Pizza Place

Nastya heard Val say something and looked up. She saw someone wearing a plain hoodie but strangely, there's nothing in place of a face and she doesn't spot any hands.

"Hi, are you a Midnight Watch subject or are you around from here?" She waves at Val.

Mindy arrives at the library with Gill. She looks around the inside of the building, not looking very impressed with the place. Of course, her coming from New York, she's seen bigger libraries. So anything pretty small would greatly fail in comparison to the big city. Obviously she's not quite used to living in a small town.

"Well, here you go, Gill," she says to him dryly, holding out her arm to the library. "Go nuts."

She looks for a place to sit and notices the only table with that one girl. She doesn't really want to share a table with anyone. But not having a choice, she puts her backpack down near an open chair and has a seat, resting her head on her hands, while taking a huge sigh.

As soon as Gill entered the library, his eyes widened and he looked around at the shelves full of books. He didn't even know where to begin.

"Wow.... this place is amazing!!" Gill exclaimed, not realizing he was supposed to be quiet. He walked up to the nearest shelf he could find, skimming titles of dictionaries and encyclopedias. "I've never seen so many books before!"

Nicholas

"H-hey!" Regan yelled, face flushing as he glared at Chris. "Don't mock me like that or I'll curse you into next Tuesday!"

"No he won't," Nicholas said blandly. "He told me he doesn't know any curses."

"Nicholas!" Regan snapped, whirling around to face him. "Don't just say things like—!"

He was cut off, however, by Raven's question. "Magic," Nicholas said. "I don't—"

"Shhhh!"

Nicholas paused, mildly (and let us emphasize that—mildly) surprised at Regan's interjection. His eyes were narrowed, suspicion written all over his face. "Why do you want to know?" he asked.

After school, Little Haven, passing by that fountain again - Alex Palencia the werewolf who still has no real reason to care

As he moved away from the library, Alex heard something and glanced back, seeing Mindy and Gill going into the library. Alex frowned, but felt glad that he had left there soon enough to not run directly into them on the way out. He had no reason to stick around, and now one more reason to not stick around, so he quickly started making his way back home.

Along the way, he decided to take the book out of his backpack and finally take a look at what kind of book it actually was. He flipped it over to see if there was any blurb on the back, but that was when a voice interrupted him. It was that weird kid who was 'not' skipping school, again, asking a question that made Alex immediately want to quip. "Nope, totally different guy. Complete coincidence that we look and sound exactly the same," Alex said sarcastically, as he kept walking.

Smith Residence

Blake arrives home, though there's a little chill to the air as he steps into the kitchen to see his mom already sitting there with a phone on the table.

"So. I got a call from the school."

Blake panics a little, though he tries to hide it.

"Did they figure out my superpower..? I'd like to know if they did."
"... Blake, the spoon. Please."

With the jig up, Blake carefully reached into his bag and retrieved the ornate spoon.

"Why did you take that? Honesty, please."
"I thought... I thought it would make for a cool catapult..."
"Well it definitely was effective."

Blake lets out a bit of a laugh before catching himself and averting his gaze as he sets the spoon back down onto the table.

"Why do we even have a cursed spoon around the house?"
"Well I was not aware it was cursed when I picked it up at the antique store. I suppose I'll have to send it back for a refund..."
"Oh... Uh..."
"You're not in trouble, you didn't know what this thing did when you took it. But... Blake, honey, please let me know if you want to take something to school. This town is strange in so many ways and I don't want you taking something dangerous just because it's 'cool'. Alright?"
"... Alright... Do we still have—?"
"You're not in trouble so yeah, it's still porkchops for dinner. How about you go get cleaned up and tell me about some of the friends you made today, yeah?"

With a nod, Blake scurries upstairs to try and calm down. Of course, now alone in the kitchen with the spoon, his mother gets out a notepad and pencil.

"Spoon exhibits an expected telekinetic potential. Additionally, need to follow up on the fact that my son was able to hold the object without being subject to it..."

Pizza Place

"...the Midnight Watch?...I've never heard of that...and, uh..."

Val then leaned in towards Nastya, and whispered something.

"...it sounds like the sort of thing you shouldn't be talking about in public..."

They turned their head towards the robots, then back towards Nastya.

Library

The librarian called out to Gill. "You seem to be new to libraries. Do you want me to show you around? Oh, and you're usually supposed to be quiet." She sounded entirely sincere, no sarcasm or even annoyance.

Meanwhile, the girl turned to Mindy and gave a polite greeting. "Hello! What is your name?"

Streets of Little Haven

"I've had a lot of experience with dead people at the La Croix family business, and from what I've seen, dead people generally stay dead."

