August watched Maxwell carefully as he spoke. He was holding back, something was running around his head. But she couldn't place it. Melancholy? He'd hardly be the first person to experience that, especially in the teen years. It wasn't the self loathing she saw in Jackson, it wasn't the alien disconnect in Orion. This was something else. She couldn't place it though. Her eyes flicked to his clothing, tempted to reach out and touch it, if only to satisfy her curiosity, when he suddenly stood up.

“Hey, August, do you hate your power? Are you scared of it? Because I am. How could I not be? I don’t even know where it comes from, or what it is. Is this its limit? Or is it going to get stronger. Am I going to lose control? And what happens if I do?”

The redhead blinked for a moment, locking eyes with the boy.

"Sorry, I guess I'm not that reliable after all,”

She opened her mouth to respond, but was silenced by Jackson breaking the surface of the water. She watched Maxwell move to the boy's side. Standing up, August hesitated, still staring at the water, before taking a few steps towards Jackson after he finished his story. She stayed out of arms reach though, green eyes still jumping to the lake's surface as she spoke to the boy, mind already racing with the facts he had given. The missing teen was there, Maxwell was taking care of him. The kitsune was drugged by Mary, who...didn't pass out from a drug that knocked out a spiritual being. The girl must have some crazy tolerance, which made sense really.

"Strip. You'll freeze faster if you keep the clothes on, we need to get you warm."

August herself would've given him something dry, but she had worn quite literally nothing but a bra under her long sleeve, and she wasn't about to show everything off for a group she had just met that day. The others may have been comfortable in their bodies, but the redhead preferred a bit of mystery. She paced a bit, still avoiding coming down the shore of the lake while her eyes darted about for the others to breach. She wanted to see this Kitsune. She wanted to see a tangible spirit being, see what it looked like, how it talked, acted. A part of her wanted to see what she could glean from it's emotions as well. Probably a stupidly dangerous concept, but the pull was there.

There was a conversation in the current. Orion heard it the first moment he submerged after his little fit. Each little eddy brought another whispered syllable. He blinked in the murky depths of the water, the others swam on ahead. None of them took the time to listen. Orion took a deep breath. He thought it would be hard to mentally adjust to breathing in water, but it came surprisingly easily to him. What was more concerning was the way the water caressed the inside of his lungs, transcribing characters on his simple squamous epithelii. He knew it was trying to tell him something. The world was always trying to tell him something. The water around him seemed to heat with his temper.

"English, motherfucker, do you speak it?" He said to the water. The water replied with incomprehensible undulations. Orion tried to blow bubbles in the water, a lack of air made the process difficult. He sighed aqueously and followed after the rest of them a little faster, long limbs scything through the water. By the time he surfaced at the little cave the others were already landside. Orion remained in the water, treading easily with the water up to his shoulders. He blinked the water out of his eyes in time to see Mary sexually assault an furry.

"Called it," Orion said for his own benefit and looked around the cave. Everything seemed pretty well in hand. Kinda anticlimactic really. Dipping lower into the water Orion lay on his back, expanded his lungs with proper, lung filling air, and floated listlessly on the surface of the grotto pool. Drifting near the far wall he kicked off gently with his feet. A little harder with his left, spinning across the pool. Foxfire shadows cast across the roof of the cave. Orion thought about Plato. Mostly he was thinking about the whispers in the water though. His ears were beneath the surface now. The whispers were whispers no longer. Now they raged in his skull. Not the close, bodily sound of water anymore. It was thunder, arguing across the sky. He could hear it's pealing retorts and booming jabs. He would have thought it would be difficult to adjust to the dissonance was hearing thunder though the water. It wasn't. He considered Mary and the fox girl. It had been a really weird day. Orion remembered that he was naked. He should think about something else before things got even more weird.

Something splashed into the water next to Orion. Orion ducked his head to see what it was. It was Jackson. He was using his glowing eyeball to make a ectoplasmic arm to carry their unconscious rescuee through the water. Sure.

Orion swam along lazily after the rest as they swam back the other way. The thunder in the water had started to fade away, just a few low, rumbling grumbles of some final slights. Orion was sure there was something important to be gleaned from what the thunder said. A revelation yet unknown to him. But the important thing was that was unknown to him. He growled at the water again. Swimming hard upwards Orion breached the surface like a majestic sea beast, surging up the muddy bank of the lake without breaking momentum. His shivered slightly as the cool air struck his wet skin. He opened his eyes and cleared the rest of the water from his throat. The first thing he saw was Maxwell staring almost right at him, a looking rather miffed. Orion stared back blankly for a moment. Orion shrugged broad shoulders. Marching up to his pack and scattered clothing Orion shook some of the water off of himself. Stretching his head to one side he ran his hands long his scalp gripping his soggy mass of nappy hair. Squeezing tightly he wrung a copious amount of water from his kinky coils. Sighing satisfied he straightened, with an inaudible, onomatopoeic 'boing' his hair popped back into a large, rough afro. Reaching into his pack, Orion toweled off with one of the extra shirts he had brought, being as thorough as possible to get the water from all of his nooks and crannies. Finally satisfied he started to dress.

"Strip. You'll freeze faster if you keep the clothes on, we need to get you warm." Reaching into his pack he grabbed another shirt, one of the black shirts from his first band it had the words 'Thus, I Give Up' on it in bold but boring white font and a stylized picture of some tangled rope and driftwood. He also found some jeans. Whistling sharply he tilted his chin up at Jackson.

"Here, killer." Tossing the clothes at the moist teen. They would be a little big on him but at least he wouldn't freeze off his bits. Sitting on the ground Orion sniffed at the unusual sensation of grass brushing his nether regions. Pulling on his socks and finally his briefs and pants he paused to rummage through his large pack again. Pulling out his new acoustic guitar he straitened and fiddled with the tuning. Leaning against a tree opposite the others he waited for the rest of the pack, observing the scene. Seemed it was mostly all he was good for, adjusting the guitar to the curve of his hip he strummed fast but soft. He looked out over the water with the rest. Singing as swift and soft as his strumming, mostly for his own benefit.

