Airports were much like the River Styx in Edgar's experience. Filthy, heavily guarded, and surprisingly wet in places you didn't expect. Luckily the group had arrived just in time to not have to take their seats anywhere save the plane itself. Other than his lamenting of getting an Egg McGriddle at the McDonalds, he was content with those turn of events. The wizard also managed to board before his fellows on coach after playing the age card and acting particularly decrepit.

The elder remembered when human flight had been invented. He'd been a merely a century old when it happened, and it always intrigued him how the primitive midgard men could innovate with their gadgets and gizmos. Truth be told he enjoyed airline flights, even the ones in coach. It gave him valuable reading time and he enjoyed looking out the window if he garnered the chance to. It made him feel like a god gazing down at the lower realms.

"Dr. Pepper please, oh and might I have some pretzels and nuts?" He asked the stewardess weakly, feigning further fragility. The stewardess was an attractive woman that had just come from first class. If he was a younger man he'd be intrigued, but he'd long ago dispensed with desires of the flesh to further his studies. He recalled that long ago day, holding the knife of Heimdall as he carved out a portion of his biological human needs such as companionship.

Oh if he ever missed it, he still had it in a jar within his basement. But so far, he quite enjoyed having far more simple and rustic tastes. A warm hearth, a good book, perhaps a nice snack, and the pursuit of absolute immortality. The very basics.
"Thank you, dear." He croaked when she complied with an almost sad smile to him. His beaten up and worn coat helped his downtrodden image. He sipped his drink gingerly, thinking as she walked away at how he would likely still outlive her if she made it to 90. Breathing out through his large nose, he could now focus on important matters as he absent-mindedly supped and crunched on his food. He would read later, but for now he had different things to ponder and he required the utmost concentration. Even the portly man next to him gruffing and inhaling two donuts couldn't deter his focus as he mumbled an invocation, one that had him traveling away from his current form.

His mind and soul fled his earthly, corporeal form and the scene of the plane changed as if a wave or gust of dark blue energy phased reality into something else. Edgar Stormrahfen was standing upon a stone in the nether realm, still crunching on nuts and sipping a Dr. Pepper as he lifted his eyes to where the sky would be. Instead of the stars or clouds, there were leaves and branches and beasts and falling water. Across the vast expanse of the dead world, he saw Yggdrasil in the distance...ever out of his reach.

Val listened to Eleanor and hid her emotions in her glass. She wasn't sure she believed in remembering. Not the same way that Eleanor did. Some memories were best buried beneath layers of drug induced haze. Some memories were dangerous to remember. Some memories just hurt. Maybe she'd try it one day. Not forgetting. When she had more money and too much time.

She watched the mostly measured pace at which the other women drank, but rejected it as pointless. Free champagne was free champagne. The flight was long enough and Val had no intention of being sober when they landed. A press of a button and polite smile later was all it took for another glass of champagne to appear in her hand.

Val offered a theatrical nod to Eleanor before she sent more bubbly alcohol coursing through her system, "The Prodigy were right, of course. We're always outnumbered, never outgunned. I'd put a dollar or two on the cowboy if things get hot."

Why exactly the Sunday Group needed more violent agents was a question Val didn't need answered. Thing lurking in the dark generally didn't appreciate you kicking in their doors to ask questions. The Sunday Group, the organization, were far more interesting topics. Eleanor seemed like she'd been around the block. Val couldn't help but admire how cool and collected she seemed. She didn't seem rattled and she didn't seem concerned. She had to know more. She had to have some secrets squirreled away, some real juicy secrets about the organization.

Val leaned forward, perching precariously on the edge of her seat. First class seats were further apart than she had imagined. It was hard to be conspiratorial with an audience, but Val saw it as a welcome challenge. Others might have waited for a more private moment, but where others saw danger, Val saw only adventure and a chance to surprise, "Who's the boss? The big boss? Naturally, your our boss. But are you the boss or is there someone giving you orders? I asked some questions, you know. Before I signed my name above the dotted line. But I got nothing. Just some rumors."

@Penny

Eleanor leaned back in her chair and held up her empty glass. The doors were being dogged and the engines were beginning to wind up. By the look on the stewardess' pretty face she thought it was a bit late to be filling drinks, though she stepped towards Eleanor none the less.

"Oh just leave the bottle will you?" Eleanor said tartly, her impatience momentarily overcoming her normal veneer of calm. The woman in the next seat made a disapproving sound and Eleanor fixed her with a second pointed glance reminding her to mind her own buissness. The stewardess retrieved a bucket of ice from the refreshment area and set it on the small table beside the executive. The intercom overhead went off and the pilot began his rote boring declaration about flight time and then instructed them to watch the game of charades that convinced people they had the proverbial snowballs chance in hell if the came down from thirty thousand feet.

"Nearly everyone who works for the Group asks that at some point, myself included," Eleanor admitted. Certainly all the operatives she had known had tried at one point or another to figure it out. The Sunday Group was listed as a private company with its websites and financial records sanitized to the point of uselessness with corparateze. The Sunday Group works to provide quality data driven service to the community. The Sunday group is committed to providing a standard of excellence in a changing business community. The Sunday group is so bland it is amazing it doesn't put you to sleep just reading about it.

"You don't have to believe me but I honestly don't know and I've tried... alternative approaches at various times over the years. Certainly that suggests whoever is calling the shots is taking precautions against more esoteric attempts to figure it out.

"Emmaline, my wife, you met her I think? Yes? She worked for the group before I was recruited. She claims to have been approached by a man calling himself Samuel Priest, though I've never been able to verify that any such person, at least as Emm described him, actually exists." Emmaline had tried her own scrying as well, but even the most elaborate spells turned up blanks or nonsense results that looked like randomness but had to actually be considerable occult countermeasures.

"Certainly whoever or whoevers are in charge have connections in Law Enforcement and various other communities, occult and otherwise, though exactly how I can't say. I like to believe we are on the side of the angels, metaphorically at least," Eleanor concluded. Biblical Angels were a fairly sanitized account of other beings, beings with four sets of wings and far too many eyes and if they served any God, Eleanor doubted it was one that humans would find comforting. The security theater was winding up and Eleanor refilled her glass before they pulled out onto the taxi-way.

