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A meteorite had crashed in Destiny City. More specifically, one had crashed and everyone believed that the trajectory had placed it as landing in Destiny City Park... But no one had found anything. Nothing had turned up at all and that made her suspicious.

Enough strange things had been happening in Destiny City as of late that Cordelia thought it would be wise to investigate this particular oddity personally. She'd tucked her 'pretty new pen' into her pocket for safe keeping before stuffing her purse with mace, a small taser, a large, loud whistle and one of those flashlights that was heavy enough to crack someone in the head with... And then she'd called the one friend she thought wouldn't look at her like she was completely craze; Ume.

They'd met just outside of the park on one of the well known paths where she'd pulled out her flashlight so they could begin scouting, going as far as to offer Ume her hand... Not that she was afraid, or anything like that, just in case Ume was.

"So... I guess we're looking for a crater? Or... Glowing rock bits... Or something. I don't know. Thanks a lot for coming with me, Ume. I just had a weird feeling about all of this and I didn't know who else to call. My parents already think I'm wacky for sneaking out this late to explore a park at night..."

It was a good thing she hadn't told them about her mugging.

There was already someone there. Two someones, actually; some yards away Ume and Cordelia could make out a pair of figures walking down one of the worn, gravelly paths that wound through the park. By the looks of it it seemed like someone had dragged their girlfriend out here in the middle of the night; one of the silhouettes bore luxurious-looking wavy hair that was tied back in a pair of looping cords. They might not have been out to look for meteors at all, teenage couples sneaking out to parks in the middle of the night wasn't exactly a common occurrence.

"There is one reason, and one reason only why we're out here, Valentine," Janice was saying, her long, sharp fingers fumbling around a rectangular foil pack. "And that reason is that the press is a vile, diseased entity that has forgotten its purpose, concealing information with lies instead of revealing the truth like it was designed to. You've seen this yourself, I've shown you examples of it--"

Finally, the package broke open, revealing a pair of apple strudel-flavored Pop Tarts inside. She handed Vera one, took a bite of its twin, and continued. "--and so, this would give anyone sensible reason to doubt what they've been reporting on these meteor sightings. The only way to know the truth, Vera, is to seek it out for yourself."

"I did a little bit of research myself once I heard about it... But, even then, it's just so weird that nothing turned up. I mean, unless it burned up completely in the atmosphere, or something? It just... I don't know, it just doesn't make sense and I've got a really weird feeling about it." A really weird feeling that had her out exploring a park that, by all rights, would have closed at dusk. Hopefully they wouldn't get caught out here.

"Hold it..." She tightened her hold on Ume's hand for a moment, pulling the other girl back a bit as she came to a halt. "I think... I think we're about to find out." She nodded her head in the direction ahead of them, straining to see whether or not she'd be able to overhear any of the conversation ahead of them.

Bringing her flashlight up, she pointed the beam right at the pair ahead of them as she made a face, leaning just a bit closer to her friend to whisper. "... Do either of them look familiar to you?" There was clearly a bit of suspicion in her voice and maybe just a little bit of hesitation. Trust no one. Ugh, she was getting too paranoid.

"Yes," she replied, curtly, to Vera. "I'm not going to skip school for this, and this way we can investigate with minimal interruption." Janice crumpled up the Pop Tart packet with one hand, shoved it in her pocket with the intent of throwing it in a garbage can later, and continued leading her unwitting partner down the path. It may have seemed to Vera like a bit of madness, but Janice had a method and an ends to it.

True, she was intensely curious about the meteor sightings herself, and was dead-set on peeling away the layers of theory and rumor to find the truth about them -- but that wasn't the only reason why she had brought Vera out here specifically. There was a promise Janice had made to herself way back in Barren Pines, and getting Vera used to the idea of sneaking out late at night was a step in fulfilling it.

Janice Fitzpatrick was going to recruit Vera Valentine into the Negaverse.