"Don't fall in love with me yet
We only recently met
True, I'm in love with you, but
You might decide I'm a nut
Give me a week or two to
Go absolutely cuckoo
Then when you see your error
Then you can flee in terror
Like everybody else does
I only tell you this 'cause
I'm easy to get rid of
But not if you fall in love
Know now that I'm on the make
And if you make a mistake
My heart will certainly break
I'll have to jump in a lake
And all my friends will blame you
There's no telling what they'll do
It's only fair to tell you
I'm absolutely cuckoo"

Jackson scooted away slightly from August as she approached, her ability and his newfound discovery of how Aphosis was affecting him, changing him, made him even more uncomfortable with the girl's powers than he had been before. It didn't help that she asked him to strip, causing his hand to unconsciously move towards his right shoulder, though he quickly put it back down when he noticed what he was doing. He then heard Orion, call to him, looking over just in time to catch the tossed clothing . . . with his face. After getting up, he picked up the clothes and gave a quick nod of thanks to him before he walked into the forest, waiting until he was sure he was hidden from sight and completely alone before he quickly stripped out of his now-moist jacket, soaked shirt, and damp pants and put on what he had been given. It was a little big for him, but he'd manage, tying the belt tight to prevent any embarrassing wardrobe malfunctions.

Once he got a good look at the shirt, however, a dry laugh escaped his lips, the irony of the universe not being lost on him. Taking the wet clothes in his hand, he walked back over to the group, tossing the offending articles onto the sand as he cursed himself for not bringing a bag with him.

"You're not half bad with that thing," Jackson commented as the taller boy began to sing, "Not my kind of music, but I listen to soundscapes in my free time more than anything else so I can't really say I have a taste in music." He took a second to look across the lake, hands in his pockets, feeling as if he could use a bit of a pick me up or something. He'd just had the biggest emotional crash ever right after his biggest high in months, so he was feeling a little depressed at the moment.

"Hey Orion, you wouldn't to have a sketchbook and a pencil in your bag would you, I feel like drawing something right now." That was a lie, he felt like whittling, but he wasn't to comfortable with holding a knife right now around other people, didn't want to tempt the fates.

There were many things that didn't set right with Daniel as the group made their way back to the shore: Kanoa's habit of withholding information, the freakish glowing arm growing out of Jackson's face, and the method of drug delivery that Mary had used. Judging by the way no one freaked the fuck out over the festering protrusion of Jackson's, Danny would have to believe that he had shared it at the pow-wow that Danny had missed or they more focused on getting the boy back home safely. Danny knew that he should be focused on helping the boy they found but as they reached the surface, he couldn't help but think about the kitsune, Yui.

Yui. Jesus Christ she has a name. If everything goes tits up and it comes down to the wire can we really deal with her? Can I? It's not exactly like they have courts or jails for supernatural creatures do they? Would they understand? She looked to be in the same condition as the boy. And why are you sympathizing with her anyway? It's not exactly like you know her do you? No. You don't have to know the people involved to tell when murder is murder, and the last thing I'm going to do is decapitate someone...to keep them from hurting another person? What if Yu- this creature does this again? What if they learn how little they can help the people they hurt and use it as a justification to eat everything? This whole thing stinks. Until Kanoa gives us more information I'm dead in the water. Heh. Dead in the water. The small smile that escaped his lips caused him a minor bout of soreness causing him to realize he had been scowling so deeply that his face had practically locked up.

And so when he finally found his way onto the bank of the lake, he was rubbing his face. "You may want to hold off on drawing, Jackson. We need to get these two someplace proper. I'd like to call an ambulance for our missing person, but if what Kanoa said is true, we need to hang onto him until he's strong enough to survive on his own. As for....the other one. There's this old abandoned cannery by the coastline. It's slightly burned down but it will offer a dry enough place and no one will go snooping while we figure out what to do next."

Scooting back onto shore after emerging from the near frozen depths of the lake, Mary found in her body a peculiar blend of shooting pain, and tingling numbness. She couldn't differentiate the causes of each sensation between the residue of the high-grade sedatives coursing through her body, and the blistering beginnings of hypothermia that assaulted her skin, now paled to a ghostly white.

Recovering her clothing from behind August, Mary gave a shrug-- a shivering shrug-- as if to quel her own fears and respond in a subtle manner to her cohorts. Mary was beyond a point of question how Orion was still standing after his nude dip-- or what song he was playing. If she hadn't just made out with a magical fox girl, maybe she would have asked him to play some... Guy Clark?

No, not Old No.1...

But again, she had just made out with a magical fox demon thing. Her name was Yui. And Mary had basically just sexually assaulted and roofied her in one motion, and then swam through freezing water, using her gills, while her magical acquaintances used magic to carry the bodies of the guy they'd just saved and Yui through the water.

She was shivering, her jeans felt like lead ice, the leather jacket provided no warmth, and her bra was muddy-

-but GODS DAMN if she didn't feel... alive!

No! Don't smile idiot! They can't KNOW you're happy or... what else was it she felt as warm blood hit her think pan.

Anger?

Repress the sanguine and the choleric...

Right! Of course! Maintaining appearances, Mary fell into a more natural looking slightly-disappointed-but-sort-of-neutral face, and walked, or more accurately, waddled, over to Jackson and Dan(NARC)ny. Orion seemed to be just finishing up, and there was an exchange held between the three.

"I'm inclined to agree with our little police spy, here-- at least in the no ambulance regard." Resting a dripping elbow on Danny's shoulder, she continued, "How well do you think a paramedic is going to buy the whole 'Oh, you know, it was all a magical fox' excuse?" She tilted her head, not waiting for an answer, "Seriously, we might be the only ones even able to see the tails, at least three of us are on this guy's Dad's watch-list and like... what club even meets on a Saturday? I wouldn't even be up this early if I didn't think there was some chance I'd get kiss a magical entity today--."

Danny shrugged off her elbow. "Alright what the hell is your problem? You've been giving me dirty looks since I got here. What did I ever do to you!?"

