[IC] My swimming instructors a dragon. [Mortim / Siaya Dragalorn]

[Mortim]

A leathery tongue struts slowly over the lower, then the upper lip of Ahllasta's vicious mouth. Sharp canines are seen for a brief moment behind meaty lips. Feral eyes pace Anora's figure for roughly five seconds straight before speech again enters this encounter. Her vascular arms split from one another to place hands on burly hips.

"All I'll say is, I'd like to defeat Darsby. Before I could witness anything other than this reproachful form-" Ahllasta kicks at Darsby's limp leg, a light *crack* being heard from beneath his flesh as she does so. "-my partner shot him down. I'll help you, so long as you don't get in the way when I see fit to make good on my grudge." Each sentence passes quickly into the growls and sneers that follow her words. She sounds like an animal accustomed to speech only enough for it to look relatively natural, words being a tool she only employs when needed. She speaks just silently enough for her partner not to hear of any bargaining happening in the living room.

The grey-suited man can be heard from the living room. Sighs, "yes, I know" and "I get it, but this is big, I'm sure" can be heard on several occasions past the thin living room walls. One finger is lightly tapping against Ahllasta's hip to express urgency over time. The rest of her is motionless aside from animalistic facial features, making that one fidgeting appendage stand out.

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Darsby swims in a sea of dislocated words. He's taken to sorting out the sentences he's spoken to others after deciding he is physically somewhere entirely foreign. Words collide to form coherent statements about him; statements align to express when everything was said. Perhaps by understanding his own need to say what he said he can understand what pushed him into this state. Perhaps he'd be better off sticking to what he's most recently witnessed, either way, it's better to start somewhere specific than nowhere in particular. At least, he hopes he's taking a correct course of action.

[Riven Wight]

Anora’s heart quickened and she held her breath as Ahllasta eyed her. Her hounds each tensed, their thick legs bending at the ready as they growled low, baring their fangs. The distant murmur of the man’s voice and her hounds’ crackling snarls were all that filled the room.
Anora exhaled when Ahllasta finally spoke. She ground her teeth when the woman kicked Darsby, enough strength in that simple action to cause him further injury. She tried to not shudder, and to resist the urge to place a barrier between him and Ahllasta.
Her teeth snapped together at the condition of the woman’s help. That wasn’t a promise she could make and keep. But she didn’t have time to fight it. The red-eyed man’s conversation sounded like it was nearing an end.
Her chin lowered as she dropped her gaze to Darsby. Reluctantly, she let two of her hounds melt back into formless mist at her feet. The relief of releasing the two semi-solid forms flooded over her, the draw of her powers lessening.
“The van out front,” she began in a near whisper, keeping her voice down to avoid being heard by Ahllasta’s companion. “Keep him,” she nodded in the general direction of the other intruder, “busy, and I can get Darsby there. And the both of us out of here.”
Some of the mist that had once been the hounds had already begun to creep around Darsby, almost protectively. The remaining hound stood at the ready in front of her, its bulk wider than her, acting like a living shield—so to speak—in case this whole thing was a trick.

[Mortim]

Ahllasta shifts posture again, one hand falling to its respective side. This free hand poises itself as if it were ready to chop and jab at the drop of a hat. Her carnivorous eyes dance for less than three seconds this time around, dashing from the hallway and then back to Anora after deciding their time is better spent in a damaged living room. She's thinking, turning some despicable thought on its other side via firey metaphorical utensils.

"How about this?-" Ahllasta, being more a woman of action than debate and bargaining, had made up her mind to follow a new, unspoken course of action. She lived from the hip and enacts all her decisions to reflect said truth.

A small shimmering thread, only visible by its super-thin reflective surface, is withdrawn from Ahlassta's pocket. One small metallic sphere is held, dangling at the end of said string. Ahllasta twirls the sphere in circles until suddenly it glows a bright red alongside emitting a low hum. She eventually tosses the sphere through a nearby wall into the hallway where her partner is, a light *Crack* and spray of dust being the only indication that it's moved through two layers of plaster.

*Crash!* Through the earlier mentioned plaster comes Ahllasta's alleged partner via a faint twitch of her wrist, dazed and completely wrapped in that thin threading. "Wha-?" He'd sputter amidst clouds of dust before a simple flick to his temple sends a sharp *Crack!* through the room, disabling the poor man as he slumps into being entirely supported by a faint twinkling twine. Not even a second later he is dropped, still bound, to the floor below. In Ahllasta's hand is a pair of jingling keys.

"My rides faster." She'd say whilst mischief paints her features in prideful swathes. She lets go of the yarn in her hand and gently kicks at Darsby's shattered leg in such a way that he's pulled across the floor towards Ahllasta, underneath Anora's hellhound. Another seemingly gentle kick and Darsby is likely tossed over Ahllasta's shoulder should there be no interference.

Throughout this entire affair which transpired as if it were some pre-ordained course of perfected action occurring in no more than seven seconds flat, Ahllasta never broke eye-contact with Anora. "You're coming with, dear." She'd casually remark with a sneer before turning towards the way out, intending to walk to the black 1974 Mustang she'd arrived in.

A cell-phone, somewhere on the floor in the hallway continues to emit faint sounds. "Hello...? Vince...? Respond now, or I'll assume the worst," would come a stern voice.

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

"So, I'm on Earth?" Darsby would mutter to himself inside a swirling vortex of jumbled conversations. His mind is still far from present circumstance.

[Riven Wight]

Anora tensed, holding her breath as she waited for Ahllasta’s answer. Though the woman didn’t take long, it was long enough to make Anora shift her weight uneasily and her hound to let out a low, impatient growl.
Anora raised her chin slightly when the woman spoke, expecting a counter proposal, but this time, Ahllasta didn’t bother further speaking. Instead, the woman reached into one of the pockets in her cargo pants.
Anora’s hound growled warningly, its body hunching, ready to attack. Golden electricity swirled more frequently within its translucent form. The mist from one of the hounds she had released gathered in front of her feet, ready to spring up into a shield as a second defense. But the precautions proved unnecessary.
Her gaze darted between the beastly woman’s and the sphere she had pulled from her pocket. The thread it dangled from hardly looked like it should be capable of holding the object up as Ahllasta began to spin it.
Anora suppressed a shudder as she noticed the woman’s gaze did not once flick from her.
“What—?” she began, but didn’t get to finish her question. She gasped and stepped back when Ahllasta tossed the spinning sphere through the wall.
Before Anora could reform her question or her hound react to her thoughts and emotions, the small puff of plaster dust the top-like item left became a storm with a loud, cracking thud.
Anora stumbled back, blinking quickly to keep the dust from her eyes. Her hound let out a shocked, angered yelp, its form wavering for a fraction of a second. Before the dust had time to think about settling, she heard the man’s surprised voice, his clouded form suspended not far from her. With little more than a flick of her wrist, Ahllasta had the man down for the count.
Anora blinked down at the unconscious form of the man bound by the impossible thread.
“That’s one way to keep him busy,” she muttered. Her face contorted as she tried not to sneeze.
Her attention quickly snapped back to Ahllasta, for a moment wondering if the statement meant she was going to loan them her car. But her heart sank as the woman slid Darsby to her, Anora’s magic swelling around him too late to stop her, and shouldered him.
She intended on going with them.
“What?” She gawked after the woman, horrified, Ahllasta’s gaze still unnervingly on her. Her hound mimicked the question with a growling snap of its jaws.
Anora’s eyes narrowed at the order as the woman turned and headed to the front door. Her hands clenched at her sides. Ahllasta and Darsby had one thing in common, it seemed: they both expected her follow orders unquestioningly. Like a lost pup with no mind of its own. But at least Darsby had answered her questions.
What’s with these people? she thought, scowling.
She hurried after the woman as Ahllasta made it to the front porch. Anora sent her hound ahead of her, the rest of her mist dissipating.
The hound slipped out the door just behind Ahllasta. On quick, silent feet, it jumped the railing of the porch, turned mid-air, and slid to a stop just below the steps to block the woman’s path. It bore its fangs at her, daring her to try to pass it.
“I’m coming,” Anora growled, stepping outside onto the porch, “but like heck I’m letting you come with. You’re the reason we’re in this mess!” More mist swirled over her now open and ready hands, tendrils wrapping up her forearms.
The power usage nagged at her. She wasn't accustomed to using her powers as much as she had in a single day. It pulled at her energy as if she was in the middle of a workout rather than summoning magic, reminding her she needed to be careful. She still needed to save enough strength to drive Darsby and herself out of there. The adrenaline pumping through her and the energy bars in her pack would help, but neither would get her very far. That much she knew from experience.
Doing her best to not give away how using her powers affected her, she took a cautious step to the side to flank Ahllasta and put a bit of extra distance between them.
“I doubt we have time to argue,” she began, her words coming out in a nervous rush, “so put Darsby down and the two of us will be on our way.”
Her hound growled in agreement, the crackling sound low and feral.