"Perhaps," she said, raising her glass in salute to the younger woman, "you shall be the first to figure it out." The engines roared to life and the jet raced down the runway, pressing them back into their seats as they lifted off into the afternoon sky.

Acceleration! What a benign, enjoyable thing! That sensation to be pushed back into the seat without having to make any effort, thereby freeing up precious space for one's knees! If this jet could only accelerate forever... A dream that would never come true. It ended upon takeoff, replaced by the prospect of the individual sitting in front of him leaning back in an unforeseeable future.

Maybe Val is mixing some of her fancy drugs into the shit Eleanor's drinking. That way we'd have an in-flight medical emergency that would force an unscheduled landing, liberating me from my misery!

A voice called out deep inside Maël's mind, dripping with anger and hatred. He knew that voice since it was his own, his second voice. He had no intentions of granting it the body it desired or the consciousness it needed, but he could not completely suppress its presence in certain situations.

Once this is over grab a knife and carve a crosshair on Eleanor's face. Clive is weak, he won't resist!

This was bound to turn into a memorable flight. He, sitting there somewhat compresed while listening to a monologue of his own nobody else could hear and nobody else can be allowed to hear. Maybe he should pretend some very mundane human needs and head to the toilet ? Couldn't be any less spacious than here. Unfortunatenly he couldn't do this for several hours...

Edgar's an old man on cloud nine. In a century or so he'll have forgotten about me having strangled Eleanor with bare hands today. There's no need to make any of my actions excusable towards him!

"Edgar!" now the actual Maël called out audibly. He had just realized the man was sitting in the adjacent row. There was need for distraction, maybe even some productivity instead of sulking. "You there ?" he added almost as a whisper, unsure if the wizard might be sleeping or not. "Wanna talk or maybe play some game ?" Agreed, directly asking the old man for his opinion about the class split their boss had introduced was tempting, too...

People will fear the rapid-onset, horns-growing disease I can enjoy at any time! Scientists will never know what mystery hit 'em! I can turn this into the most memorable flight in history, painted in red and with the smell of iron! Release yourself, Maël!

Most wizards would tell you they were just on the cusp of a major discovery; of revealing the secrets of the universe! Edgar knew that feeling more than most, and he was still flummoxed and disappointed when Mael's calling all but ripped him out of his mystically induced vision and into midgard once again. The rumbling beneath him and the pressurized change in the ventilation gave the air a strange scent he didn't quite like. Mael also seemed to be the cause of the interruption of his incognizable reverie.

Edgar pinched the bridge of his large nose, trying to drown out the white noise of the plane and another, far louder sound. He cleared his throat. "Mael, do tell your inner demon to be silent or I'll dispell it to Hades." Edgar warned matter-of-fact. He had the means to do it, though not on hand to be quite frank. Still, the beast was so loud he was surprised mundane mortals couldn't hear it. He looked to the old woman sitting next to him, asleep with her eyes covered. He doubted anyone would hear or care enough to retain what he said, though he wouldn't exactly spill any secrets to cause an uproar anyway.

"A game?" He echoed, stroking his beard idly. "I only know games of the sort your like would never have perceived, but I suppose I could make one up." The wizard said it whimsically, as if the very creation of the game was a game in and of itself. The wizard smiled after deliberating a moment, knowing just what game would be fun to play and likely dominate in.

"What's say we play a game of riddles, Mael. A friendly contest. We each give one another a riddle, and the first person to miss their guess is the loser. Does this sound acceptable to you? I shall start..." He took a sip of his Dr. Pepper, the crisp taste sliding down his gullet nicely. "Here is a rather easy one to start us off, my french fellow. What has three feet, but can be the size of a front lawn?"

Of course, the answer was 'yard'. He didn't wish to end the game in one turn, but he often wondered about the wordplay of modern men. He himself was a master of linguistics, and one could not cast spells without being at least somewhat competent with the turning of phrases. Contrary to most literary scholars who worship the man, Tolkien himself got the game of riddles in the Hobbit from Edgar, though when he knew the man he was rather impressed with his philology. After waiting a few moments, he wondered if he should have established a time limit for the game as well.

For a brief moment Maël's eyes, normally open and anything but obstructed by low-hanging eyelids, turned into small and narrow vision slits. "Thanks for threatening me with death." the frenchman replied, as dryly as the desert his demon part really would have liked to maroon Edgar in. It didn't happen all too often, but right now both parts of Maël experienced a complete consensus. He was a born hybrid, not someone who happened to be 'just' possessed. Dispelling that other half of him was bound to have consequences he wouldn't like in the best case.

Thank you Edgar! Now I know that I can annoy you all the time without even saying a real word!

Maël managed to suppress the demonic thought of sweet revenge to surge up, but logic alone dictated that Edgar had just arranged for his life becoming a bit less pleasant once he no longer had a lanky, slightly overweight office worker like ordinary Maël around, but the latter's alter ego. On the plus side however that brief moment of upset had washed away the worries about his knee situation.

Next question: Why did Edgar first ask if his proposal was okay, but then started the actual game anyway ? And the fact that him starting gave him a significant advantage given the rule of the first wrong guesser being the loser didn't elude Maël's attention. Still: Better not to complain. He could probably be happy about the fact that the old wizard had agreed to play a game with him in the first place.

"Hmm... a statue of someone using a walking cane perhaps ?" the frenchman attempted to give an answer, already expecting it to be utterly wrong. While living in America he still had french origins and thus was more inclined to the metric system, so how could he come to think about feet and yards ? Also there was this riddle the Sphinx had asked and whose solution involved a walking cane counting as a third leg. The thought of its tip being interpreted as a foot wasn't that far away from that.

Clive and his new friend, “Janie” as her friends apparently called her, started dealing once the plane reached a comfortable and relatively stable cruising speed. Even a seasoned gambler like himself was surprised at how quickly she picked up the concepts and strategy. They even started betting with in-flight snacks and some change in Clive’s pocket. As they played, he also took the opportunity to contribute to the education of the younger generation with life lessons and sage advice… or at least his brand of it.