Chris looked like he wanted to say something but knew he should probably just stay quiet.

Fountain

The kid blocked Alex's path.

He just...stood in front of him, quietly. He muttered something to himself that Alex didn't catch, but that was it.

Nicholas

Regan's eyes popped open to dinner platter size. "La Croix? Like...Lavinia la Croix?"

"Who?" Nicholas asked, tilting his head.

Regan whirled around to face him. "Lavinia la Croix! Wrote the book with the spell that brought you back to life! Or, uh, unlife, but there is no way, that is too convenient—"

His mouth snapped shut, eyes darting over to Raven and Chris. "NevermindI'vesaidtoomuch," he mumbled.

Edited by LilyTheLitten on Nov 5th 2021 at 4:50:49 AM

Loki hears what Nastya says, but waits for Val to say something because he thinks that's what you do when someone addresses someone else?

"'Subjects?' Is this 'Midnight Watch' a monarchy? The name makes it sound more like some lower-level organization, not a whole government. Name's Loki, by the way. And that's Val."

"Yeah, I suppose I shouldn't be talking 'bout that out loud. There were Russian spies livin' in America after all!"

"Who's that?" Maria pointed at Loki. Nastya turned around and saw him.

"Ah I see," Nastya winks at him before extending her hand to do a handshake. "Name's Nastya and that's actually a very secret organization."

"Don't tell me you were talking about You-Know-What?!" Tatiana said when she realized that she brought up the Midnight Watch at one point.

"That's Tatiana, the bossy one," Nastya pointed at the blue robot, before pointing at the yellow and red ones. "Maria, the nice one; and Olga, the mostly chill one."

After school, Little Haven, passing by that fountain again - Alex Palencia the werewolf with a place to be

Alex stopped and found himself reflexively sniffing for a moment when the kid was right in front of him. Alex looked up from the back of the book with dull, exasperated expression. "What? If you want something buddy, you gotta speak up," Alex said, wondering to himself why today had to be so difficult.

Mindy notices the librarian meeting with Gill and offering to show him around. He'll be in good hands, she thinks to herself before she notices the girl talking to her. She looks down, keeping quiet for a few seconds before answering. "Mindy", she responds to the girl.

Gill turned his attention towards the librarian, looking sheepish as she pointed out he was supposed to be quiet. He walked over to the librarian's desk.

"Ah, yeah, I'm new to libraries, sorry about that," he whispered. "Yeah, I can be quiet. Please do show me around! I've never seen so many books in one place... and all totally in one piece too..."

His eyes seemed to twinkle with excitement and he resisted the urge to burst out into happy song. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Mindy sitting down with another girl and smiled.

Streets of Little Haven

"...The what?"

Raven's eyes were the size of dinner plates. She was actually emoting, and speaking in a tone other than creepy serentiy, for the first time since you started the conversation.

And judging by how Chris reacted, it might have been the first time she'd emoted ever. "Woah, what? The wh—oh my god, her facial expression changed! That's hard to do."

Pizza Place

"...Russian—what!? What are—..."

Val was interrupted by someone else entering the conversation. She had shoulder-length dirty blonde hair, glasses, and...well, no points for guessing how old she was.

"Russian spies? Secret organizations? What are you guys talking about?"

Fountain

"Look, I—I just—there's..." Alex may have gotten the impression that the kid didn't know either.

Eventually, he settled on "...who are you?"

Library

"Mindy! That's a nice name. My name is Diana Peake. It is a pleasure to meet you."

Diana then looked over at Gill and said, "He's...interesting. I presume you know him?"

Meanwhile, the librarian was showing Gill the nonfiction section. "This is where all of the nonfiction books are. Books that describe real things. They contain information about...pretty much anything you'd want to learn about."

"See this is what—" Nastya quickly turns to the girl.

"We were talking about the Cold War, that's all! Ha, ha..."

Edited by Cutegirl920fire on Nov 8th 2021 at 6:01:53 AM

After school, Little Haven, passing by that fountain again - Alex Palencia the werewolf wondering why he's had to deal with two awkward talkers in the same day

Alex's expression didn't change, and he stared at the other boy for a few seconds like that. "... Alex. What's it matter to you?" Alex then said, letting his arm holding the book hang down to rest.

After Diana introduced herself, Mindy looks back to Gill and the librarian, before turning her attention back to the girl. "Yeah, that's Gill. He's...", she pauses for a bit, trying to figure out a way to describe him without sounding like a lunatic. Before chiming in with "....not from around here."

Gill looked hypnotized by the nonfiction books, skimming the covers.

"Really? Anything?" he asked. "Where are the history books? Books about culture? How about hu— uh, people?"