[Mortim]

*Ring-ring-ring! Ring-ring-ring! Ring-ring-ring! Click-...* A small box-like structure is flipped open, one ball-joint allows it to split in half to expand its rectangular shape. Pale fingers hold said shape to a cold face creased by concerned features. One word shimmers atop our devices outline, "Earth."

"Yeah?" A gentle voice grates through damaged vocal cords.
"This is senior agent Hernandez of the CMA. Your number is in our records regarding-" A brass-tax, effeminate voice warbles through an alien translator into the ear of the one who holds our communications box.
"Ahllasta?" He'd say, sighing all the while. Several fingers begin to pace his temples anxiously.
"-Y-yeah..." Hernandez would say, having been thrown off by an interruption. "-You see, she's been displaying a consistent lack of respect for authority. You're listed as her *Papers shuffle*... uhm, retainer?"
"Yes, yes. I'm-... on my way." Soft-spoken sorrow paints an anguished demeanor in shades of brief hesitance.
"W-well you don't need to come here. I'm citing embassador's rights to expedite her removal from our Earth-Space jurisdiction! Under regulatory-" Hernandez is cut off once more just as her voice climbs into throngs of judicial anger.
"Senior agent Hernandez. You can't claim ambassador privileges as a tertiary power. You 'can' claim assistance from a transfer retainer. Don't worry; we aren't all like her." Our man's bristly words float with a light-hearted authority.
"Look here! I'm the supervisor to your 'Councils' little transfer program, what I say-!" *Click!* Hernandez is cut short by a closing of the communications box.

The box is eventually stored inside a pseudo-hoodies front pocket. One spidery hand withdraws a small notebook from the same pocket. Once-opened, the first page of this pamphlet displays only a giant question mark.

"Outer-lands, Earth." Hoarse words bounce against crumpled pages.

Once the words mentioned above are spoken the notebook begins to alight with various throngs of written information for several pages to come. Several moments are spent flipping through salvaged history and statistics pertaining to the local political climate. For several minutes this continues until that communications box is pulled back into open space. *Click!* "EFC" With that spoken command the cube vibrates and rings, sending some strange signal into deep space.

"This is the EFC. Central line." Metallic chords ring against an ivory ear.
"C-K-SB. Requesting full ambassador and temporary governance rights for an outer world, Earth. Secondary requests: same surrounding sol rights, a class five regulator, and, uhm...-" The man stops for a moment to rub at tightening neck-muscles with his free hand. "- Actually, make that three class six regulators, and an all-silent transport. Sage S-backing." Roughly twenty seconds are spent in silence after this request; anxious fingers continue to rub against a tense nape.
"All permissions granted. Transport and supplies to arrive at your present locale." Automated syllables persevere until finally ending with a *Click!*. The communications box shuts again.

Our man looks out across his surrounding landscape. A greenish sunset collides with a crimson sky in the distance. He sighs at the burden of monitoring an impulsive huntress such as Ahllasta. Regardless, what truly troubles this wizard residing countless light-years from Earth isn't a ferocious woman, it's what was referred to as a 'Standing Ambassador's Contract' for Earth. This contract spoke of an ancient myth even this man had heard of on his far-removed homeworld — the tale of Pahn.

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

Ahllasta finds herself to be suddenly plagued by an inexplicable feeling of dread. Her gut is better than she'd bargain for it to be.

"You're right, we don't have time to argue!" Her voice shoots through grating teeth, each canine sounding more like a tumbling boulder than anything a human can audibly produce. With these words, her body begins to radiate an overwhelming presence. Thoughts and ideas pour from her feral figure like an ocean being spilled out of a cup.

Gnashing teeth, searing steam, roaring bonfires in the distance, dark shadows looming in every direction; all of these things cascade into Anora's psyche without resistance as Ahllasta begins to look even more intimidating as if she'd somehow gained twelve feet in size. Though she hasn't actually increased in height, it wouldn't stop Anora from possibly perceiving her feet to be big enough to squish her completely.

"Want to bet your exhausted magic supply on a fight with me?!" Ahllasta would say, her words followed by deep and thunderous vibratto. You'd sooner call her words thunder than thinking them to be anything like speech. Each syllable spills like a landslide into the open air. Perhaps she's bluffing about knowing Anora's current state, either way, it'd be hard to make a bet against that body which now literally permeates a predators presence.

The aforementioned ambiguous force would be just weak enough as to not totally overwhelm Anora nor cause her to lose consciousness.

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Sweltering heat spills as a searing mist into Darsby's conscious space. Somehow, Ahllasta's unregulated presence is affecting him inside his invisible realm. This sensation begins to reawaken memories both old and recent in his mind. He can hear a woman shouting something about revenge while his chest slowly starts to burn. His mind begins to home into its present circumstance at a higher pace than before.

[Riven Wight]

Anora gasped and took a couple stumbling steps back when Ahllasta addressed her, the woman’s voice taking on a new inhuman depth. Anora's breath caught in her lungs. With her attention completely on Ahllasta, her remaining hound flickered out of existence, melting into nothingness.
The deadly strength and prowess of the beast-of-a-woman pressed down over her. The oppressive aura radiating from Ahllasta made the beastly woman appear more than twice her normal size.
Anora’s heart hammered against her ribs as if frantic to escape the woman’s ire, the mist at her hands trembling with her fingers. She did her best to still their quivering, not wanting to show weakness to a predator. That’s what this woman was: a predator. A relentless hunter.
Anora tried to swallow at Ahllasta’s thunderous question.
She knew. Somehow, the woman knew—or perhaps guessed—her magic was limited. Or she had read her mind, as Darsby had.
Either way, nearly every fiber of Anora’s being screamed at her to back down. That this was one she couldn’t win in a million years, no matter how determined she was. Only a small, quiet defiance egged her to not give in, to not tuck her tail between her legs and simply surrender.
She glanced to Darsby still slung over Ahllasta’s shoulder. Her hands clenched. She couldn’t help him if she was unconscious… or dead.
Resentfully, she hesitantly let the last of her mist fizzle out. The glow of her eyes extinguished alongside it. Gaze dropping to Ahllasta’s feet, she jerked her head toward the stairs, indicating for Ahllasta to lead on.
Ready to follow after the woman if she continued on her way to the car, Anora kept her gaze on the ground. It made it easier that way. She took a few breaths, trying to remind her lungs how to properly work. She’d have to be smart about this.
She tried to swallow, but her mouth still felt dry. Her heart pounded in her throat.
“You realize,” she began after a moment, her words unintentionally quiet, “going with us will mean you can’t chase after him,” she tried, taking a shot in the dark and hoping the thought would put off someone like Ahllasta. The woman had, after all, been angry about her partner shooting Darsby down. A quick kill without time to ‘make good on her grudge.’ “There’d be no hunt. You’d know where he is. What weapons he has. It’d be equivalent to hunting a tiger in a cage. I don’t see the glory or satisfaction in that.”