Mary rolled her eyes, "Problem?" She parroted, "Problem with the fact that we're basically doing your Dad's job while he hunts down druggies and tinkerers?" She glanced to August, "Nah, no problem."

"You said so yourself that we'd be the only ones who could spot the supernatural. So how were you expecting to find that guy over there if he was in what everyone else would think was just a tree? And so what if he's concerned with whether people may possibly fry themselves or end up selling to kids, what does that have to do with me?"

Mary stretched her arms, as if to say 'look around!' "I'm not expecting them to breath underwater! Apparently all we needed was a basic family recipe from Kanoa for that. I'm just saying-- I don't even see any police tape! How long did the investigation last even? A day? A week?"

Pointing in the direction they arrived at the lake from, she carried on, with steadily increasing volume, "There was TONS of stolen shit back there! You're telling me NO store cameras caught an unidentified dude shoplifting? That store owners didn't ever report any stolen inventory? Dude, just..." She tossed her arms up, "I'm basically fucking high RIGHT NOW and that seems like a huge fuck up! On like, everyone's part..."

Danny's voice easily matched hers in volume, and as he spoke, loose branches cracked and fell, the dirty and mud along the bank deteriorated as his rage grew. "You're really going to wonder why people can't identify a shapeshifter? When it comes to petty thefts people don't think 'oh hey this missing bracelet must obviously be the work of a demon from The Far East! And while we're at it, there have been searches. Whole lines of people linked hand in hand scouring the forest since Ramon -that's his name- Ramon Diaz went missing. Though I'm sure you missed it what with being in that graveyard all the time. Besides! Even someone like me can whammy a camera to make static appear to get by cameras. And by the way, don't try to lecture people on major lapses in logic when you were busy ramming your tongue down some person's throat not five minutes ago."

"Pffft," Mary scoffed, "Better police work than apparently all of Oakenheim could pull off!" Mary pointed to the sleeping form of Yui, "Seriously, LOOK at her; shapeshifter or not, there's no way she managed to steal as much as she did and get knocked cold that easy!"

"And what's that suppose to mean? That mackin' on them right then and there while we were getting answers was the way to go? For fucks sake that stuff could of easily have put you down for the count and then we'd have another person to worry about if the shit hit the fan!"

Mary struck an exaggerated shy pose and did her best imitation of Danny's voice, "M-my name's Danny, Fox-chan... w-what's yours???" She gave a dry laugh, "She abducted our dear, sweet, precious Ramon here, and you guys we're practically riding her tails from the get go![/color]"

"Well gosh, Mary, you're right!" Danny said his voice dripping with sarcasm. "In fact, we should just slay 'the beast' right here!" Drawing his Kuhkri he threw it at her feet, the blade sinking until it was halfway in the dirt. "Go ahead, Joan of Arc! Go ahead and liberate us from this horror! After all, it's no big deal to take a life, right?"

Mary's smile was piquant, "If I'm Joan of Arc... then why were you the one that came here with an actual sword, dude?" Delicately plucking the word from the dirt, she tossed the thing back to the ground before Danny, "I don't wanna kill her if we don't have to, Narc-o, but if she gets the strength-- she can hypnotize us, or whatever-- and then we all end up like poor, sweet, innocent Ramon!"

Mary shifted in her puddle of cold river water, "You were literally offering to let her feed off of you-- she's got enough drugs to put half of town out for a day-- and you wanted to make her stronger!?" Stills shivering, Mary gave something of a cheeky smile, "I'm just saying, homes, maybe don't think as much with your dick next time, y'know?"

Danny blushed but remained stalwart. "If she- it doesn't eat they'll end up dying and there's plenty of questions I've got. Or did you forget about the fact that she said all the animals disappeared from the forest? I don't know about you but that's pretty god damn suspicious if you ask me and a little quid pro quo goes a long way."

Mary's ire died as she listened to what he had to say-- he was right, they needed her awake-- she wouldn't admit he was right out loud, she still resented him-- or rather, her perception of what he represented-- but she could at least agree with him in that they needed to somehow speak to the sexy Japanese fox girl, "So like, shouldn't we give her a plant instead? To give her just enough energy? I don't know, maybe tie her up somewhere first?"

Danny shook his head, taking the time to calm himself down. It had seemed she had tricked him into talking about what seemed to now be their captive to change the subject. Well that's what he got for not staying cool-headed. Taking a breath Danny returned to his normal volume and with it, the cacophony of destruction around them."We've seen that it hardly contains enough energy, even those bio-luminescent plants aren't that effective. It may delay her dying of starvation but it definitely won't earn anything more than spite. We all know she's a predator, and predator's can't subsist only on plants. As for tying her up? I'd rather not use rope as she could probably burn right through it and unless you know the location of any sort of weird sex dungeon, I'll lift some cuffs they use for patients at the county hospital. Police cuffs are way too easy to slip out of."

"Fiiine," Mary heaved an exasperated sigh into the air of the swaying trees above the group, she hadn't noticed their gentle dance with the escalation of her conversation with Danny, "But like, I still think we should keep her on some blue lotus, if only to make sure she doesn't murder us all..."

Mary placed a hand to her forehead as the reality of what she had just said collided with her diminishing frustration, blue lotus high, hypothermia, and child-like wonder. She felt like orange juice and toothpaste. "Jesus, I need a smoke," she muttered.

She shook her head, as f the thoughts were the still brisk and icy drops of water clinging to her short, dark hair.

She really needed to get better at that whole 'repression' thing.

Or maybe just trying to get what your feelings even are?

Mary's attention returned to the world, significantly chilled mentally. And shaking physically. "But yeah. Blue flowers for the fox. Sedate that bitch. And stuff. So, like... I guess... I don't know... I... can handle that...?"

Danny shook his head. "No way. According to August too much of that stuff will leave brain damage in the long term and the last thing we need is to deal with a vegetative -no pun intended- person. I still think we should grab some though in case she start's chucking fireballs. Maybe make some for syringes? While you may have no qualms about getting up close and personal with Yui- er the kitsune we'll need something a bit more fast acting. To use for emergencies only." Picking up his Kuhkri Danny did a small flourish to rid it of the dirt before returning it to his scabbard, and that to his backpack, and while there pulled out a picnic blanket and a towel, tossing the latter to wannabe gangster.