“And that,” he said with authority, “is why colored folks should be the most armed people in America. Otherwise racist liberal commie bastards like Franklin Roosevelt put them in FEMA camps, stomp them into the dirt.”
“But why?” she asked, absolutely enthralled by his teachings
“Because racism is a tool of the elite to divide the people so we’re too distracted to see what they’re doing up there at the top of the pyramid.”
“So, all those things my dad says about the Mexicans down the street...?”
“Probably not true. Or maybe they are, but if so, it’s not because of their skin color.”
“Okay. Then what about all the things he says about communists?”
“All true.”
“But what about--?”
“True. All of it.”
Clive took a moment to snack on some ice and allow her to digest this information. He wished more food could be so delightfully crunchy. He’d tried freezing other drinks like Coke and Sprite but it just wasn’t the same. His musings were interrupted by excited giggling from the seat next to him as Janie pushed a handful of pretzels into the pile.
“Raise to 6 pretzels!”
A glance at his own hand revealed a whole bunch of bupkis. A nine in hand and a nine in the community cards gave him a remarkably uninteresting hand. Reasoning whatever had Janie so excited was better than a two of a kind, he folded. Her smile only grew when she revealed her own hand with a pair of threes. Clive was genuinely surprised she’d gotten one up on him that well.
“Well I’ll be. You played me like a bargain bin banjo. Good one, kid.”

She grinned like the cat that ate the canary as she began stuffing her face with the pot. His thoughts drifted once more, now to his teammates. The alchemist gave him pause. He knew the signs of a drug addict when he saw them. The shakes, the unfocused eyes, the jitteriness. Still, from what he knew of Eleanor he doubted she would agree to work with Val if she wasn’t a great asset. She didn’t seem particularly suited for combat. He made a mental note to offer her training with firearms afterward or at the very least show her how to duck under a punch. He had none of the same concerns for the wizard or the frenchman. The wizard for obvious reasons and the other because he just felt… wrong. Something about him gave Clive the heebie jeebies and couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Eleanor strode up the ramp and into the heated concourse of the Seattle-Tachoma International Airport, half supporting half carrying Val. Whatever drug or drugs the alchemist had on board had crashed her out mid sentence shortly after the reached cruising altitude. Fortunately the transition from warm cabin air to the chilly connecting walkway and then back to the warmer air of the concourse seemed to be rousing her. It was also fortunate that a groggy traveler didn't attract too much attention. It was by now late in the afternoon and the early onset of twilight was already darkening the sky beyond the glass windows that lined the airports arrival terminals. Ellie guided Val down the escalator towards the baggage claim area allowing the other passengers, in more of a hurry, to power-walk past her to what they no doubt imagined were important engagements.

Fortunately the arcane workings of the baggehandling process seemed to be running smoothly and bags were already emerging from behind the slittled flaps of black plastic and beginning their circle towards their waiting owners when Eleanor arrived. Her own bag was one of the first off but she deliberately ignored it giving herself an excuse to linger while the rest of the team arrived from their own less generous seats. At various times members of the Sunday Group had suggested a personal lear jet for such outings. Besides expense there were good reasons to avoid such a plan, it made travel more conspicuous and it made the authorities look more closely, worse since the War on Terror had begun there were whole groups of people who wasted their time reading aircraft tail numbers and trying to spot clandestine flights. The last thing the Group needed was intel being spread all over some message board or whatever it was the kids used these days. Perhaps it was the thought of spies and espionage that made her notice, but looking up Eleanor spotted a man in jeans and a shirt standing on the edge of the crowd. Unlike the other passengers he didn't appear to be watching the baggage as it slowly emerged from the chute or checking his phone while he waited. Glancing to the other side of the crowd she picked up an equally nondescript woman doing the same thing. Fine hairs on the back of her hands stood up and she reached casually into her pocket and retrieved her phone. Turning it on she sent a quick text to Emmaline letting her know she had arrived safely then switched to the group text that the group were sharing.

There is surveillance at baggage claim. Get your gear and get out asap.

Almost as soon as she pressed send the man she had spotted pushed his way through the crowd to the carousel. With every appearance of propriety he grabbed the heavy duffel bag that contained Clive's luggage and hauled it off onto a stainless steel pushcart. The wheels squeaked alarmingly under the weight. Simultaneously the woman stepped forward and grabbed Eleanor's own bag as it emerged to begin its second rotation. Without a backward look both of the apparent thieves headed for the door.

"Shit," Eleanor said under her breath, glancing around for the rest of her team.

Clive was almost surprised how quickly the time passed as he talked with Janie. It felt like only a brief moment before they were already landing. Sometimes he forgot how easy it is to lose track of time when not stuck inside his own head, alone with his own thoughts for days, even weeks on end without seeing another (living) human in all that time. Perhaps he should make an effort to talk to his teammates more often. Teammates. That's a word he hadn't been able to use in well over a decade. It was... nice. He was still adjusting to the idea of sharing the sandbox with others, but this was probably a good thing for him. If not, he was still plenty young enough to leave and continue hunting for a few more years before he got too slow and something killed him.

As he exited the plane, he said goodbye to his new friend, but not before he gave him the deck of cards they'd played with. Hopefully she knew enough to hide it well.



Clive didn't even wait to pull his phone out before swiftly bearing down on the man who took his bag. Though he hadn't seen them before they took the luggage, Clive was never one to hesitate when the situation arose. He was surprisingly quiet for someone of his size power walking in hiking boots as he snatched up the rest of his luggage from the belt in one smooth motion; slipping the guitar case strap over his head. Perhaps waiting for back up would've been smart, but these thieves had stolen his underwear. Now it was personal. There was almost no warning before Clive placed an arm around each of their shoulders in an attempt to forcibly stop them. While not overly tall, Clive still had a few inches on both of thieves and leveraged it to maximum effect as he loomed over them like a thunder cloud. His voice never rose above quiet conversation as he spoke.
"Ever wondered how much force it takes to make a human elbow bend backward? Not as much as you'd think." His grip on their shoulders tightened painfully. "Leave the bags."

As the plane made a smooth landing passengers applauded for the pilots, but Maël was in the mood for much bigger celebration. He would have liked to light a few rockets for the regained freedom of his knees... while saving the rocket propelled grenades for use against his boss. From the moment he had stepped onto the gangway until right into the hall where passengers were supposed to get back their luggage his eyes tracked Eleanor like that of a giant bird of prey. He needed to vent some steam and, maybe quite unfortunate for Eleanor, Clive proved to be an excellent thief-catcher at least for the moment, allowing him to retrieve his bag in calmness before addressing her.