[Mortim]

Ahllasta withdrew her presence immediately after Anora backed down. She may be hostile and filled with an endless rage, yet it doesn't seem to mean she's not in control of it all. She continued forward towards her vehicle, Adjusting Darsby atop her shoulder as his congealed blood seeps down her back and chest.

Ahllasta stopped as Anora spoke, straightening up as her features warp into a shape which seems entirely unexpected to those who've known her for the slightest of moments. She smiled a broad humorous smile. Laughter eventually followed her grin as if all of this were some great tide of joy to gather up into a boisterous wave before inevitably fading. Her guffaw was as the tumbling of great machinery striking against shattered pavement.

"You're quite the woman!-" Ahllasta would muster to say whilst tossing Darsby's body into the back seat. "-To speak so easily to me after all of that.-" Ahllasta moves to the front seat to take her place and rev the car to life. She'd wait for Anora to enter wherever she pleases before speaking again. "-You hardly know the way of things, I don't hold it against you. That body is hardly one one-hundredth of Darsby's actually strength. I need him to be at his peak to derive satisfaction."

The inside of the car is as black as it's polished exterior. Worn leather and luxury pace the walls and seats of this transports cabin, a small pallet of various unmarked buttons rest in the center console between sports vehicle seating. Ahllasta presses a button near the front as she spins the car's wheels into an aggressive howl against the dirt beneath them. The vehicle, along with everyone in it, becomes mildly translucent as our Mustang charges violently forward. Trees and fences and tall grass pass through the car as if it were a specter. The only thing holding steady seems to be the earth below as bumps and divets rock the cabin violently. Eventually, we find ourselves on a highway, heading in no particular direction but indeed leaving the state. "Ohio, Exit 95" licks the edge of Ahllasta's vision as the car solidifies. She rolls down her window, letting wind throw her hair about. She closes her eyes, piloting the car easily without sight. Her other senses are more than enough for this.

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Darsby now understands that whatever happened to toss him into this state was recent and shockingly violent. What's holding him is whether or not he was alone... If he was, then staying here to contact his superiors for permission to obtain a stronger body would be the best course of action. He can't help but observe a name he once said since arriving at Earth, the first human name he's taken time to speak. "Anora." Was he with her? Perhaps, the strange crackling thing he'd briefly sensed while in this state had told him that she can use magic. If she can, then she likely isn't human or from Earth. The question as to how he would have only known of her recently is the kicker.

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*Ring-ring-ring! Click!...* Our distant character receives another call as the portal to his destination begins tearing into existence before him.

"Yea?" He'd casually begin.
"One of mine is already on Earth. He's following up on a 'Pahn' lead." A familiar voice travels with profound vibratto from our small speaker.
"How does that involve me?" A response is given after several moments wait.
"Well, with your permissions, you'll need to be ready as an initial means of contact if Pahn's discovered while you're there." The voice is asserting yet faintly gentle in its speech.
"Yeah, I understand. I'll hang around if I end up meeting your guy. I just need a name." After an initial sigh, he came around to continuing the conversation.
"Darsby. His assignment is unique and confidential. I know I shouldn't have to worry about you, but, be gentle with him." The voice took on a parental tone for a moment.
"I understand." *Click!*

With that, a tear in space had finished forming nearby, a gateway leading to sunlight and roads embellished by grass and populated with speeding cars. After several moments of collecting the circular devices at the gates foot, he'd step through.

[Riven Wight]

Anora nearly bumped into Ahllasta when the beastly woman stopped. She looked up from the ground for the first time during their walk, for a moment fearing speaking had been a worse idea than trying to attack.
She blinked, surprised, and took a step away from the woman as Ahllasta instead broke into a short, grinding bout of laughter. Another thing Ahllasta and Darsby seemed to have in common, if for different reasons: both were borderline insane. The blood soaking into the woman’s shirt only enhanced the crazed effect.
More like desperate, she thought bitterly, swallowing and looking back to the ground. Her heart sunk. The woman hadn’t taken the bait.
Her attention returned to Ahllasta as she walked around a car, making Anora notice it for the first time.
Her brows rose as she took in the sight of the two-door Mustang. Definitely nicer than that mini-van. From the opposite side of the car, she watched through the window as Ahllasta shoved Darsby into the backseat like little more than luggage.
She cringed in empathy. Lifeless or not, it couldn’t be good to be treated roughly in his current state.
Once Darsby’s attacker had settled inside, she reached for the door handle with a shaking hand. The thought of a road trip sitting scarcely a foot from Ahllasta made her stomach churn. But even if she thought she could get away, she wouldn’t leave Darsby behind.
She released a breath she had not realized she had been holding and opened the door. Dwelling in a tense silence, she shrugged from her backpack then ducked inside the car. Her gaze lingered on the buttons on the center console.
Just don’t push the red one, she thought. Despite the situation, she couldn’t help but smirk as she dropped her backpack on the floor then reached for her seat belt. It was a small and uncertain expression, but there nonetheless. Looks like the aliens won after all. Rest in peace, Agent J.
Ahllasta’s voice drew Anora’s glance. She tried with minimal success to keep both her fear and enmity from showing.
Wouldn’t want to disappoint you with less, would we? she grumbled silently. Her mouth pulled down in a frown, but she kept her comments to herself. Door still open, she paused in buckling to glance back to Darsby. She bit her bottom lip uncertainly.
“Should we… stop his bleeding?” she asked quietly, her voice cautious as she closed the door. She kept Ahllasta in her peripheral view, watching for even the slightest sign of aggression.
Anora’s attention snapped forward with a gasp when Ahllasta started the car and the wheels drifted for a moment. Her eyes widened when they turned translucent, but she didn’t have time to think on that little detail; Ahllasta headed straight for the trees lining the road.
In the short instant it took for them to go from the road to the trees, barreling toward the trunks, she shouted, the sound echoing in her ears, and threw her hands in front of her in an X. A barrier sprung instantly to life as she turned her head and scrunched her eyes, bracing for impact.
An impact that never came.
Wondering if her heart was going to make it through the next few minutes or give up on life entirely, she tentatively opened one eye. She gasped, as a tree passed straight between her and Ahllasta. She flinched as another went through her and her barrier.
She swallowed and let her barrier dissolve. As the realization she wasn’t going to be tied up in the middle of a car-and-tree bowtie, she melted back into the passenger seat.
She cast Ahllasta a discrete glare for her lack of warning. To avoid the eerie sight of trees and other obstacles floating through their ghostly forms, she closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, trying to calm her frayed nerves.
When her heart at last slowed by a couple beats, she dared to open her eyes again. She breathed a sigh of relief; they had reached an expanse of barren farmland, the road a winding ribbon ahead of them. Though not smooth-going for the car, it was at least less bumpy than back between the trees.
She ran a hand through her hair. Her stomach grumbled softly, making her frown at it and scold herself for having only a single can of soup. She sighed. There wasn’t much she could do about it now.
Anora adjusted her backpack, debating on pulling out one of the energy bars inside. She felt tired, a bit on the exhausted end, but there was no way she would let herself rest now.
With the road drawing closer at an alarming speed, she tried to not focus on the surrounding land. She glanced back at Darsby’s broken form again, worry in her eyes.
Before, he had had some aid from the hospital. This time, he had no such luck.
This time. She wondered what it must be like to come back to life just to die again. Brutally, no less. Did he feel pain like everyone else? She had seen him struggle, but had he actually felt the hurt? Was he in pain now, wherever he was, or was he resting in blissful obliviousness?
She forced her gaze away from him with a shudder. She needed to think of something else. As they reached the highway, her mind wandered to the farm and the minivan. So much for returning the van to its owners… and then there was going to be explaining the damage to the house.
Sorry, Grandpa Jack, she thought with a sheepish, apologetic look out the window. Her list of ‘Illegal/Damaged Things to Deal with Later’ was growing at an alarming rate.
With a heavy, shaky sigh, she looked to Ahllasta when the woman opened the window, her own hair billowing about her face. Then she did a double take. Though they had solidified, the woman was driving with her eyes closed.
Anora inhaled through her teeth and reached toward the wheel. With a glance out the windshield, she paused, hand hovering between them. They were staying perfectly between the lines.
Breath held, she glanced between Ahllasta and the road. Swallowing, she slowly returned her hand to her side of the car. She barely managed to resist the urge to shout at the woman to keep her eyes on the road.
“S-so,” she began, in part to break the thick silence, but mostly hoping conversation would make the woman open her eyes again. Without potentially angering her. “Are you some sort of Winchester-style bounty hunters or something?” She spoke just loud enough to be heard over the whooshing whump of the wind in the car.