"I imagine it will be hard gathering plants when you're freezing your ass off. If we're going to do this, we're going to need to move fast." Daniel added, a flame in his eye that had been lacking until now. "The best way to do this if we divided into two teams, one for handling Yui and the other for making sure Ramon gets stabilized. Me, Maxwell and August will head down to the abandoned cannery and get a 'cell' rigged up while Kanoa and the rest take care of Ramon while you head back and gather plants. Try not to touch anything you don't know of until Kanoa can backtrack and help with anything too bad. Jackson could probably aid you in case of security and getting back if his outdoorsmanship is as good as he claims." After a moment of dressing himself in his previous clothing Danny asked the rest of the group, "Anyone have objections?"

August walked up behind Mary, and in one fluid motion, grabbed the towel Danny tossed and wrapped it around the girl's shoulders, hugging her and trying to warm her up a bit with body heat. Her voice was calm as her green eyes flitted between the two arguing teens.

"Sorry if this is a bit intrusive Mary, but you ARE shaking quite a bit. I know it can be bothersome when people just touch you without warning, but I'd rather you not die of hypothermia right now. Can I interrupt here for a second? I don't know what happened down there, but you both did really good. You got him back, and no one was hurt in the process it sounds like."

She turned her eyes to Danny, voice still relaxed as she rubbed Mary's shoulders to try and warm her up. She was careful to avoid letting her bare skin touch any of Mary's clothing however, letting the towel do most of the work. Fortunately, she was now in control enough that the residuals on the towel weren't too bad.

"Danny, Mary has a point. This...spirit...was feeding off the boy. I can verify that from when I was in his mind. She kidnapped him, and while it may be for survival, it was still against his will. Plus, you guys did just storm her hideout and drugged her. She's going to panic, and we don't fully know what we're dealing with. How do you contain a shape-shifter? I agree mostly with your plan, but instead of me, have Kanoa help you set up the...let's not call it a cell, but a holding place? She may know some stuff that can help keep her contained. Or maybe she has a faster solution that doesn't involve jury rigging anything?"

The redhead pulled back from Mary, ignoring that the water had soaked slightly onto her shirt. The girl was choosing her words carefully. Nothing inflammatory. Her tone was calm, but not condescendingly so. She put the emphasis where it needed to go, kept the rhythm in such a way to not put anyone off, but also not give an opening to let her get interrupted. Green eyes locked on Mary.

"But Danny is also right. If what you guys are all saying is true, she didn't want to kill the boy, and may have been pushed to desperation by the disappearing animals. Maybe something worse is out there, and she knows what it is? You probably know better than most how people can make snap judgements without hearing the full story, based off what they see and not what's actually happening. We should get more answers, and then go from there. I mean, you just kissed a shape shifting spirit creature. That you found after breathing water. We should be cautious, but not hasty. What's it say about us if our immediate reaction is hostility?"

August adjusted her glasses, then looked at Ramon's form. She remembered the fear she had felt when she laid on the bed. She wanted his opinion on the matter as well. She wanted to talk to the kitsune. She wanted so many different things.

"When he wakes up, he'll have questions too. Not to step on anyone's toes, but everyone here is really jumpy and on edge, for good reason. I think I should be the one who talks to him when he wakes up. I...basically felt what he went through. I understand it. It may help keep him from freaking out and making things worse. First though, we should dry him off and get him warm. Same for everyone else, you guys are all soaked."

She flipped her braid back, then gave a smile, inwardly hoping no one would take this as sarcasm or just huff and slap her for trying to calm everyone down. They had all been under the water, breathing. They had all just been through something unbelievable and wonderous. They were on edge. August had the benefit of being so used to controlling and deciphering her emotions she could, at least, project an air of calm to try and keep the situation from escalating. Even if inwardly she was screaming in frustration and amazement and absolute awe.

"We can argue later, if you still want, about how different we all are and how terrible the other person is just because we see the world differently and went through it differently, but hey...Who else can say they did what we just did? Well...what you guys all just did."

Jackson watched apathetically from his spot on the sand as Mary and Danny argued, not really caring what happened as long as they fucking finished up here. While dry clothes helped, he could still feel the frigid air piercing the light clothes, slightly dampened by contact with his wet body. And he had no great care for the fate of Yui the kitsune, her conflicting actions and motivations set aside, she obviously wanted nothing to do with him and the feeling was more than mutual. He did agree that Danny offering his life force to the creature was beyond stupid, it was the equivalent of offering your arm as a snack for a starving bear, a decision that could've only ended in disaster.

"Firstly, I object to the accusation of falling heads over heels with the fox chick, I was just being nice because I had no fucking clue how to approach and that's my default. Secondly, if she gets rowdy, I think I can help with containing her the best out of all present, excluding the ever-knowledgable Kanoa of course. maybe she can use that talisman she used to help calm me down earlier on her." Jackson rubbed the back of his neck, breathing out a sigh as he looked up into the sky. It had been a very interesting few hours into the first day of their mystery gang of misfits, but he got the feeling that things wouldn't be getting any easier as time went on. "I'm cool with letting August handle talking to the Ramon kid, and even the spirit fox if she feels up to it, and if Mary wants to find more drugs to roofie the damn thing, then I'm fine with making sure she doesn't get lost and what not."

Upon hearing August's final comment, Jackson couldn't help but scoff. "Maybe there's a reason for that. Far as I can tell, what ever connects a person to all this bullshit is something that's brought little in the way of happiness and a whole bunch of shit that they never wanted. I mean, it's the main reason Ramon here nearly got killed by an incompetent fox spirit." She had felt that kid's emotions when the kitsune had been using him like a battery, yet she still found some sort of amazement with this world and magic. Maybe it was a biased opinion, but jackson was firmly of the belief that everything about the world of spirits, magic, and the supernatural was dangerous, wrong, and should be stayed away from; cause with every fantastically awe-inspring thing you see, there's probably a hundred horrors waiting in the shadows to sink their fangs into your flesh and soul. Jackson's hands curled up into fists as he brought his knees up to his chest. "I would do anything and everything, just so I could be rid of this damn tether and remain blissfully ignorant for the rest of my life."