"Eleanor ? If a blood clot should decide to detach from one of my lower leg veins now that they can finally move again and if that blood clot should also decide to get stuck in one of my coronar arteries, my ghost will make sure that you'll be held responsible for murder! I don't dare to ask for a higher class ticket, but something like a row one seat in economy would have been nice while you and Val decided to separate from the rest of the team in order to have all of the luxury available! Given that she looks like a shipwreck on two legs she probably didn't benefit too much from it! What a shame!"

And now the sarcasm set in.

"Why not put her and me into the cargo bay the next time ? She won't notice it anyway and you have to spend even less budget on me while still improving my legroom dramatically! Doesn't that sound like an attractive option ?"

You forgot to mention the prospect of Edgar not being present. The man made a mock out of you...

Maël decided to ignore that comment from his alter ego for now, even though he was right in some way. Instead, he just stepped away from Eleanor, hoping to successfully deny her the opportunity to make a debate out of it, and turned his attention more towards Clive.

"Hey, erm... You are aware of the concept of too much self-defense, aren't you ? Just don't overcook it, okay ?" While saying this he still started an attempt to wrestle the handle of Clive's bag out of the other man's hand. It was enough to notice how heavy it was, raising the question just what kind of stuff their madman had decided to take with him on this journey. The good side was: The weight had slowed the thief down.

Edgar had not flown for many years, though he used to fly often in the 60's and 70's. It had been as pleasant as he'd remembered with a quiet time to read, free food, and someone to pass the time with, with a game. Mael wasn't exactly the best poet or guesser, but Edgar enjoyed it all the same. Making up new riddles on the spot was a pasttime of his, and it always put him in at least an amiable mood compared to his normal, grumpy state of being.

He had halted at a Wendy's after the plane had landed, getting a 4 for 4 double stack to enjoy. He found himself particularly hungry, and impressively he was able to keep his food bag held in one arm, scarfing down the four food items he'd procured with his other without magical aid. Spells took dexterity after all, and he had it in spades. He strode briskly to the baggage claim to make certain no one left him, not that he wouldn't have been able to find or teleport to them in some form or fashion, given sufficient time to sit down and check his spellbook.

The wizard was just scarfing down the last of his chicken nuggets when he saw a most curious scene. Clive was running down a man holding what Edgar assumed to be Clive's bag, with Mael and Eleanor already there attempting to aid him in their own way. Edgar had always been a man of action, but that was mostly before he'd turned 150. Now he rather preferred to let his teammates do the overt activities lest he out himself as a mage in the middle of Seattle-Tachoma International Airport baggage claim.

He decided to finish his fries as he watched what unfolded, before tossing the bag into the trash. The wizard patted himself off in case any crumbs clung to his robes, casually slipping his hand into his large sleeve. One would have to be watching him carefully to see the old man pull his walking staff out of his sleeve, as if it had always been within his grasp. He clicked the ground with it twice and began to walk, making his way over to Clive to see if there was any expertise he could provide.

Val stumbled off the plane with grace and composure. At least that was story she sticking with. She hoped she hadn't said too much to Eleanor. She couldn't remember much after the third glass of champagne. Her vision had mostly returned by the time she reached the baggage claim. Not that she had any luggage to claim. Travel light and travel fast, her dad had always said. He'd also told her not to come back until she had a real job. So what did he know?

Collapsing against convenient column, Val heard her phone buzzing angrily and saw Clive getting friendly with some locals. She didn't bother to check her phone. The Czech piece she had tossed into her bag, suddenly made it feel heavy. Far too heavy. Pulling a gun in an airport seemed like a singularly bad idea. Not that she had any intention of starting a gun fight. Guns were loud. And killing people was decidedly not cool. Even if they wanted the cowboy's kit. Val felt like crying. She didn't need more drama in her life. She needed coffee. She needed a doughnut. One of those fancy ones. With creme filling and sprinkles in cute shapes.

She didn't feel like dancing. Not with anyone present.

She figured cowboy could square dance his way out of trouble. The tall angry guy was lanky enough to step on so toes and she supposed Eleanor could lecture the enemy into surrendering. Val watched poser-Gandalf with some amusement, of course the party grandpa had brought a cane. She wasn't going to help him if he fell over she decided. His coffee jab still stung. She wasn't going to let it slide. He'd have to ask her before she helped him. She'd relish the moment.

The totally discreet wannabe spook that crossed in front of her and headed towards the brewing fight with a hand in his bargain bin blazer ruined Val's smug musing about the geriatric wizard.

"No," Val muttered, looking desperately around her. "No, please no. I don't want to work this early."

The universe, diverse gods, or spirits chose not to answer her desperate pleas and Val felt a rising surge of panic with each confident step the man took towards the others. There was something vaguely military about his walk. Something familiar. Something she disliked already. She didn't smell a three letter agency. No one was wearing cool suits. And cops usually loved to yell out loud that they were cops. At least before they started blasting.

Resolved to do something, Val lurched to her feet. She grabbed an unguarded cup of coffee that had been left on a seat next to her and stumbled towards the stranger. She opened the lid of the cup of coffee and tossed an al chemical ingredient inside as she power-walked after him. The coffee began to boil again. Arcane heat began to burn her hand through the paper cup. It was compost friendly Val noted with great pleasure. Not that it mattered. The poor cup would have to die for them. For Clive, the biggest and only cowboy Val had ever seen. It was a worthy sacrifice and Val knew that Sun Tzu would have been proud. She just hoped the disposable coffee cup could forgive her.

Val managed a perfectly timed stumble, tripping over an untied shoelace as she barreled into the man and sent hot coffee pouring all over his back. The cheap spook grunted in surprise as Val knocked him to the floor with her entire body. The grunt turned into a loud scream as the magically heated coffee began to burn through layers of synthetic fiber. Val offered a loud, panicked string of apologies, her shaky hands grabbing hold of the cut-rate spook's arm as she pretended to try to help him to his feet. Whatever he had in his pocket wasn't good and Val had no intention of letting him use it.

The unwelcome dance partners writhed on the floor, a mess of struggling limbs and muscles as a couple of heads turned their way. Val wasn't ready for the elbow of bargain-bin spook's free arm when it hit her in the side of her head.