[Mortim]

"Anora....Anora...Anora!" Darsby would come upon his visual memories and the secrets they held seemingly all at once. He was shocked to find that he'd likely left the poor girl alone with a violent huntress for quite some time now. He sailed back towards the goal of reforming his body; a new one would have to wait.

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"Hmph!" Would be Ahllasta's first response, a pretentious sort of huff. She apparently felt she was far above whatever it is that Anora had just compared her to.

"I hunt celestial beasts. These 'Winchesters' you speak of are far below me. They struggle merely to fend off creatures which hardly threaten just one world. I have reigned in beasts that have devoured stars.-" Her chest puffed with this statement, her eyes flaring open to display how much pride she felt in her work. "-You could say I have myself quite hidden, much like that carcass in the back seat."

Ahllasta would continue to inflate her ego via grins and contemplative sneers for several moments to come. Whilst this was occurring, something else would take place around Darsby's body. His contorted limbs and broken shell would simmer for a brief moment. After the faint broiling, things would happen rather quickly.

Darsby would spring to life, twirling about in the back seat like a gymnast/contortionist who's practiced their routine in purely enclosed places. The result of his quick movements would be him bracing himself against Ahllasta's seat, a revolver's barrel pressed against its luxurious materials. Somehow, Ahllasta had already pulled out that thin thread she'd used before and laced it around Darsby behind her, it's small surface visibly compressing against his skin.

"How many more of those instant renewals do you have left Darsby? My skin can take more than a few of your bullets." Ahllasta would chuckle whilst continuing to drive the car with her one free hand.

Just after Ahllasta had spoken, a cellular ringing would fill the cabin of the car. This ringing would be coming from Anora's left pocket. Somehow, a phone had found its way into her jeans without anyone present noticing. Even Darsby and Ahllasta turned towards Anora, their sharp gazes waiting for her to answer the call. Should Anora answer it, a somewhat relaxed frequent smoker would be the image this mans understanding voice would lend.

"Hey, how's your day?" Would be his unconcerned words, likely unawares of the events presently at play. Ahllasta's skin shifted into that of a lighter shade as the voice spoke. She may have heard him and may also be displaying signs of fear for the first time yet. Darsby doesn't pay the voice mind, but he certainly would be intrigued by the black flip phone now in Anora's possession. The caller I.D. would say "Dan."

[Riven Wight]

Surprise flashed over Anora’s face when Ahllasta caught her reference—that, or there really were people like the Winchester brothers out there. Which wouldn’t have surprised her.
Ahllasta’s pride shone through unnervingly in both voice and expression. A shudder ran down Anora’s spine. After the woman’s earlier show of power, she could believe it. But at least Ahllasta’s eyes were open.
She cringed and glanced to the backseat when Ahllasta referred to Darsby.
“Great,” she breathed beneath the woman's egotistical grin. “Noted.”
Maybe that’s what that was. Some release of a true form? She shifted uncomfortably, part of her not wanting to look away from Ahllasta and the other begging her to.
An unusual shift in light caught Anora’s attention, making her decision for her. Before she could focus and figure out what had caused the shift, Darsby sprung to life.
She shouted and turned toward the driver’s seat as well as the confined car let her.
“Don’t!” Whether the statement was intended more for Darsby or Ahllasta, she wasn’t sure. She glanced to the steering wheel as the two readied to dispose of each other. Thankfully, Ahllasta managed to keep the car steady.
She couldn’t decide which she feared more: for Darsby’s life—especially if his Get Out of Death Free card had a limit to it—or of winding up in a ditch wheels-up.
She nearly jumped high enough to hit her head on the car’s ceiling when an unfamiliar ringtone burst from her pocket. She had shoved her smartphone into her backpack while on the roof of the farmhouse, its charge depleted. She glanced toward the mysterious bulge now in her pocket.
She looked quickly back to the fighting duo, planning on solving the mystery of the phone later. But both Darsby and Ahllasta’s attention had turned fully to her, their fight put on hold. Waiting for her to answer.
Okay, she drew out the mental word.
At least she wouldn’t have to witness Darsby getting slaughtered again… yet, anyway. As much as she trusted Darsby, her money was on Ahllasta in a fight between them.
She pulled the phone from her pocket. She took barely a moment to examine the flip phone, not wanting to risk it going to voicemail. She couldn’t remember the last time she had used a flip phone.
She opened it and placed it to her ear.
“Uh… yeah?” she answered uncertainly. She looked between Darsby and Ahllasta, expecting them to go at it again any moment.
Anora blinked and her brows rose when the raspy voice on the other end replied with a simple, normal question. She almost broke out in a fit of hysterical laughter.
For a second, she wondered if she had picked up a cellphone from the minivan and just not realized it. But she noticed Ahllasta had paled. Actually paled. No, this was no ordinary call. But at least Darsby showed no sign she should be cautious.
‘An enemy of my enemy’ and all that.
“You really don’t want me to answer that,” she replied to the man collar ID called Dan. Her voice came out strained and tense. She kept a careful eye on Ahllasta in case the woman tried grabbing the phone from her. “Who is this? How’d you—?” She stopped herself from asking the reflexive, ‘How’d you get this number.’ “Just… how?” she settled for instead.

[Mortim]

Ahllasta and Darsby had both stopped as they'd sensed an event so minor it would have easily gone over Anora's untrained head. At that moment, something put itself in play to plant a phone in Anora's pocket. Ahllasta wanted nothing to do with the person on the other end of the line. Our previously viral huntress withdrew her thread and placed both hands tentatively in front of her. Darsby was now in a place for questions. While a warrior faces front, tightly clenching the steering wheel, an again-revived stranger looks as though he'd sooner reach for the phone and take it from Anora before going back at it with the driver. Somehow, Darsby knows the situation is diffused.

"Well, uh, that's a good question.-" The voice casually perks up, as if a point it hadn't thought of was brought to the table. "I, ah... I needed to get a hold of someone in the car. Those two are a little... uhm... eccentric, y'know?" You could picture this stranger to be lounging about at a barbecue, speaking to a favorable acquaintance.

Darsby lurches forward, placing his revolver in a blood-caked pocket whilst adjusting his seating. He's now sitting up straight, leaning in close to Anora. He looks starved for answers. Ahllasta on the other end is likened to a cornered animal that's halfway given up on its current means for life.