He stayed silent for a while, hair covering his eyes, before he fell back into the sand with a huff. "Man, I'm such a fucking downer. Sorry about the doom n' gloom talk, it's just that you touched a bit of a nerve. Needless to say, I'm not a big fan of all this supernatural bullshit and would much rather have lived without it."

Orion smiled at Jackson as he commented on his playing, crooked, almost a smirk, almost a sneer, irritatingly confidant. Turning lazily he casually kicked a side pocket on his pack, indicating where the other boy could find some pencils and paper.

The would-be troubadour skirted the edge of the conversation as well as the treeline. His playing had not ceased. Song done he let the tune change in tempo exploring the outer Es on his pilfered instrument. He gazed through the trees as he circled, a Morse code flickering in his eyes through the sunlight spears that pierced between tree branches. Voices were arguing back by the shore. His playing became a little sharper, tight plucks, short on the neck, down scale, playing off the anger and intonation of his supernal compatriots, punctuating their self-righteousness syllables with a little sub voce flow.

"-I'd get kiss a magical entity today--."

"-find that guy over there if he was in what everyone else would think was just a tree?"

"I never understood a lot"
"Cause I didn't need a lot, have a lot"

"A basic family recipe from Kanoa for that. I'm just saying-"

"So I never cared a lot"

"-work of a demon from The Far East! And while we're at it-"

"Stumbled through a black hole and ended up in Camelot"
"Where JFK had his head and he never got shot"

"Better police work than apparently all of Oakenheim-"

"It seemed perfect until the day came
Until insane became the norm
God became forlorn"

"mackin' on them right then and there while we were getting answers was the way to go? For fucks sake-"

"It happened overnight as if someone flipped a switch
Flipped the script on this shit"

"homes, maybe don't think as much with your dick next time, y'know?"

Orion drifted further than his feet, further from the group, only absently noting their suitably, sophmoric strategizing. He reached a high spot for the area and planted, looking out over the waving lines of the treetops, cresting in places as the earth beneath broke into cliff facings and treeblight turned bald limbs ashen. Orion considered the messages he so often tried to ignore. Exposing raw nerve to sensation. There was a truth in the patterns of growth and decay. Maybe if he could just see clearer, open his mind wider, the meaning would become clear. Something vast and clothed in secrets brushed against the diaphanous rice-paper walls of this reality.

"Cause even in the shade and it is sunny
Somewhere over the rainbow, walking down this brick road
I stare at walls at night, hoping they do not fall down"

The sun came out from behind some clouds, it's blinding light made Orion's teeth hurt. A sound like a swarm of cicadas just at the edge of hearing emanated from the room of his mouth. Orion coughed, a sharp pain shot through his ankles. Teeth gitted, grinding together in a clenched jaw. Orion squeezed his eyes tight as truth burned through his central nervous system, boring through the nerve roots behind his ocular cavity, drilling glowing, red cavities into his occipital lobe, turning his brain into a bore mine plotted by dice rolls and overseen by Escher.

Something wet and warm dripped onto Orion's bottom lip, he licked and tasted copper. Rubbing a knuckle under his nose it came back with a smear of blood. Orion's vision wavered. He remembered to breath.

Shiffing blood into the back of his throat, Orion spat it back out onto the grass. He composed himself, stepping back out of the sunlit spot in which he stood. The guitar was gently leaning against a tree. When had he put it down?

Taking up the instrument Orion wandered back towards his gaggle, wiping the blood on his face off of the inside of his shirt sleeve. He looked up as something pulled at a primitive part of his intuition to see August slowly peel herself away from Mary, wet with lakewater. Another line of blood dribbled out of Orion's nose. He rubbed it off on his shoulder as he continued playing.

"But Danny is also right. If what you guys are all saying is true, she didn't want to kill the boy, and may have been pushed to desperation by the disappearing animals. Maybe something worse is out there, and she knows what it is?"

"We're all we got, don't let me down"

"-you just kissed a shape shifting spirit creature. That you found after breathing water. We should be cautious, but not hasty. What's it say about us if our immediate reaction is hostility?"

"We're all we got, don't let me down"

"-hey...Who else can say they did what we just did? Well...what you guys all just did."

"We're all we got, don't let me down"

Orion frowned. What they had done. What they would do. Orion hummed thoughtfully to himself. With meandering purpose, Orion walked back towards the shore. Sitting a few feet up from the edge, Orion dropped, unceremoniously to the ground, legs folding in front of him with surprising grace. Placing the guitar on his lap, Orion stopped playing, letting his fingers splay over it's top. He was still and silent. Well, mostly silent, whispering to himself as he waited for the water to breech.

"Don't let me down"
"Don't let me down"
"Don't let me down"

Kanoa tossed Yui down on the ground like a sack of potatoes. Carrying the fox through the water wasn't exactly enjoyable, halfway through she seriously considered leaving her at the bottom of the lake. But no, she had questions that needed answering. Kanoa put her clothes back on, not minding the fact that she was still wet. "Now how should I wake you up..." She said, looking down at Yui. She didn't feel like waiting for her to wake up, there was no telling how long that would take. She knelled down, and placed a hand on the fox's forehead. She was as cold as a corpse, and she wasn't breathing. The not breathing thing wasn't a problem, Kitsune's had no need to breathe, they only did so to make themselves appear more human to people. Her body temperature was an issue, however. Kitsune's had a fire inside of them, sort of like a pilot light, as such, they tended to be very warm creatures. For her to be so cold meant that she was only a few steps away from death's door... Not literally, no one knows where Death lives, he's pretty shy.