@Jarl Coolgruuf@Fetzen
The man gave Clive a look of curiosity that was completely at odds with the situation. He looked for all the world like an average white collar worker, dressed neatly but not extravagantly, clean shaven, neither tall nor short, handsome or ugly. The other passengers streamed around them, mostly glued to the screens of their cellphones or anxiously wishing the baggage carousel to hurry up and magically produce their luggage. Abruptly the man let go of the bag that Mael was attempting to wrestle from him, seeming to completely lose interest in the theft he had just purported.

"You know, I'd never really considered it," the man said as a smile spread across his face. The wrongness of the smile was immediately apparent to Clive and Mael. The man had too many teeth, far too many, they packed his mouth sharp and jagged in lamprey like profusion. With deliberate nonchalance he bent his own elbow back. Tendons strained and there was a sudden pop of bone dislocating. If it pained the man his toothy grin gave no sign of it. The woman however began to scream in terror that was as false as it was believable. Passengers looked up from their phones in shock and a space began to open around Clive. TSA agents were already grabbing for weapons or radios depending on how rent-a-cop they were feeling.

"Help! This man is attacking my husband! Please somebody help me!"

___________________

@Rapid Reader

The man's scream had a hideous inhuman characteristic to it as he shoved himself upward. The alchemical mixture spilled on his back hissed and popped as it interacted with some glamour or enchantment, noxious yellow smoke rose from the wound in tendrils and the mans whole body began to twitch rhythmically. Muscles and tendons stood out and there was a sound of ripping cloth as seams popped. His jaw descended, growing feral and more animistic with each passing heartbeat. The thing that had appeared to be a man placed one palm on the linoleum tiled floor, his spread fingers appearing now as misshapen claws. The other hand seized Val by the shirt front, lifted her into the air and hurled her across the hallway into one of the many stores which lined the concourse. She hit a wire shelf containing more copies of Outlander and Fifty Shades of Grey than really ought to exist in one location, sending them flying to the floor like obese butterflies. People began to scream both around Val and further down towards the baggage claim area. The man thing was on its feet now, spittle dripping from a mouth that contained too many teeth, its eyes blazed with primal fury as it lopped towards Val in a peculiarly simian shamble, claw like fingers extended even as the smoke continued to rise from its burned back.

___________________

Eleanor was midway through composing a cutting retort when things began to move very rapidly. She pulled her cellphone from her pocket and thumbed it live, opening an app labeled Arcart with a stab of her thumb. The screen morphed into a video from the camera but with heavy modification. It looked almost like the movie depiction of an infrared shot though a practiced eye would see it more as a magnetic resonance. It was, in fact, a thaumatergic field read out overlaid on what the camera was observing. Streams of numbers danced across the image locking on various points of arcane locus as they rose above the background ambient. Clive appeared as a single greenish spark, like most humans though possibly a little brighter due to either run off from the other group members, or because he had drunk some of Val's coffee. Mael's body flickered with redish contact points, which was normal for him given his background, though the app pointed out that the intensity of his thaum field was rising quickly into the 20 millimerlin range. Most worrying was the fact that the thieves themselves were well above the background thaum levels, their human baseline was there but lines of ugly yellow energy rippled over them like oil being spilled onto a clear pond. She was just about to shout a warning to her people when the man deliberately broke his own arm and the woman began to scream bloody murder.

Ice water splashed over Eleanor's guts as she realized the situation was escalating well beyond anything they had prepared for. Someone had obviously been laying this trap for them, someone with either direct intel or who could predict that the Group would send people to investigate whatever was going on. Neither of those options were good. Worst of all was that they had clearly staged a public scene, TSA officers were already shouting and moving to respond as the woman continued to scream and shriek. There was no way that Clive's false documents would hold up under prolonged scrutiny if he were detained. Options began to cascade through her mind and their repercussions spread outwards in her minds eye like dominoes toppling in all directions at once. Priority one, prevent her people from being arrested or shot in the next few seconds.

Eleanor closed her eyes. The field of endless nondescript gray stretched around her in all directions. She was naked and clean, ritually purified as she always was in The Other Place and her only adornment was a short stylus of gold and polished silver wires wound together and polished to a micrometer fine smoothness. She lifted the stylus and began to write an elaborate equation. There was no cause to hurry, time did not pass in this mental space in the same way it did in the real world and she was able to banish the panic and distraction of the real world through years of ritual practice. Glowing letters appeared in the air as she nested parenthesis and differentials with the complete focus of an EOD tech defusing an unstable bomb, knowing that any slip up might well be instantly fatal. It took a subjective minute to complete the spell, several hundred characters of mathematical shorthand so complicated that it would appear gibberish to anyone but another practitioner. That done she double checked the spell and then opened her eyes. Less than a second had passed in the real world, a literal eye blink from the point of view of an observer. Nothing visible occurred but the Arcart software registered a massive spike in Thaums, over 40 millimerlins, as her spell discharged. A light fixture fell from the ceiling, crashing into the path of one of the on rushing TSA agents and sending him sprawling to the ground in a pile that tripped up two of his fellows. Several other lights blew out plunging half the concourse into darkness save for the greenish glow of emergency lighting. The baggage carousel screeched and threw a belt, a high pitched whining filling the air. There was a rending crash of indeterminate origin somewhere off in the distance as the airport descended into chaos. A dozen other minor things went wrong all at once, none of them anything more than bad luck, but amplified by her entropic curse to make them all the more likely for the next few seconds, hopefully buying them all some breathing room.

Val rolled to her feet with all the grace of a heavyweight champion boxer that had just had a lost a fight with a bus. Her head hurt. Her back hurt. And her new shades were a mess of expensive plastic and more expensive cracked glass. Idle dreams of workers comp and an trip on the company dollar to Prague were ruined by the inhuman roar of the bargain bin spook. His new looked suited him, it hurt her less than seeing his cheap blazer. Poor fashion really was a crime.

She stumbled as she tried to move. Nothing was broken, but it hurt, it fucking hurt. Val crashed into a half-crumbled shelf. She reached for her messenger bag, but came up with a fresh copy of Outlander. She tossed the gaudy book at the simian monster and offered a silent prayer that bad romance novels were its secret weakness. The paperback bounced off the monsters head with a sad thump. And then the terminal exploded, quite literally, into chaos. Light fixtures came crashing down. Bags, heavy bags, soared through the air like wheel-equipped boulders, indiscriminately sending civilians, TSA agents, and airline employees crashing into the cold linoleum floor. Val would have been impressed with the chaos, she really would have been, had she not been in a life or death battle with a whatever it was she was fighting.