"So like, maybe-... Actually, give me a second.-" Faint muffling comes through the phone as if it'd been placed in a pocket, the crumpling of paper can be heard before another barrage of mic-against-fabric echoes clumsily across the line. "-Yeah, so, I have a question. Uhm, could I drop in on your group, there? It might get a little crowded so I just wanted to ask. I mean, it's rude to just 'show up', right?" Like any-old-someone clumsily requesting a carpool, the unseen man finished speaking. His lack of severe emotion and relative display of manners are jarring against the backdrop of a blood-soaked interior occupying two ferocious wizards.

[Riven Wight]

Anora glanced to Darsby as the two released each other of their weapons. Her brows furrowed when she noticed Darsby looked like the more likely of the two to go after the phone. Her gaze alternated between Darsby and Ahllasta as ‘Dan’ replied. His informal speech was a bit off-putting after spending most of the day around authority figures.
She blinked and her expression hardened; he knew they were in a car. And either he was one good guesser, or even knew how many people were in it.
“‘Eccentric’s’ an understatement,” she muttered.
She leaned away slightly when Darsby moved closer. She kicked her backpack to the corner of the floor beneath the dash, trying to give herself a bit more room.
As shuffling came from the phone with ‘Dan’s’ pause, she looked to Darsby, her own gaze questing. But he looked like he had as many questions as she did.
The rustle of a phone being brought back to an ear burst through the speaker. She tilted the flip phone a bit from her to let Darsby hear better.
“Wait… what?” she asked when ‘Dan’ fell silent. “You're joking, right?”
Anora swore the universe was bored and had decided to see how much weird she could handle in one day.
She was pretty sure it was close to finding out.
Though she trusted her senses, that everything happening was really happening, it was all just so strange. So off-the-wall, certifiably crazy, a part of her felt like the entire day couldn’t possibly be happening. More accurately, it feared she had gone completely nuts. The day was an unusual flavor of ice cream topped with a magically-appearing talking black cherry that threatened to make the satisfying icy tower collapse. No matter how much she welcomed the break from the mundane world.
She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. It took more effort than she would have liked to admit to keep herself even remotely composed. She looked again between Darsby and Ahllasta, then let their reactions decide her response.
“Know what? Sure,” she said exasperatedly. She sunk back into the seat with a gentle flop, her free hand gesticulating into the air with her answer. “Why not. As long as you don’t plan on killing or maiming anyone, what’s one more passenger on the Homicidal Crazy Train? Got a teleporter, Scotty, or do we have to pick you up somewhere between Gotham City and Mordor?”

[Mortim]

“I didn’t quite, uhm, catch that last part...? Either way, here I-” Halfway through his last remark, Dan would appear in the backseat behind Anora and next to Darsby. “-have my own means of moving from here to there.”

Dan had appeared inside their vehicle with no more than a slight gust of wind to accompany him. He sat in contrast to those around him with an air one might expect when having already heard his casual tone. He looked, by most accounts, rather average. Our newest passenger exuded no unique presence, no sinister glow, no flashy exposition. If he hadn’t popped soundlessly into view, you’d likely have thought him to have always been quietly occupying his leathery seat.

Big rectangular spectacles sit atop an angular nose. Thin features and large ears embellish openly ragged eyes. Suitcases lie beneath either half-shut gateway to an overly exhausted soul. Bedraggled locks of knotted hair shoot in ramshackle arches of confused direction. By all accounts, Dan, a vapid soul, held no particular traits aside from two unusual sights. His hair was of a pure-white with greyish streaks finding means to surface amidst many split-ends, and his eyes would either be mildly off-putting or eerily comforting. An inconspicuous grey fills either iris as they sit sharply upon whatever may lay before them; should it be a person, they’d narrow like a suspicious father who’s first concern is whether or not a babysitter can honestly keep track of his child. On the other hand, you could say the gaze was that of a teacher accurately analyzing his younger student to determine how harsh or how gentle he should be with his next words and actions. Either way, he exuded no immediate magical presence, unless you count looking vaguely responsible as being magical when paired with our driver and wizard passenger.

Ahllasta defies her muscular physique and previously displayed confidence to pull her shoulders inward as if to brace for some harsh impact upon Dan’s arrival. Her eyes squint, and her teeth grind whilst awaiting the worst.

Darsby looks to be relatively speechless, his mouth agape for several moments before slowly closing. He isn’t afraid; he’d be sooner observed as surprised. He sits back in his seat as if waiting in patient awe for Dan to make some action or command.

Dan shows no signs of understanding what the other two mentioned here feel aside from the brief glares of tired dismay he bounces against them. After a short pause he leans forward in slight as if to speak generally to Anora in open view should she turn back to see him in his brown Vans, grey joggers, and loose black sweater. What a normal man he is in contrast to our magical ebon four-door rocketing down the freeway with two superhuman individuals.

“Hey, so, uh, did you like, get pulled into a really weird day with this guy or the chick who’s driving?” He gestures loosely to them both, though he doesn’t seem to speak in a way that demands an immediate answer. He looks to be perhaps the easiest one to merely talk to or initially ignore should something more pressing need to be said or presented.

[Riven Wight]

If there was something beyond madness and insanity, Anora would have said she had stepped straight into that.
Though he couldn’t see her, she shook her head at Dan’s first comment, with an exasperated, interrupting, “Wasn’t important.”
Anora shouted and jumped in her seat when the end ofthe man’s sentence sounded both through the phone and from behind her. A couple purple sparks flickered to life with her surprise, but quickly died away. She pulled forward, turning to get a better look at the seat behind her. The seat belt pulled against her, and her backpack shifted at her feet.
“Of course you do,” she breathed, bracing herself with a hand against the back of her seat, the seatbelt pressing firmly into her back. She contemplated just unbuckling it, but decided against it. Last thing she needed was to go flying through the windshield if Ahllasta decided to slam on the breaks.
Sparing Ahllasta and Darsby scarcely a glance to see how they took to Dan’s sudden appearance, she focused on the newcomer. Heart pounding in her throat, she took in his shockingly normal, unthreatening appearance.
She blinked slowly at him, her brows rising. She had had no idea what she had expected from Dan, but something even remotely resembling ordinary was far from it. Someone with a few extra appendages or an aura that would put Ahllasta’s to shame, perhaps. But not someone who looked like they had just stepped out of an office on a Casual Friday.
The mixed reactions she noticed from both Darsby and Ahllasta made Anora shift uncomfortably in her seat.
Who is this guy? she wondered in the short seconds of quiet that followed, her eyes narrowing. Her gaze met his as he leaned over in the blood-stained seat so she could see him better.
Even his tone differed from what she had grown accustomed to hearing from her supernatural encounters; he spoke as casually as his appearance.
Anora gave a snorting laugh. “‘Really weird’ doesn’t even begin to cover it!” She flipped the phone closed, then opened her mouth again, a ranting recap of the day itching to bubble from her tongue.
But she hesitated. She eyed Dan again. As affable as this man seemed, there was no telling what kind of secrets he held. After all, he had found them, made a phone appear in her pocket, and transported himself into a moving car. A car which he knew the exact number of occupants in.
Darsby didn’t seem to mind him, and the affect he had on Ahllasta was somewhere between reassuring and unnerving. On one hand, she clearly didn’t like him. But on the other, whoever this was, he made someone as powerful as Ahllasta act like a child waiting for a beating for writing on the wall with permanent marker. A small voice of caution poked at the back of her mind, the dusty instinct determined to be heard.
“What’s it matter to you who ‘pulled’ me into all this?” she said instead, a slight overwhelmed tremor in her voice. “Who are you?” She tilted her head down, one corner of her lips pursing upward as she pointed at him with the hand holding the phone. “And don’t you dare say ‘Dan.’ That’s not what I mean, and you know it,” she added, just in case. She glanced again to Darsby, the silent question of, Should I trust this guy? written on her face.