Before he even received an answer, he pulled out a few books with interesting titles: History of the 20th Century, Great American Pioneers, and The Age of Exploration. He put them on a table nearby the shelf, eyes wide, looking at them like they were priceless historical artifacts.

Nicholas

"N-nothing! Nothing!" Regan waved his hands around frantically, before turning around and grabbing Nicholas's hand. "Hey, we should probably get going, huh?!"

"Well—"

"ALRIGHT SEE YOU LATER!" Regan yelled, and then he went sprinting down the street.

Nicholas, for his part, momentarily stared at the stump where his hand used to be, before using his remaining hand to wave at Raven and Chris. "Bye," he said, and then he followed Regan.

Pizza Place

"Alright...and what are those?" She pointed to the three robots, which Nastya had done nothing to obstruct the girl's view of. (Val could be seen facepalming in the background.)

Fountain

"I...I just...look. You ran through here, and you wouldn't answer any of my questions, and then there were these two other kids, and there was this weird red-headed one that didn't know what basements were, and I've never seen any of you three before, and I guess you aren't really doing anything weird but there—there's something. Okay? There's something happening and—" (He turned to look at the camera, which was definitely still recording.) "—just—I don't know, man, there just is."

He almost sounded like he was pissed off at Alex. (Who, to be fair, responded to all of his questions with dripping amounts of sarcasm.)

Library

The librarian looked pleased. "You can check out whatever books you want, and you can read them all you want, as long as you bring them back on time."

Meanwhile, Diana was puzzled. "Not from around here? From...somewhere without libraries?" She thought for a few seconds, before she started smiling. "Oh...is he, perhaps, from...somewhere unusual?"

Blake's Kitchen

The phone, the very same one Ms. Hughes' voice played through some time ago, rang again. This time, the caller ID showed a different number—one that Blake's mother would no doubt be familiar with.

"Hello, this is Vertigo, from Home Office. I'd like to talk about your mission."

Pizza place

Nastya shrugged, now lazy to reintroduce her Robo-Sisters.

"Come on you three, tell her your names."

"I'm Olga!"

"Tatiana..."

"Hello, my name is Maria."

Maria then waves at the girl.

Edited by Cutegirl920fire on Nov 16th 2021 at 7:41:19 AM

After school, Little Haven, passing by that fountain again - Alex Palencia the werewolf waiting for the part where it matters to him

Alex didn't care much about what the other teen had to say, but did recognize the description of Gill. "Okay, and it matters to you because... Why? You trying to be a journalist or something?" Alex commented, looking at the camera for a moment with the same level of disinterest. "There ain't even much to tell; we just got out of school, that's all. It's a tiny school that gets out early," the young werewolf mentioned, motioning vaguely in the direction of Oddity High. He thought about how the guy mentioned 'something happening' and it seemed ironic to Alex that the real reality seemed to be just how much nothing was happening; it reminded him of his confusion and frustration at the fact that all their teachers were totally normal and there seemingly was no larger secret world that they were becoming a part of.

"Speaking of, I've got a book report due tomorrow, because one of our teachers is a terrible woman," Alex added, holding up the book in his hand, then trying to move around the other teen to continue on his route home.

Smith Residence

Upstairs, Blake flinched a little at the sound of a phone ringing and tried to just calm down and work on unpacking the boxes that contained the majority of his worldly belongings.

However downstairs, his mother picks up the phone and immediately puts on a friendly affect.

"Ah, V! Nice to hear from you. Sorry if I'm a little quiet my son just got home from school and I don't want to interrupt any homework he's got to do. As you were saying?"

Nicholas

After ten minutes of walking, Nicholas finally caught up with Regan. The death witch was panting heavily, looking from Nicholas's hand to Nicholas himself with a sheepish expression. "Sorry," he mumbled, giving the hand back.

"It's fine," Nicholas said, re-attaching the hand. "That was interesting. Why didn't you—?"

"Do you know how many people would want the secrets of necromancy?" Regan snapped, going from sheepish to peeved in an instant. "Sure, I don't want to cause the apocalypse, but what if one of those two do? We can't risk this info falling into the wrong hands!"

There was a pause.

"You don't want to share," Nicholas surmised.

"Nope. Now follow me." Regan turned on his heel. "Let's go home."

Nicholas shrugged and did so.

Gill looked down at the books, then out a window at seemingly nothing in particular. He thought for a moment and frowned.

"I don't think taking the books home is going to be a good idea," he muttered to himself. He thought about all the ruined books back on his ship. "No, I think I'll just read them here, if that's okay," he told her. "Thank you so much for letting me read these!"

And he pulled the books into his arms, continuing to skim down the bookshelves, grabbing any books that tickled his fancy. He had so many books in hand that they were difficult to carry.