Romance novels were crushed beneath her feet as Val began to run. She wasn't a fighter. She had told Eleanor. She wasn't going to stay and brawl it out with King Kong. A shelf of chips exploded into a shower of wavy potato slices next to her. She could feel the heat pouring from the simian horror as he roared next to her. His breath and the smell of his still sizzling flesh made her gag. Her feet caught onto something and Val crashed onto her knees. Her hands came up wet. She willed herself not to look. She didn't want to see. She already knew what it was. She couldn't help.

Val scrambled forward in the darkness. She could hear the creature behind her. Closer. She screamed in panic and grabbed the first best vial she could reach in her leather satchel, hurling it towards the beast. The ruined storefront exploded into a brilliant flash of light and thunder. Val screamed, but the creature screamed louder, his eyes burning from the brilliant light of a thousand rave lights condensed through alchemical means into liquid form. Val tried to crawl away, backpedaling across the floor.

A desperate claw swipe caught a bag and then the alchemist and sent her skidding across the now slippery floor. She hoped it was coffee. She prayed it was spilled soda. She didn't look. Not again. Her right shoulder screamed with pain as Val clambered to her feet. She knew what she had to do.

She did what she did best.

She did the only thing she knew she could do.

She ran.

She ran towards the nearest emergency exit.

Edgar felt the flames licking his skin, and the screams of those long dead still haunting his memories. He had to tell himself not to cover his mouth, for the air around him wasn't thick with smoke or embers that were scattered from fallen debris. It had been nearly two hundred years ago, on pentecost at Grue Church in Skulstad, on a bright morning when the fire had started. It had ended the lives of one hundred and thirsteen people on that day, the deadliest disaster by fire in Norwegian history. Only Edgar had escaped alive, and only he had discovered it was started by demons. The wizard clutched his shirt, trying to shake away those memories from so long ago. The elderly man was not there any longer. He told himself he was in the Seattle-Tachoma International Airport, and the panic around him was of the making of strange monsters, yes, but not the fire he had experienced so long ago in his childhood.

He opened his eyes, and he was no longer the child caught in the fire. Flame was his tool and under his command, as were all of the elements under the sun. He did not have his grimoire handy, but he needed it not. He glanced Eleanor's way, watching the afterburn of her hex on the crowd and understanding the goal of her spell, even if he wasn't entirely certain of the end goal of how it would effect the monster-men attacking his comrades. Knowing Mael and Clive, they'll give as good as they get in most instances of danger. He needn't worry on them overmuch.

His would-be apprentice on the other hand, was a different matter. At the corner of his vision he saw a brilliant flash of light from a ruined storefront, a sparking sign with DELTA CONVIENCE in large words died of power as he watched Val crawling away desperately from the monster-thing. Clearly it wasn't a norse beast, but he'd fought more than those chronicled by the Northmen. He started walking, making his way past screaming men and women tripping over themselves, grim as Odin himself. The wizard's casual-ware gave way to his arcane robes, brightly colored and etched in runes of old. He saw the thing reared itself up, spreading its arms wide to engulf Val in its embrace where it would devour her alive.

Edgar, now around a score of feet away, flung his arm in the direction of the thing. Impossibly, a spiked chain shot out of his sleeve just under his arm. The spike impaled the demonic thing in the chest, causing it to wretch up ichor and bile onto the tiles just before Val's feet. The thing looked powerfully built and beyond his strength, and yet the chain held and despite the thing's desperate yanking, it was stuck with the chain impaled in its torso.

"I banish you to Hel, beast. Know you not who wrought this chain? Made for Fenris himself it was, and you nor any other being on earth save the Christian Leviathan might even test its strength!" He declared, producing his shillelagh from behind his back. The creature, simian in build and demonic in visage, turned to screech at him. Instead it received a sound 'thump' as Edgar's blessed stick cracked its skull like a walnut, and it hit the ground noiselessly. Whether it was dead or not, he didn't know. But it wouldn't move from this spot so long as the chain bound it here. Even now Val saw the chain in its chest connected to some eldritch hole in the floor.

"Get up girl, by Grimnir!" He chastised. "We have no time for you to be playing with these troll-spawn."

It all happened a little fast for Maël. What had first seemed to be hardly anything more than an unexpected holdup until they'd have dealt with some petty wannabe thieves developed into an ambush of the supernatural sort. The man suddenly let go of the bag and the frenchman failed to hold its weight in time due to the unexpectancy. The suitcase dropped onto Maël's shoes, hitting his big toe and causing pain. That was nothing against the sight of the individual's teeth though. Obviously in shock and somewhat frightened, Maël stumbled backwards and nearly lost his footing due to one half of it still being wedged in between the floor and the suitcase.

Who were they ? This could not be just some random occurrence, it had to be something with a plan!
How could they have known this ? Was it related to the attacks they had come here for to investigate ?
And what should they do ? Flee and hope for police and other people to hold them back while they'd make a run for it ? Or start a fight on the spot ? Worst of all there was no time for communication: Clive would probably go crazy and then the officials would go crazy as well. This was an airport!

Another surge of pain. This time much, much more pronounced and coming from a much more unexpected place. Maël raised his arm and looked down onto it. Val's impact in the shop had not only littered the ground with many Shades Of Grey, but also with glass shards. One of them now was stuck firmly in his left hand while the other had many cuts on its fingers. Someone knew the thin line between insanity and cunning...

The threshold was about to be crossed. Maël leaned against one of the massive columns and pressed against his hand as hard as he could in an attempt to quench the pain while, because of that and the overall distraction, there were not enough mental resources left to fight against himself. He saw Edgar deploy some weird kind of his own magic and it felt like a Get Out of Jail Free card: If more 'reasonable' people could do supernatural things in the public so could he! It was the point when Maël's vision turned into a mess in red and Eleanor's Merlin-meter might have had to switch to another measurement range. What had been invisible connection points grew into a swarm of tiny portals to another world floating around him, happily eating away at the nearby concrete in order to clear the space for what they were bringing in. It was like the non-sci-fi equivalent of tiny drones working on a starship while it was already in flight and not only happened on the outside, but also inside Maël's body simultaneously. It was the reason why Edgar, if using his mind-reading abilities, would hear nothing but unintelligible noise. Maël's mind and brain was under reconstruction, quite literally.