[Mortim]

Anora's words and the empowered conviction pursuing them collided with Dan precisely as one would expect them too if he were the atypical, exhausted office worker she'd initially perceived him to be. Either narrow shoulder clenched tightly atop his empty chest as one eye winced for a brief moment to cope with Anora's defensive front. One could say that what she said and how she acted wasn't unexpected to him, yet, it didn't seem to make her immediate barrage of questions any more comfortable for him to bear. Shortly after a reflexive sigh, he began to speak in that same relaxed tone, though it started with him sounding a little put-down by what he'd perceived to be an amalgam of heavy emotions on Anora's part.

"Y-yeah... Right. I'm a guy with a job, uhm, I'm uh, here on work.-" His hands anxiously laced their fingers atop his lap shortly after a brief gesture towards Ahllasta. "-I'm kind of, kind of like, uh, responsible for her, in a way. She's not been the best, so, I'm here to make sure she didn't, like, take over this guys, uh, this guys job.-" One thumb pried itself loose to gesture sheepishly towards Darsby. He seemed to lose himself in his words and emotions for a moment as if he were also attempting to adjust to the situation, those mostly-human eyes deferring to bounce back and forth from Anora and the safe space of his lap. -"So like, I'm kind of, uhm, back-up? But I'm also sorta the one, y'know, like, the one in charge, I guess? Earth's got a lot going on right now, I've been sent to make sure it doesn't all meltdown, or.. whatever." His hands temporarily unlace to display an open gesture atop legs being held tightly together. An awkward smile with half-closed eyes pours itself towards Anora before he looks away from her again; he seems to feel a bit bad about her current state.

Darsby, whose expression had shifted from surprise back to its atypical alien front of oddly formal exhaustion, didn't seem to be entirely convinced at first. He silently snaps his fingers, a small leathery pamphlet appearing in his left hand. He opens this check-book-like flatback to display a shimmering piece of paper with indiscernible writing flowing over it. Dan seems to snap-to at this like someone who'd just been reminded they might actually need to have their wallet out to finish paying for their grocery's. Those anxious hands jump from pocket to pocket, his whole body shifting slightly about to make room for frantically prying hands. Dan mumbles something quietly, giving an awkward half-laugh half-sigh to Darsby as if he were the cashier who had no time for someone so forgetful while Dan entirely understood that Darsby's just trying to do his job. Eventually, a similar pamphlet is drawn from Dan's back left pocket, he fumbles clumsily before opening it up to display his own similarly shimmering page. The booklet is quickly put away in the same pocket afterward.

"Th-there it is, my uh, rank and everything." Dan would say alongside another awkward half-chuckle, an oddly human level of anxiety presiding over him.
"Oh! My apologies, I'll be in your care, senior embassy representative!" Darsby tenses and speaks to Dan with wide eyes, offering whatever bow the backseat would allow whilst his pamphlet disappears in a small shimmering cloud.
"Oh! U-uhm, it's cool, just, y'know, like, lead the way and I'll do the talking, or, whatever.. and stuff. Heh-ehen-..!" Dan reacts with open palms and idiotic sounding chuckles waving awkwardly towards Darsby as if he wishes he could push away the entire situation as anyone unaccustomed to authority might initially do when presented with an enthusiastic employee. You could imagine him reacting this way when anyone comes to his intentionally out of the way cubicle to offer him any sort of compliment. His knees nearly raise to his chest while his eyes shut almost entirely amid an exasperated display of nervous gesticulations. Darsby nods to Dan once more, ending his bow to turn towards Anora with a severe expression alighting his tired features.

"Anora, this celestial wizard is-" Darsby is cut short in the middle of an introduction aimed to present Dan.
"I-I'm just the guy, that, uhm, that came to keep tabs on these two!-" Dan would nervously blurt, his hands waving quickly with vapid gestures in the space between Anora and Darsby as if he wished fervently not to be embarrassed in front of someone new. "-So, like, don't worry. Y'know, if you're willing to help us, we'll help you.. or whatever. I'm sure he's already cut, some sort of deal, hopefully, with you?" Dan seemed on edge, blushing and sweating a bit at his desperate odds with this new situation. One hand scratches at his already messy hair whilst the other continues to gesture with an indiscernible conveyance of atypical anxieties alongside wincing eyes.

Ahllasta kept to herself through the entire interaction. She'd have lowered her shoulders slightly to reveal her now-evolved form of distress. She looked sick, ready to either scream into a pillow or vomit into a toilet with whatever emotion has her white-knuckled fingers so tense. She was done with what was going on in this car to the same degree that a child who must absolutely sit through their parent's rant is done with listening. She continued driving with ease, but, it was no longer a prideful or controlling act.

[Riven Wight]

For a moment, Anora almost felt bad for the tone she used with Dan. But her day had been too weird for it to go beyond ‘almost.’
Her brows rose when the man began to answer with painful vagueness. Her gaze followed his movements as he placed his hands in his lap, part of her expecting him to go for some sort of weapon. No matter how non-threatening this guy seemed, Ahllasta’s reaction to him had left its mark. Anora’s self-preservation side kept her on edge despite her exasperation and the exhaustion lurking at the edges of her body.
Maybe the hounds were a bad idea…
Anora glanced to Ahllasta when Dan mentioned the woman, her brows somehow managing to rise further beneath her bangs. That at least explained the monster-of-a-woman’s reaction. She really was like a student caught skipping class by a teacher.
Is he who her partner was on the phone with? Holding her breath at the thought, her attention quickly snapped back to Dan with a new uneasiness. She returned his seemingly empathetic action with eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Her mind wandered to the blouth at the mention of Earth having ‘a lot going on.’ She opened her mouth to ask what, exactly, he meant, but the snap of Darsby’s fingers made her jump in surprise. She held her breath at Dan’s reaction to the odd piece of paper Darsby presented. She glanced questioningly between the two men. Small puffs of purple mist licked at her fingers with her tension, fearing what Dan searched for in his pockets.
She watched the rest of the men’s exchange, blinking in surprise at how Darsby addressed Dan. Though “senior embassy representative” went over her head, it certainly sounded impressive. That mixed with Darsby’s reaction was proof enough he held a high rank. One of the ‘superiors’ Darsby had mentioned back on the rooftop, perhaps. But the way Dan acted made it seem like he was new to the whole thing, to put it lightly.
“‘Celestial wizard?’” she repeated at the same time Dan interrupted Darsby’s introduction.
Anora took a deep breath, settling more against the back of the seat. Until Dan’s use of ‘us,’ she hadn’t fully thought about who she had made an agreement with. Sure, she had made the deal with Darsby, but it finally hit her that he was a part of some type of organization she knew nothing about.
“Yeah,” she answered Dan’s question, the word slow. She glanced sideways at Ahllasta. Leashed or not by Dan, she’d already proven she would gladly betray the people she worked with. “Darsby agreed to teach me how to better use my powers. In return, I help him find some guy named Pahn. Something about a blood contract or something.”
Just another thing to add to the list of things I know nothing about, she thought, scowling. She exhaled through her nose quickly. She could scold herself for that later. Right now, she had a car filled with people from who-knew-where to deal with. With an even more mysterious destination ahead of them.
She glanced quickly between the three otherworldly passengers. Her gaze settled on Dan, her eyes narrowing slightly. His easygoing demeanor made him a much easier target for her plethora of ever-growing questions.
“If… she,” she stuck a thumb toward Ahllasta, “and her partner work under you, why the frick were they hunting us—Darsby—whatever? Someone forget to cross a T or something? And who is this ‘Pahn,’ and what’s he mean to you, anyway? To… to whoever you work for?” she added, fishing for some hint as to who she was ultimately helping.
Suddenly remembering the phone in her hand, she glanced to it. “Oh. And I think this is yours.” She reached forward, holding the flip-phone out to him.