A flashlight beam raced up the ground and alighted on the two of them; Janice regarded the bright circle wavering over her torso with befuddlement and just a slight tinge of annoyance. "It... seems like we have company," she muttered, and after a cursory glance back at Vera she scanned the park in search of the light's source. When her gaze met a couple more schoolgirls, she tilted her head in intrigue, trying to figure out what to think about it. One one hand, at least it wasn't a curfew officer out to throw a wrench in this operation. On the other hand... they might get in the way.

"No, we can't call this off. We're supposed to be here." She nodded to confirm her words as she kept the flashlight steadily trained on the two ahead of them, obviously not caring whether or not it was rude to be doing so. "Besides, this is way creepier than any horror movie, don't you think?" Her brow quirked as she spared a glance for her companion, flashing a brief smile of complete confidence.

If anything, Cordelia was getting much better with her acting.

Cordy lowered the flashlight back down to the path at that, giving Ume's hand a light tug as she continued on down the path, half tempted to just brush past the other two girls so that they could continue their own thorough comb of the park. She kept the flashlight on the ground as they neared them, resisting the almost childish urge to play 'cop' and shine the light in their faces while demanding to know what they were doing... The same could be demanded of her, really, and she wasn't all that certain she wanted to answer to them.

"There's nothing back that way, if you're out here looking for the landing site." She said idly, twitching the flashlight's beam back towards the path they'd just followed down. "It doesn't really seem like there's much anywhere. Kind of weird, don't you think?"

"This is like the Tunguska event, except without the whole part with the devastating damage," Janice muttered, somewhat exasperated. One hand pulled a lock of hair out of her face and she cast her gaze here and there as if expecting some evidence to magically appear before her eyes, before speaking again. "If it burned in the atmosphere, it would have been reported. No sense hiding something so mundane from the general public."

Turning back to Vera, she said, "We should look somewhere else. Somewhere... not on the path, probably." She waited for a nod, a sign of agreement before continuing -- a rarity for Janice, who would normally have plowed right ahead without checking to see if Vera was still there. But after Vera showed her intent to follow, she quickly slipped into motion, leading her companion off the path and over to a cluster of trees some yards away.

"You don't have to apologize to them..." She said in a hushed whisper, casting a quick glance at Ume. "I'm sure if they had a flashlight they would've shined one at us. The one with the straight hair looks like she'd be right at home in an interrogation room." Or a morgue... Good grief.

Shaking her head she cut off further thought on the matter, shifting her grip on the flashlight instead. If she was smart she'd just leave things at that, with she and Ume going one way and the other two girls going the other way... But she wasn't feeling particularly intelligent this evening, which had to be at least partially why she was out here. In the dark. Looking for aliens meteorites.

"C'mon, Ume. We're not letting them get too far ahead. I think the lake's in that direction..."

Janice and Vera came to the park to seek out the truth for themselves.

Cordelia and Ume came to the park to investigate the odd rumor.

It was both fortunate and unfortunate for the four that they would soon find their answers - but not in any way they could have ever imagined.

As the two girls stepped away from the path and towards the trees littered across the park, the shadows of the evening prevented the duo from noticing the long vines dangling down from one of the nearby branches. The dangling vines that happened to sway a bit too much as Vera stepped closer, as if they were eagerly wagging at her approach.

As the girl turned to look at the oncoming strangers, the vines snapped out, grabbing her from beneath both arms and they wrapped around her limbs. She didn't have time to turn, much less scream, before the leafy figure came leaping out of the tree, dozens of soft petals falling all around them.





It was large, towering over them by two, three feet. In the place of a head was a giant flower, gaping sharp teeth gleaming in the moonlight as it stared down at them (stare- could it even see?). But the fangs remained unused, its vines being used as its form of attack.

There was no time for ANY of them to react before the vines tightened, a soft glow emitting itself from the areas latched onto Vera. Almost as if it were... absorbing her?

Letting out an inhuman shriek, it's vine-like tail whipped out and shoved Janice aside, then grabbed hold of the branch above as it began pulling itself up. It was clear - Vera was now its prey, and it intended to take her away with it, slowly sucking the life out of the teenager through its thorny grasp as it climbed up the tree.