While she pondered what to do with Yui she frowned as the voices of some of the club members grew louder. She wasn't surprised they were bickering, this was a problematic situation and their personalities were bound to clash. But that didn't make it any less annoying. Kanoa turned towards them and let out a sigh, they were even making plans without her. "I'm glad you're willing to come up with a plan so quickly, but I already have something in mind. This spirit's inner fire has nearly gone out, it's in no shape to use any magic on us, let alone run anywhere. A cell won't be needed. As for... Ramon, we'll have the authorities come and pick him up, he should be fine in a hospital."

Just as Kanoa looked back to Yui, she realized the spirit had woken up, and she was staring right at her. "Oh, you recovered more quickly than I thought you would." She said, though Yui said nothing in return. There was a dazed, yet hungry look in her eyes. "Now look, I know what you're thinking, but I would suggest you not do it."

Yui did not even hear the warning, and wasted no time in sinking her teeth into Kanoa's shoulder. Instantly she reared back, and began to squirm on the ground with her hands at her throat. "Honestly... Don't you know that anyone with moderate control of their magic can weaponize it against parasites? You might as well drink battery acid."

Kanoa rolled her stinging shoulder and picked up Yui, who had little strength to fight back. "Let's head back to the tree house, I'll call the police and let them know the missing boy has been found. hmm. One of you can stay and watch him if you want."

A lot was going on right now. Things were going fast-- but her thoughts struggled so slowly to catch up to the reality. Mary felt like she had been standing here for a month! She knew that wasn't the case; Danny and she had come to some kind of agreement--? Then August did something diplomatic and mature... Jackson said something creepy! She knew that for a fact... Orion was playing music, because his priorities were on point. Kanoa had stomped off with Yui in tow... and poor, precious, sweet, innocent, Ramon was still unconscious.

Et tu?

And where was she?

Why did she feel warmer than before?

It was nice...

For a minute, she thought she may have just died from the experience. It was a distinct possibility, after all. She wasn't very fit, she smoked, she overate, she didn't do shit, and when she went outside, it was only to sit around in a depressing place. Maybe the shock of the cool water was too much for her system to handle? Was death this pleasant?

Why are you such a stereotypical goth sometimes, Mary?

Mary opened her eyes.

As her thoughts snapped back to reality, Mary felt a sickening churn in her stomach, her lungs felt full but without air, and what felt like ice pounding against her skull. She gripped the bridge of her nose as the migraine hit, she could feel cool air bush against her skin, she felt the dying trees trying to sap her energy like the Kitsune. Something was keeping her warm though-- August, apparently! She'd seen her shivering and just... done it. Despite her relationship with physical contact, Mary wasn't used to this, she would have thanked her then... but...

... Buddha, she really needed a smoke.

Mary glanced at the body of poor, sweet, innocent Ramon laying amongst the dirt and leaves, then to the rest of dumbfounded schoolmates. Business first; "Okay, so like, I know I've kinda followed Kanoa on pretty much everything she's said, but can we all agree that calling the pigs--" She spoke to Danny, "-- No offense Daniel--" she continued, "-- is a terrible idea that absolutely no good will come from?"

August, for her part, was slack jawed at how fast Kanoa had decided to shoot down not only any chance of team work or team planning, but also how quick she was to simply leave Ramon to whatever fate had in store for him. Ignoring that the girl barely even seemed to register the attack on her shoulder, Kanoa's lackadaisical attitude towards anything the group said or did was starting to get frustrating. The redhead agreed quickly with Mary.

"Yeah, calling the cops to just take him in would be a poor choice, not only in general, but for Ramon as well. He'd be beyond confused, and probably paranoid. He deserves an explanation at least."

Somewhere in the distance, a sharp, oriental note rang over the water.

"Offense taken, but I'd rather avoid talking in circles," Daniel replied off-handedly. "We can't go to the cops directly, I agree with that, but I can. I'm not talking about getting my dad involved -this is the last thing either of us need today of all things- No, you guys go on ahead. If Kanoa says he'll live without further magical attention I'll take care of getting an ambulance here and... get rid of our tracks while I'm at it." Biting the inside of his cheek he seemed to deliberate with himself before confirming that this was indeed what he needed to do -whether he wanted to or not- with a nod. "Yeah, that sounds like the best thing to do. We can worry about his mental breakdown once he can stand on his own two feet. If push comes to shove and they find out I was here you guys won't have to worry about being implicated; they'll be able to believe that there was no one with me."

Picking up the surprisingly light boy, It was only then that Danny noticed that August had been clinging to Mary to...warm her? It seems that August's 'allergy' to people doesn't include those of the same sex. Or is it....?

August looked at Daniel, the red head still rubbing Mary's bare arms in a somewhat awkward hug from behind The girl was freezing! She'd need to get clothed soon...why was everyone looking at her like that? For a girl who could easily read people, it was confusing and mildly concerning that the entire group seemed to think she was bipolar or couldn't touch peo-ohhhh. Her green eyes blinked as she looked down, realizing that she was clinging to a half naked pot head after having freaked out multiple times about being touched. Seems she hadn't made the specifics of her powers clear. She looked back up to Daniel. She could explain later, if anyone asked, fuck it.

Another sharp note, closer now.

Mary very briefly considered shifting in August's, or even awkwardly muttering some form of thanks to the girl but... August was really warm. Like, warm enough that she didn't even need to wax poetic about the complexities of human warmth! She could just kinda, enjoy it, and not enter some cardiac hypothermic shock, or like, whatever. As August practically rubbed her body against Mary's, she figured, she'd just let this play out as long as possible, fuck it!

It was either the after effects of the Blue Lotus, or the fact that Danny was concentrating so hard on the interaction she was having with August that caused her to crack a smirk, "I still say it's a dumb idea, man."

Danny glanced between the boy in his arms and Yui, recalling how August had lied on the bed. His face turning beet red, the boy clamped down on the thought, shaking it away vigorously. It couldn't be what he absolutely in no way thought. After all, they had supposedly just met yesterday and hardly even interacted the entire morning and while they were teenagers they couldn't possibly already... Danny's could feel his face starting to turn red again but with his hands now full could only bury his face in his chest. "Right," came Danny's voice from behind the curtain of black hair that obscured his face. "From here on I'm going to try focusing my abilities on making sure our tracks disappear, but I'd rather prefer it if you guys didn't make my job any harder. Orion, that means you."