[Mortim]

Lighter shades of red dance in ever-deepening hues atop Dan's features immediately upon the perception of Anora's first question. One callous palm pulls thin, leathery fingers towards an avenue of particularly knotted strands of hair to scratch vigorously to the tune of anxiousness. His other free hand raises slowly to perform a gentle pushing gesture towards Anora as his eyes squint above a smile born from reflex to someone prying somewhere where humor is often utilized as the preferred coping method.

"U-uhm, right, that's uh, well, Darsby here-" He jaggedly gestures towards the now alert underling of an exasperated cashier running interference for the manager. "-He's supposed to be here in s-secret, sort of, because, uh, well, like, Pahn is uh, a big deal, sort of, and Earth's local magic-based groups are using that to, like, give their independence from us backing, they, aren't really, well, it's sort of like, they, uh....-" Dan seems to be backed into a corner of jumbled details, attempting to make sense of them all for the young woman before him. His eyes light up as much as is allowed by the black suit-cases hanging beneath them. Both hands gesture openly before him, outlining a sort of sphere.

"Okay so, like, a little kid is saying that his big brother, will like, show up, if a big group of other kids won't, uh, go away..? No! That's not good either..." Dan scratched at his scalp again, as if the digging of his nails would pull another more accurate answer from the drudges of his frantic mind.

"So like, Earth has its own magic, uh, government group things. We had one of our agent's working with them, as, sort of, a punishment? Considering this world is really small and on the edge, of, uh, like, all of the space occupied by the organization me and, uh... uhm..-" Dan looks at Darsby for a few moments, his lips palpitating at the frozen state of his once gesticulating body. "Darsby! The political, sort of, group that I and Darsby and Ahllasta here are all a part of. So, they didn't know that, uh, Darsby was, or is, here. They also don't know that we occupy roughly twenty-eight million megaparsecs of space or that we're eventually going to conquer this relatively small world...." Dan trails off, a finger lightly tapping his chin. He looks lost in thought as if he were trying to remember something.

"Pahn! Right! Pahn, they're a player in all of this, err... yeah?" Dan shudders into his waking consciousness. "So, uhm... They're this individual, who's like, really old and powerful and we, uh, can't just like, take in this world until we've made contact with him, because, he's potentially one of the strongest beings in the known universe, I guess..." Dan doesn't appear to be entirely concerned with any of this as he speaks of it, at least, not in the way a normal man should be. Certainly his present circumstance has him on edge, and certainly, he reacts to typical conversational cues like a neurotic shut-in. With this in mind, you would assume he'd care when he talks about countless worth of space and the conquering of Earth or the fact that there's some unspeakably profound god-being dwelling on this 'relatively small' rock of a world. Maybe, he should care as most people might have when initially presented with all of this.

Darsby doesn't seem to mind the facts; in reality, he'd begun to look out the window like a spacy teenager might on a long road trip. Ahllasta sits with one hand on the wheel and the other cradling her head with an elbow on the upholstery like a mother nursing her hangover during a long drive home. Dan gazes at Anora like someone unused to speaking to women as he drops ridiculously insane statements upon her very human perceptions.

"Honestly, though, they just gave me a big title because I'm sort of, a-a monster? I'm not really good at this whole embassy- ..Type, deal." Dan would say as he snatches the phone from Anora's hand, wrestling with his pocket like a fifth grader to fit it into a space that most people wouldn't struggle to accommodate. With the word 'monster', Ahllasta shudders visibly.

[Riven Wight]

Anora’s head cocked at Dan’s reaction to her questions, trying to figure out if he was embarrassed or flustered. She flinched when he raised a hand toward her, her powers again sparking to life around her arms of their own accord. Ever conscious of its draw on her, she focused on it just long enough to tame them and sever the temporary link between them and her emotions.
She suppressed a sigh at Dan’s many fillers and jumbled way of speaking. All the same, her eyes lit up with the prospect of other magic-based groups residing just under her nose. Part of her wanted to know more about them, but Dan continued on. She glanced to Darsby with Dan’s gesture, for the first time thankful for the smaller space. If nothing else, it made it easier to keep an eye on multiple people at once.
When Dan paused in thought, Anora could only stare at him, mouth slightly agape in a mix of shock and horror. He and his organization planned on conquering Earth. Her home.
Before Dan could refocus on her, Anora faced forward, hoping to hide her expression. She leaned her back against the seat. Her head cocked toward the back seat when Dan remembered her other questions about Pahn. She inhaled sharply through her knows at Dan's admission: he was indeed some sort of powerful monster. She’d guessed it, sure, but hearing it from him was different from speculating. She swallowed and bit her bottom lip, Ahllasta’s shudder only feeding her growing apprehension.
When he finished, she remained silent for a long moment. Reminding herself that everything felt too real to be a dream, she took a deep breath and held it for as long as she could. She couldn’t afford to lose her head right now. She had to stay calm—or at least pretend. She exhaled, trying to tame the bundle of nerves knotted in her stomach and making her hands shake. Alas, it made little difference.
“Okay. Let…” She took another deep breath and swallowed.
“Let me make sure I’ve got this right,” she started again, stronger this time, hoping Dan would prove as obvious to human nature and emotions as Darsby had. “You three are a part of some sort if intergalactic organization determined to rule over the entirety of our sector or whatever you guys call my planet’s placement.” The words sounded strange coming from her mouth, more like she was trying to explain the plot of a movie to someone than understand what was happening in real life.
She took another breath, then continued. “You and, I assume, others on a need-to-know basis sent Darsby here on a secret mission to find a connection to this Pahn—who’s multiple people wrapped into one?” she added uncertainly with a shake of her head. “And all in order to, what? Take him down? So you can strip Earth’s magic organizations of their leverage against yours and invade Earth? And I’m somehow the connection you need hunt down this almighty being.” She tried but failed to keep her repugnance at the situation from her voice.
Forget the Crazy Train. she thought, leaning her elbow against the armrest between the front seats, head in her hand. We abandoned that in Crazy Town and burned both to the ground on our way out.
Worse, she had so willingly and unwittingly agreed to help them in their takeover. With each of her traveling ‘companions’ as powerful as they were, though she had made only a verbal agreement, there was no telling what they would do if she tried to back down.
Great job, Anora, she scowled, both at herself and the situation she had managed to get herself into this time. If she couldn’t run and couldn’t fight, she’d have to think her way out of this one. Yep. I’m doomed.
She glanced to Darsby from behind part of her hair, wondering if he had known all this, known she would essentially be betraying her own planet. His apparent disinterest in what Dan had to say gave her her answer.
He knew. Of course he knew. And neither of them cared what an invasion would mean for the common folk—for her friends and family, talking about it like it was just another day on the job. Which, for them, it may very well be.
She suddenly felt like a fox who hopped into the wagon with a bunch of foxhounds at the promise of a juicy steak. She swallowed, hard, the car feeling more like a mobile prison and making her heart quicken and stomach churn.
Maybe, just maybe, she could find Pahn on her own, or even warn the magic groups here. But then, she didn’t even know who she needed to warn them against, let alone who she would need to warn in the first place.
She needed to know more. Which meant she’d have to go along with them, be their little obedient guide, until she learned enough to save her planet. And all the while hope Darsby wasn’t still listening in on her thoughts. And, of course, avoid getting killed. Or worse.
Anora took yet another breath and straightened in her seat. Confidence returning from having at least some sort of plan to fix things, she leaned forward and pulled her backpack onto her lap.
“Alright, Monster Mash,” she began, addressing Dan, her voice holding only the slight hint of a tremor amidst its otherwise brashness. “If I’m going to be helping you, I want to know who I’m helping.”
As she spoke, she took out one of the energy bars from her backpack and opened it. Though she didn’t feel like she could eat anything, she’d need as much strength as she could get.
“Agent K’s,” she jerked her head toward Darsby, “knocked out the possibility of the MIB having anything to do with this, and I don’t think Dalaks can take on a human form, so I’m at a loss here. So.” She turned slightly in her seat to put Dan in her peripheral vision. “To start, who're you working for,” she raised a finger, counting off her questions, “what’s so bad about leaving Earth alone, and where in the worlds are we going?”

