could possibly take that flattery, which would allow him to understand her personality a lot better, while at the same time putting on a more friendly facade. Damn I'm a genius Orion internally mused to himself, biting his lip and looking at the girl, waiting for a response.

Aery, considering that the boy's suddenly friendly demeanor and obvious flattery was designed to test her (For that is what she herself is trying to do to him), quickly considered her options. One, blush and bridle like an idiot; Two, shut him down by stammering and blubbering about her own hideousness, also like an idiot; Three, take a passive, uninterested stance. She debated taking option one, throwing him off on estimating her personality, but after another split-second, went with option three. No harm in showing him who she really was.
She raised an eyebrow a fraction of an inch, making eye contact with him for a split-second before resuming her nail-filing. They were already in perfect shape, neatly polished a high-shine blue-silver color. It was just something to feign nonchalance. "And what would that line of work be?" Still keeping her voice light. "Given the number of guards you have, and the quantity of concealed weapons, I would guess something dangerous. Perhaps you are an assassin, as you accuse me of. Or a drug trafficker. Or a trafficker of humans. Whatever you are, I would think it's a fair assumption that you and I do not walk on the same side of the law." Technically not a lie; Aery was so all-over that line that it has ceased being a line for her, rather becoming a smooth gradient of various degrees of lawlessness.

Orion nodded at that behavior. Figuring she wasn't an airhead he figured earlier she'd either ignore him or get offended by the hint of being nothing more than a pretty face. Looks like she was one of the calm ones who won't be easy to rile with subtleties. God, those ones are hard to mess with. "If anything I suppose you could call me an investor in a little bit of all of that. I supply some people and get them started, they get big, I get a cut of the profits if they want to keep their neck. Yucky business that is, I don't ask details and leave them alone other than my 40% cut. When you have a lot of shady bosses like that losing that much money, better to be on the safe side in case they slip past my surveillance and send someone at me." Orion said casually, slightly surprised that she hadn't heard of him already. "Is taking money from those types of people who'd spend it getting more drugs or slaves or deaths for some nice whiskey and ending up with their heads gone every now and then so bad?" Orion asked the girl, now trying to analyse her ethical and moral standpoint.

Aery's eyebrow flicked up again, the tiniest bit. This was a dangerous man. Boy. For he couldn't have been all that much older than her.
Still, she had to admire the boy. It took guts to make a business out of such a gods-forsaken game as the illegal trafficking.
Realizing she'd been about to fall into another test trap, Aery calmed herself, collected her wits. "It is certainly a unique business venture. As far as its moral value, surely it is no better and no worse than what your... employees... themselves take part in." Her lip curled the tiniest bit.
"On a more personal note, which federal agency did you recruit your bodyguards from? They seem too well-trained to be self-taught." She knew one of the guards was nonchalantly coming closer behind her. Casually she blew on her nails, inspected them, tucked her emery board into her pocket, as she did double-checking that her pistol was ready to fire.

"Surely someone like you doesn't see that as so black and white," Orion chuckled, then noticed one of his men edging toward her. She seemed trained enough to notice the fool, and nearly missed the question about the guards. "Well, MSS, RAW, Mossad, MI6, abandoned black ops operatives, but hand-to hand combat I taught them myself. Hardly better than any other drunken lout on the streets before I taught them thorough Aikido, Lerdrit and a touch of Okichitaw," Orion replied, a bit of an exaggeration at their lack of ability prior to his martial art training, but compared to how they were now it seemed fair to say that.

Aery felt a wash of respect, but stifled it. How was that different than her own training by the CIA and FBI and DHS?
She bit her lip, a sly smile playing across her face. "That's quite a lot of expertise. How did one as young as yourself acquire so much knowledge?"
The idiot guard came up closer, his hands up like he was going to strangle her. She let him get his fingers within two inches of her throat, then lightning-fast she ducked, and kicked out behind her, hitting him squarely in a not-so-nice place. Pivoting, she guided the man as he collapsed, pushing him into the table, putting all her weight on his arms so that he had to remain there or break a joint.
She looked up at the boy, her ice-blue eyes cold. "Your man wanted to kill me. Tell me why and give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill him for this grievous assault against my person."
Finally some of her boys came up, flanking her. All five of them, shockingly. Peter with his pistol half-drawn, Adam and Alex casually, and Jon and Kyle like they had no idea what was going on.
"Everything alright?" Peter asked warily, eyeing the man on the table.
Without taking her eyes off the boy, without shifting her weight off of the guard's arms. "Everything's fine. I was having a debate with this young gentleman and one of his... personnel... decided that I had spent more than my allotted time at this table. As you can see, my side of the debate was favored." She had been about to say "the gods favored my side of the debate." But she figured it would be a mistake to let this morally-ambiguous boy onto her religious beliefs.