A third, slightly caustic note.

With a tilt of her head, August flit her eyes to Orion before back to Daniel. The boy was blushing. Shit, that was cute. However, she focused on what he was saying.

"So, what? We rescued him just to let him freak out about everything that happened, good luck dealing with the revelation that there's magic and coping with the emotional trauma of having been kidnapped? That's fucking stupid. If you're going to do that, I'm staying with you so I can talk to him when he wakes up. It isn't fair to just leave him to his own devices, he deserves better than that."

August pointed at Daniel, giving a quirk of the lips.

"Plus, wouldn't there be an investigation for any anonymous tips that lead to a half naked boy just suddenly popping up after several days of going missing? I don't see anyone wearing gloves, so wouldn't our forensic...sssstuff be left all over him?"

August wasn't sure exactly how forensics worked, or if a small town like Oakenheim even HAD advanced stuff like that, but she'd seen enough crime shows to know that the fact that the teens had touched the boy would probably leave some kind of evidence of their interaction with him. She scanned Kanoa for a moment before giving a sigh.

"Seriously, can we just slow the frick down for a moment and talk? Everyone's jumping to conclusions and ideas and plans all on their own, just take a breathe and THINK! The girl whose brain goes a thousand different directions every second is telling you to slow down here, there's something wrong with that. Let's just work together on this! Aren't we supposed to be a group?"

A languid, ascerbic chord.

"I agree with chilling for a sec..." Mary chimed in, "Hey! I think I might be a positive influence on you..." whispering to August, "Like, you know, like with emotional vibes and stuff? I don't know..."

The redhead glanced down at Mary, mental train of thought derailed instantaneously by her remark. Emotional vibes? Well, she was an empath, so Mary WOULD probably affect her in some way. Train of thought barrelled down the road as she analyzed the concept.

"Well, that could make sense, your own emotions seem very tame, probably from the herbs you smoke, so I imagine they'd probably be somewhat...calmer...than most. Easier to follow...possibly anyway."

She couldn't take emotions from skin to skin contact, and even though August was being careful to avoid touching the girl's underwear, it would make sense that the residual from being in such close conta-FOCUS. Underwear emotional transfer could come afterwards. The redhead focused back on Danny as he spoke, the logic train hitting it's brakes hard.

Danny shook his head. "Forensics don't work that way. Even if for whatever reason you're in the system Oakenheim doesn't have the budget for its own forensic lab anyway so it would be shipped off to the big city, but they won't even bother to do so, considering how long he's been going through the brush." Shifting Ramon in his arms so that the two would be more comfortable, Danny added, "As for letting him think he's crazy...I'm not saying that. Just to approach him once he's discharged from the hopsital. It would seem a bit odd if a couple of people he's probably only seen in passing show up to his bedside, right?"

"Oh good, so our cops ARE incompetent...and as opposed to just waking up in the forest after going missing for several days because a fox hypnotized you? You really think us showing up is weirder than that?"

Another chord, close on the spine, almost chastising.

August huffed for a moment, quirking her lips as she pondered the situation.

After what had to be a decade of silence, Mary shrugged-- rather awkwardly, still being in the embrace of August-- but shrug she did! "I'm starving." She let the coment hang before continuing, "Umm, he probably is too...?

"It's more of a budget thing. The state funds precincts that actually have a crime problem other than 'that wacky t'backy' going about." Danny explained. "But at this point, I don't really care about what you guys think. I'm going to get back to the lot and call an ambulance. I won't 'narc out' as Mary seems to think but I'm not going to let his health worsten just because you guys are worried about saving your own skins." His voice was resolute, there was something in his eye. If they were going to stop him, they'd need to physically force him to stop.

Silence from the string section.

A huff, a quirk of the lips, and August wrote Daniel off as a lost cause on this matter. He clearly wasn't listening to her at all, instead going off what he felt she was saying instead of what she was actually saying. The redhead was wasting her breath. Instead, she glanced at the girl in her arms, deciding to try and change gears. It then slowly dawned on her that she had essentially been dry humping Mary for the past few minutes. Any other day she'd have blushed, but now she was just frustrated at the stubborness of the group, so instead she just kind of looked at her awkwardly in her arms, not wanting to let go to make sure she stayed warm. Or at least, that was...mostly it. Like 98% of it. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't enjoying it on a bit more...primal level.

"You should...probably get dressed. I have some food in my backpack...it'll help until we get back to town and get real food."

"Y-yeah... thanks...!" Mary, as opposed to August, had no problem blushing as she broke from the embrace of the young woman to instead shuffle off awkwardly and seek the embrace of her shirt and jacket. She sighed, speaking to herself as she got dressed, "What's narc-o got against a vote...?"

August chewed her lip for a moment, thoughts scattering as she lost control of them and her focus broke free, hitting about eighteen different topics as she cast one last look at Ramon. This wasn't right...this wasn't why she had joined. Her eyes shot to Kanoa. Find the silver lining. At least the boy was no longer in the cave, being fed on.

"...what exactly do you have in mind anyway?"

Jackson had remained quiet as every argued about what to do with Ramon, with Daniel being insistent on involving a bunch of others in this and putting the rest of them at risk. While he agreed that they shouldn't sacrifice the kid's health just to save their own skins, he also agreed that calling the police would cause a whole lot of problems as well. Not only that, but he could easily imagine what Ramon would be feeling once he came to.

Jackson shivered as he instinctively gripped his arm, taking a breath before he decided to finally speak up.

"I say that we stay with him until he wakes up, so we can help keep his sanity intact. I can say from experience that this is definitely going to fuck him up, but it would be helpful for him to be able to talk to somebody about what just happened. It really makes you feel crazy when you know something happened and everyone else tells you're crazy for saying it." or call you a murderer

Jackson's hands clenched into fists for a moment before he let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. Running a hand through his hair in exasperation, he continued to give his two cents on the matter. "Besides that, I don't think there is any need to get him to a hospital at the moment, given that Kanoa stabilized him. It's an unneeded risk, and in my opinion, I think we should be a little more focused on what we are going to do with the fox spirit after we're done with it. Are we gonna let it go, kill it, or just keep as our club's pet/mascot/slave. I'm not in favor of the first option, seeing as how it's currently starved, and more than likely pissed off, it'd probably come after one of us. Last time I checked, none of us have Kanoa's nifty little magic trick to make our life force poisonous to it, so we'd probably be in the same position as Ramon here."