[Mortim]

Dan nodded inconsistently with Anora for most of her statements with a twinge of guilt overcoming his exhaustedly anxious composure. His lower lip obtains a few reddish marks after some intensive nibbling whilst his hands knot themselves atop thin knees. His head tilts downwards with a sigh as if he were bowing to an apology. Our "monster's" head moves back into what he displays as 'awkward eye-contact' range shortly after the young woman finishes speaking.

"Monster Mash?" Dan would squeak, sounding more as a mouse than a man whilst Anora listed many references which only pushed him further into confusion. He took several seconds to blink in blank disparity before visibly shaking the confusion from himself with a few squints and bodily tremors.

"I-I-I, I think I misspoke.. Your aggressive mindset is sort of, at least, like, a bit my own fault here. I used the word, uhm, conquer? It's more like an 'indoctrination'..-" His open palms gesture with honesty and gentle dismay whilst he speaks. An inept description of things is left to this small, confused, individual as opposed to the other strange and distant creatures riding in our reinforced car down the open freeway.

"We, uhm, I mean, The Council, takes in planets full of sentient life with the capacity to produce what we call 'regal wizards', who are, like, really rare from this worlds standpoint... Roughly, I think, one for every billion people? You aren't one! I mean, not at present... Well, anyways, uh...-" Dan gets lost in thought, tapping his chin with a pause in open-handed gestures before sparking to life with further elaboration. "-uh... Right! So with these, uhm, these worlds, we perform free trade of resources and information, but, your issue is, uhm, we end up giving things up equally to everyone. Most of the, uh, the-uh.. like, political groups? Yeah, political groups on your planet don't like the idea of someone much bigger looking over them. Or that bigger person being their main source of information which is as available to them as it is to their enemy... if that makes sense? I've noticed that humans don't become friends overnight unless the one feeding them turns out to be their mutual enemy... Which we aren't worried about! Because, like, there aren't that many of you? But, even so, we don't like, want anyone to die for dopey reasons." Dan takes a moment to rub his temples, eyes closed, mumbling something like a list. He seems to be making sure he's not forgetting anything major.

"Oh! Pahn! Right, so we don't know that much about Pahn. They seem to be one person, but, we aren't sure? All we know is that they're capable enough to vaporize this world if something doesn't go their way. Wich is an issue, when we, like, don't want anyone dying because of us? So we're trying to find him before we throw wide-range magics on this planet that are standard for every world under our jurisdiction. We don't know if he'll react in a bad way, which could, y'know, like, kill off everyone you know?" Dan kind of shrugs and makes a weird squeaking sound as his shoulders slide quickly upward to perform the overt gesture of, 'who knows?'.

Dan slides back into his seat a bit before hunching over, using one finger to pick at the other one's nail. The man sits like this for a few seconds before looking up again.

"Oh yeah! Darsby was supposed to handle things quietly, but, uh, we got some new information that kind of demanded someone, uhm, someone like me?" One hand loosely pulls at his collar as if he were in danger of sweating when speaking of himself or Darsby in any context. If the subject matter of their conversation were different, you'd easily take him for some neurotic passerby living a simple life of many anxieties and a general lack-of-sleep.

Darsby appeared relatively unaffected until the end where he bowed a bit as if out of embarrassment towards Anora. His eyes gazed at her with level emotions of serious disposition as he typically seemed to do. Those eyes glimmer with the faint essence of some otherworldly thought, yet, before it could pull her in, Darsby would look away.

Ahllasta, in contrast, seemed to shift from afraid and distressed to deeply annoyed. Any talk of politics or equality seemed to claw at her patience immensely. Someone as ferocious as she could be expected to care very little for general bureaucracy. Yet, perhaps, she was pestered for other reasons?

[Riven Wight]

Anora couldn’t hide a smirk at Dan’s reaction to her nickname for him. Something about none of them understanding her references was somehow both irritating and satisfying: with all the confusion they’d caused her, the least she could do was return it, even if in a way that didn’t much matter.
She almost snorted when Dan tried to amend his choice of wording. Because that’d go over so much better.
Fully facing front again, she slowly broke off a piece of the open energy bar. She listened to him carefully. Her head turned slightly toward him to interrupt him with a quick, surprised, “‘At present?’”
She shook her head, refocusing on Dan’s explanations. She popped the bit of almond-dotted, chocolate-laced granola into her mouth. She hardly tasted it as she chewed.
Dan’s words did nothing to help his cause of convincing Anora their intentions were solely good. She’d seen one too many movies where people sugar-coated their missions, and knew all to well from experience that words often prove sweeter than practice. As her dad always said, ‘If your gut says there’s something off, listen to it. It’s probably right.’ And hers was telling her just that. It all sounded too… cultish. Too vague, with too many ways their true intentions could be interpreted. Too close to sounding more like they wanted to use the planet to kidnap these ‘regal wizards’ for their own personal use.
She prickled at his statement about their numbers vs. Earth's in the event of an uprising. So Pahn, it seemed, was really the only thing standing in their way, the only thing whoever Dan, Darsby, and Ahllasta worked for feared. She inhaled slowly, struggling to maintain an outward calm.
She glanced back at Dan when he switched to mumbling to himself, his words too low for her to make out.
Dan, it seemed, was observant, but not explicitly familiar with how humanity worked. Whether he picked up on her thoughts because of mind reading, some sort of empathic ability, or good ol’ intuition, she couldn’t say. Regardless of the how, he was quicker at it than Darsby. And the high possibility of the former two was unnerving.
An incredulous look crossed her face at how nonchalantly the man mentioned the potential outcome of Pahn killing off everyone she knew. Her grip on the energy bar tightened slightly. For someone who claimed he and his organization didn't want to see anyone hurt, he didn't exactly show any emotion over the prospect of lost lives.
So, basically, they could die either at the hands of Pahn, or in the ensuing mass chaos of beings from outer space popping up around the world and trying to force their ways on everyone. Not to mention the world having whatever these ‘wide-range magics’ were put over it. Whatever he meant, she didn’t like the sound of it. And it wouldn't be just her loved ones who suffered.
That Pahn hadn’t already vaporized the planet was a good sign, though. At least enough to possibly mean he—they—whichever didn’t necessarily want Earth destroyed. Just that the power was there.
When Dan stopped speaking, her gaze stayed on the energy bar. She spared Darsby’s actions scarcely half a glance in acknowledgement. Yet, Ahllasta’s reactions beside her caught her attention. Rather, the exact topics that warranted them.
If Anora didn’t know any better, she’d say Ahllasta didn’t much care for the way Dan and his superiors did things. Curiosity about what, exactly, Ahllasta had done to warrant being sent to Earth as a punishment itched on her tongue.
“What ‘new information’ came up to get you involved, then?” She picked off another piece of the energy bar. “And how is it I have a ‘contract’ with Pahn, anyway? I’ve never even met him... er, them.” She mushed the bit of granola into a roundish shape. “And you didn’t actually answer my other questions,” she added irately. “Who is it, exactly, you're working for,” she looked up through the windshield at the street rushing by, ”and where are we going?”