By the time the magical cocoon started to vanish a pair of large eyes started observed their surroundings. They were a mixture of pitch black and ember, no pupils or iris to be seen. Pretty much the only way to guess what they were looking at was to backtrack the direction the head was pointing. Right now it pointed towards Edgar.

Mind-read this, my favorite quizmaster: I don't need a chain to immobilize someone. I'll just twist the part below your knee until your toes point the right way... again. It would be the first time for you to actually be a decrepit old man instead of just making a mock out of decrepit old men by faking being one, right ?

The pair of almost ridiculously large horns turned a few degrees to watch what strange things Eleanor was doing. She was... typing on her phone, now ?

Oh yeah, just keep taking your smartphone addiction to the next level! Maybe your app even has a real-time money calculator for all the damage that will undoubtedly happen ? Please tell me, I need more motivation! And why is Val crawling away! Doesn't she have some kind of drug to just make any dangers disappear in her own reality ?

Those with a more sensitive nose would notice early that things started to smell a bit like fireworks. Or rather... Maël smelled a bit like fireworks as he had gained that certain, sulphuric aura around him. That was not the only new thing though as the tip of his tail suddenly slammed against a nearby wastebin. It flew over the battlefield into the direction of tethered-to-an-eldritch-hole-man, tumbling and spraying any contents along its trajectory and the lines of gravity. Some of those halfway eaten cookies, one-time coffee cups, sticky plastic bags and other disposables had a good chance of hitting members of the Sunday Group without evasive maneuvers being taken, but the primary goal was to gain their enemies' attention as the metal container hit the intended head partially before crashing into what remained of the shop's window.

Not to forget you two morons: You designated yourself for eradication. The good news is that an annihilation device has just powered up!

Maël moved forward on all four limbs, fingernails turned into small cones of claw leaving probably not so temporal imprints in the linoleum. Despite still being perfectly capable of bipedal locomotion, behaving like a quadruped had a few advantages he had had the opportunity to discover: More grip, combatants struggling with something that did no longer reach the height expected from a fully grown man, more length of his tail available for grabbing things and, last but not least, the fact that his tremendously large horns would not scoop up the hung ceiling as he was moving around, but could be used for impaling things instead.

He reached the small puddle of saliva one of the two monsters had deposited when opening its mouth for the first time and dipped his tongue right into it. There was a lot of dust, rubber from countless shoes of countless passengers and other shit, but also a taste to be remembered. Maybe a detailed enough description later on could provide some hints towards what they're dealing with ? One could never know if there'd be enough of a high quality corpse left for an autopsy, so better to take some samples right away while his infernal stomach could handle them.

Speaking of samples... As Maël opened his newly designed mouth one could see that its inner workings indeed had potential for... taking bloody samples so to speak. That was assuming that he wouldn't use the remainder of his refurbished body to rip even bigger samples off his object of study. Said remainder pretty much yelled 'Toughness!' from top to bottom and approached the chained individual at rapidly increasing speed. Edgar's mysterious chain was good, but it had two significant flaws: That guy could still move around in circles whose radii matched its length and even an indestructible chain could separate from the object it was holding in place by said object lacking enough structural strength itself.

It appeared that Maël was trying to find out about the latter as he was going for a head-on collission.

Clive jumped back as the creature revealed its true self. His stone-faced fisage cracked as his eyebrows raised slightly and he gave a quiet, "Well shoot." He put some distance between himself and the not-so-lovely couple and back pedaled a few steps, fists up and ready as he waited to see what would come of this transformation. Something ugly, something real ugly and new to him. It almost reminded him of a skunk ape he'd tangled with a few years back near Lake Okeechobee down in Florida (minus the smell, thank the Almighty). The prospect of trying to do the same this beast hand to claw sent a chill down his spine Even still, he had already taken his first step forward, fully ready to bring his combatives training to bear, when a bottle crashed against its hide.

Clive jumped back once more to avoid touching any droplets of whatever Val had thrown. You can never be too careful with magic. He was grateful for the distraction as it gave him an opening to lunge for his duffle bag. He nearly broke the compression straps as he tore it open and plunged a hand inside, retrieving a knife as long as his forearm wrapped in a worn leather sheath. This he tucked into his belt and went to work taking care of the gathered airport security. Two were still trying to get their feet under them when Clive's fist caught the first of them across the chin in a running sucker punch. The man spun a full circle before crumpling to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut. Clive snatched the taser and pepper spary from the guard's belt and wielded them akimbo like a non-lethal Rambo. A guard to his right seized when 50,000V ripped through him and let out a rather unmanly shriek as he pitched forward while another on the left swore with all the colors of the rainbow as he wiped at his burning face with his sleeve. Not wasting a second, Clive returned to the first guard's belt and retrieved both pairs of handcuffs.

He felt a pang of nostalgia as he tackled the man shouting obscenities at him and cuffed his hands behind his back; followed suite by his coworker. There was a brief moment where Clive stopped and considered how strange his life had become over the last decade. Things were simpler when he was tracking down people doing regular, albeit horrific, crimes. He shook himself out of his reminiscencing and snatched up his duffle bag before returning for his gun cases on the ruined luggage belt. The hardcase was discarded as he all but slapped a magazine into his pistol, pocketing the other two, and tucked the pistol into his waistband. The shotgun he unceremoniously tossed into his duffle. He stood back up just in time to get hit by a half-eaten salad from Mael's trashcan antics. Clive spun on his heel and felt his heart leap into his throat as he saw a denizen of the lower circles of Hell just a stone's throw away. It took active concentration on his part to not draw and mag dump into the abomination that he assumed was the Frenchman.
"Dear Lord," Clive muttered to himself as he brushed some lettuce out off his jacket.

Ordinarily it wouldn't be hard for him to slip away, steal a car, and be on his way. Unfortunately, he was now part of a team and that meant no one gets left behind. Teams also have leaders that direct them and that person was obviously Eleanor. He made his way back to her and gestured at the chaos around them.
"So what's the plan, ma'am?"