"That's three for three for what is clearly the objectively smarter decision here," Mary snarked, casting a glance in Danny's direction, "like, two for just dropping him off at some rando hospital-- what do you think Orion?"

Orion put the guitar down slowly onto the grass next to Ramon and straightened. It was like watching a massive constuction excavator slowly rumble to life. He looked at Mary as he did so, lips pressed thoughtfully. He looked at Jackson. He looked at August. He looked at Danny. He spoke.

"I think that we might be forgetting one vital, little tidbit to this tapestry of travesties." Orions limbs gesticulated his words slowly, with the same industrial precision. "We are not, in point of fact, the authorities here...in any sense of the word." Orion's eyes slide across Konoa's back and down to the Kitsune, before returning to Ramon. "No matter who our daddies are, how firm we stand on the moral high ground, or how clairvoyant our super cool psychic powers might be." Orion pressed the edge of his heel into the soft earth, slowly rolling the sole of his shoe forwards, pressing with all his belied weight.

"That said...I think in this impermanent world of conditional realities. Or. Whatever. The. Fuck. Is actually going on, we could do with a little more truth, and a little less of our fine lying tongues." Orion rolled his head back to to regard them from within the tiny, designer frames at the end of his nose.

"We talk to Ramon. We see what he has to say. We drop a tree branch on his leg and let Danny boy go tell the crushers that he found him while hiking. Then, perhaps, if we can restrain our lust, fear, and fury, maybe we could talk to her." His finger finished it's slow unfurling to straighten and point at the Kitsune.

"It. Is not an it. It's not a monster. It is a person, or a being, or whatever nomenclature you like, presumable from the same fucked up world we are in, with nice taste in women's clothing and terrible taste in boys." Orion shrugged, letting the mantle of gravitas slip from his narrow shoulders and from his candor.

"Or we skin it and get ourselves a nice pair of foxskin boots to share. Whatev's"

Kanoa closed her eyes and let out a long breath. She had tried her best to ignore it, but the colors were beginning to be too much for her to handle. Everyone's voices added another hue to a spiraling firestorm of colors. Closing her eyes did nothing, the best she could do was try to drown the sound out. But then, she'd be effectively ignoring everyone. What good was this condition of hers anyhow? The most she could do was visibly see auras of magic, but any individual with a natural tether could learn to sense magic on their own. She was occasionally able to force reality to adhere to her perception of it, but that was far less extravagant than it sounded. The last time she was able to do that, she made a Pepsi taste like a Coke, thrilling.

So, not everyone agreed to her plan, why hadn't she accounted for that? Democracy could be such a pain sometimes. She honestly didn't feel like babysitting Ramon, and anything he could tell them, Yui could tell them as well.

"Excuse me." Yui spoke in a raspy, tired voice.

"What, feel like talking?"

"Yes..." Kanoa glanced at the club members, and then sat the fox down on the forest floor.

"Why did you kidnap a human? Even if there is a shortage of animals to draw energy from, that is no excuse to risk revealing yourself to humanity. You should know this, shouldn't you?" Kanoa stared down at Yui with an unforgiving expression. "What made you think you could break the rules?"

Yui squirmed like a nervous worm, gripping one of her long tails and ruffling it. "I... Was so hungry. Flora here isn't enough, I was going to go mad." She said, grinding her teeth.

"From where I'm standing you already have, did you really believe you could get away with this?"

"She... Said I would be fine as long as I did as she said. That as long as the human didn't die it would be fine." The fox was whimpering now, like a child that had been lied to. Kanoa blinked rapidly in confusion.

"Could we not play the pronoun game, who are you talking about?" She asked, taking out her notepad. Yui suddenly had a distressed look on her face, in her dazed state she had forgotten something important. "This person told you not to mention them, didn't they?" Yui's eyes shifted away from Kanoa, she was a bad liar.

"What's her name? What did she look like? Tell me and I might help you." Yui looked back to her quickly, and she could see in her eyes the back and forth struggle as she decided how to respond to the proposition.

"She... Her name is-Walking upon scattered bones, crushed and sharp and molten.... huh? Her name is-Drinking of a goblet filled with boiling bile... eh?" The fox looked around in a panic, and touched her throat as if to find something that did not belong there. When she attempted to answer she began to speak in a voice that sounded distorted by static and a mouth full of water.

Kanoa took a step back, her mouth shaking. "You've been hexed. D-do you even know what you are saying?" The words were surely simply distorted nonsense to the others, but Kanoa could just barely make out what was being said. She was out of her field of expertise here, maybe if she had been alive for ten thousand years she could handle this, but as she was, she was not prepared to listen to eldritch language without going insane. Kanoa began to breathe as if she had just done ten rounds against Mike Tyson in his prime.

"Whoever this bitch is thinks she's real fucking funny doesn't she!? Force me to listen to the fucking poetry of the Old Ones!? How does one even DO such a thing!? Simply reading those disgusting runes is enough to... to..." Kanoa stopped her rambling and looked to the rest of the club. She supposed everyone had to have at least one crazy outburst. She clenched her teeth and forced her quick breathing into heavy long puffs.

"Whoever this woman is, has placed a hex on Yui to make sure she wouldn't reveal who she is..." She looked back at Yui for a moment before turning back to the others. "I'll keep the fox in my home, she should have plenty of food there......" Her temples were throbbing, she rubbed her forehead before speaking again. "Ramon... whatever he has to say is useless to us. Daniel, if you could provide a valid reason as to how we found him and give it to the police, that would be great. If anyone wants to visit him and make sure he's ok, that's fine, but we do not have time to be babysitting him. We've got a witch to hunt."