Eleanor's mind snapped out of its glassy stasis at Clive's words. The situation was beyond out of control. Even with her misfortune jynx the likelyhood was that multiple supernatural actions had been caught on camera and most of them would be, at the very least, wanted for questioning by the local police. An analytical part of her mind told her that had probably been the goal of whomever or whatever had been waiting for them. Make it impossible to investigate. Well time enough to pick up the pieces later. Status Omega. Calculations whirled in her head for a moment as she drew in the locations of all of her people, all of them except for Maël who was too dissimilar to 'people' right now for her to reach.

Scatter.

The word seemed to reverberate in the heads of every team member, a psychic whammy from a dozen meetings which rendered Eleanor's mental voice into an utterly unremarkable utterance that tasted like the back end of a PowerPoint presentation. Well, not everything could be flashy. She walked across the room and seized her own back, dropped in the confusing melee and panic of screaming passengers. The very calm deliberation with which she moved would mark her as unusual, but she doubted that compared to a rampaging demon, it would be of that much interest to whoever reviewed the tape.

The air outside was muggy with car exhaust. Horns were blaring as those who were fleeing the terminal ran into those who were ignorant of it. Eleanor walked briskly across the road, weaving between the gridlocked traffic and taking a set of stairs down to the rental car pick up, gaudily advertising the experience of being ripped of by Hertz or whoever else. The subterranean lot was empty of people, the sound of sirens alarms and screams had drawn people away. She paused for a moment and consulted her mental map, making sure that Val had gotten far enough away that her escape was likely. Then she pulled the sim card from her phone, dropped it to the ground and crushed it beneath her heel before replacing it with a fresh one from her purse. That accomplished she crossed to one of the cars and touched the lock. By incredible coincidence it was unlocked so she opened the door and stepped inside, placing both hands on the steering wheel. She closed her eyes and found herself in the grey empty void in which she worked her magic, time did not flow here so she took a moment to calm herself before creating the spell, nesting parenthesis and functions in her mind that appeared before her in soft golden light.

Blink

She opened her eyes and stepped out of the car. The airport was gone and she found herself in a car rental lot on the other side of the city. The Toyota she had just stepped out of looked identical to the one she had entered at the airport, save for the placement of an air freshener on one of the fan outlets. She could taste lilac in the back of her mouth and she really wanted a drink.

"Ma'am?" a man in a slightly shabby looking business suit asked, clearly startled to find her there. Eleanor ignored him and walked off the lot, opening up the uber app on her new sim card as she went.

"Get up girl, by Grimnir!" He chastised. "We have no time for you to be playing with these troll-spawn."

Val had only just managed to settle upon a suitable insult for the geriatric wizard who had just saved her life when she felt an unwelcome voice smash into her already painfully echoing head. A magical command shouldn't have hurt that much. It shouldn't have rattled her skull. As she buried her head in her hands with a pained groan Val tried to remember what exactly she had laced the morning's arcane acid with. In between pained smacks to her temporal lobe, Val could make out a clear suggestion that felt more like a compulsion in her frazzled state.

Scatter.

"RUN OFF-BRAND GANDALF!" Val shouted as she beelined for the nearest exit with a new found breath of panic. She didn't care if Edgar followed her. She hoped he could still run. She wasn't stealing a golf cart for him. And she wasn't waiting for Maël. He looked more like a monster than the ape thing Edgar had nailed to the floor. Val was sure he could handle himself with teeth and claws that sharp.

Still staring behind her as she ran, Val barreled into a security guard that stood gaping in her general direction. The wannabe hero was sent crashing into the ground with the trash alchemist landing on top of him. She struggled against him, smelling the a mixture of sweat, doughnuts, and burned coffee.

"Get off me!" Val shouted, repeatedly hitting the TSA agent with her satchel as the he scrambled for the taser gun secured to his belt. She winced as she felt barbs and wires race past her, just barely missing her chest before they struck an unfortunate passenger standing behind her. Reaching into her bag, Val retrieved a dark green bottle and promptly smashed it into the forehead of the security guard.

The bottle burst into a collection of heavy shards that left the TSA agent wailing loudly as blood began to seep from the gashes that now painted his prodigious skull. Kicking as she jumped to her feet, Val vanished into the thick cloud of grey smoke appeared from the broken bottle.

She had to run. She had to keep moving. She wasn't going to let them catch her. No matter who "them" was.

Scatter ? Had she just said scatter ? What kind of brainfucking idea of their boss was this ? So in order to cease causing such a commotion at the airport they all should run into different directions and thus expose themselves to even more people ? It made sense in terms of getting away from the attackers, but not much more.

Which didn't mean that Maël, especially alter ego Maël, couldn't find that idea quite satisfactory still. On the contrary: The lack of definition about the scope of 'Scatter!' equaled a free card to do something crazy!

Much less awesome however was the kind of trouble their drug-addict literally ran into: a security guard probably was the least preferable thing to encounter, aside from maybe a solid wall though even that was up to dispute because the latter couldn't catch. His demon ears could listen to the electrical noises of a taser and the screams of some unfortunate person, but luckily it wasn't Val. She managed to disappear into a smoke cloud of her own making, but could one be sure that she'd be safe ?

Maël decided that one could not. Even his alter ego could see the danger of losing teamwork in that kind of situation. They had to get out of the publicity, but all by themselves would also mean that they could be picked up one by one very easily. That smoke cloud would last long enough for him to make a run for it, too! So to hell with the orders!

The demonic shape the Frenchman had turned himself into was not exactly the best when it came to acceleration, but not even those security guards still standing didn't dare to intercept the monstrosity he was. A sharp pain, seizures and the fact he was suddenly stumbling unintentionally told him that yet another taser had been fired, but momentum carried Maël over and made the wires snap. He managed to disappear into the smoke cloud that granted him the opportunity to recover while noone could take aim again.

"Val!" His distorted voice thundered through the airport as Maël had spotted his teammate a significant distance away from him already. He did his best to catch up, but it still took a bunch of seconds until he was right behind her. His eyes frantically skimmed over the adjacent walls, the floor, even the ceilings. A few elevators and escalators were nearby and tried to seduce him, but no: these could be stopped and they all had definitive end points where they could be picked off very predictably!

A fundamental decision had to be made: Get out of the airport and away from it risking a lot more exposure to the public, or hide inside risking to be trapped ? A large and heavy looking door came into his view, a big red sign on it reading 'RESTRICTED'. Well that was a start...

"Wait!" he shouted out again, hoping that Val would hear and listen.