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Heeled shoes tapped softly on the room's tiled floors as Sinclaire waited for the test readings. It was taking too long, the FEAR had corrupted and calcified to the point where the statue could hardly be considered a part of Halloween any longer, not even as a simple statue. Tap. Tap. She traced a talon lightly over one of the tentacles, frozen in motion.

Walker had been given the go ahead to start setting up at the Amityville campus, but the succubus had remained to deal with the Boogeymen's little present. Plump red lips curled up into a small sneer. Sinclaire knew that Vek and Prinny, not to mention their superior, were thinking of this as a chance to leverage more favours when she broke their valuable specimen. And if she didn't? Boogeymen would be able to go public with Insanity in a big You Need Us way.

Politics. Even nightmares thrived on it.

Maybe especially nightmares.

The local medic "assisting" her watched the succubus silently, with only the occasional shift of its wings to prove they weren't a statue as well. At least at the moment. The boogeymen had assigned a gargoyle to be in charge of studying the statue in a misplaced attempt at trying to better understand the condition. Unsurprisingly, he really didn't have anything at all helpful to add. What they were about to attempt was against several very old, very important laws, and it was only reasonable that Halloween's slightly more lawful healers and mages would be ignorant as ******** as to the process.

Finally a soft chime sounded and Sinclaire glanced down at the small touchpad held in one sharply taloned hand. "It's still there. Chite, start the force disruptor."

"It'll break."

"I'm sure there's going to be more where she came from." Sinclaire gave the gargoyle a white, toothy smile, "A lot more."

He didn't speak again, merely flipped a switch as the succubus stepped away from the statue. Around it, a circle of dim light appeared and the hum of energy began to fill the room. Both light and sound increased steadily. Chite looked away, visibly uncomfortable, not with just what they were doing but because he could feel the vibrations of that energy right down into his soul. Which was...exactly what it was meant to do. His breathing quickened, unsure if he should be sick or just pass out or somehow stop this. Panicked eyes glanced toward the strange demon who'd taken over the project. She didn't seem bothered at all. Even as the room became downright painful to be in, she just watched the statue with clinical calculation, eyes only glancing down to check her odd device's read out.

Suddenly the room was filled with a bright, terrible light, and scream of agony sent Chite to his knees. Blood trickled from the gargoyle's nose and ears. His head thrashed to the side and out of the corner of his eye he saw the Illithid surrounded by a nimbus of light, her body wracked with pain, tentacles snapping and twisting over taught, played, limbs.

The light faded and yet the screaming still continued until the succubus kicked him in the gut with an expensive stiletto shoe. Dazed, the healer dimly wondered when the other shouting had stopped, when he had started, and if it had been him all along. Finally coming back to himself, Chite's attention snapped to the ghoul. They had done it! They had...

A statue.

Her pose and that serenely sad expression had changed, but still...

Before he had a chance to ask, the door burst open and Prinny burst in, Vek swaggering after. "The jack was that! I thought my brains was gonna turn to smush! Did it work?"

"It already is," Vek sneered at his partner and then turned to the statue, "That's a good look on her, I think."

"What?!" Sinclaire was obviously upset, but not from the failure, or from the unwelcome presence of the two Boogeymen. "There isn't a psi-shield on this room? I explicitly asked for one to be set up yesterday!"

Vek and Prinny just looked at each other, shrugged, and answer in unison.

"Budget."

"You didn't say please."

With a deep, frustrated sigh, the succubus bit her lip and returned her attention to the data collected. There was good news. The core was still there, possibly with enough stable structures to be at least partially reconstructed. It would probably take a few sessions, and no doubt they'd be painful for the subject, as it was basically a root canal of her very existence. But Sinclaire wasn't too concerned over the small issues. She did, however hope, that the psychic scream that had torn through them all hadn't reached too far outside the Boogie HQ.

The second attempt nearly destroyed it, and Sinclaire had cursed venomously as she stalked the room, a bloody tissue held to her nose. At least the psi-shield was up now, so the concussive force of the screaming hadn't left the room. She'd have a vicious headache and bad temper to match the rest of the day.

The third attempt was little better.

The fifth attempt seemed promising until the specimen tried to attack. Core still unstable, the creature dissipated itself and reformed. Statue once again. "Idiot," the succubus hissed as she checked the Core analysis. "It's degraded back to where it started." She glared over at the statue, lips curling back to reveal a very white, very sharp set of teeth. "That's what you get."

"I don't think..."

"No, Chite, you don't think. So shut up and check her absorption levels." With every failure, Sinclaire's personality became sharper, crueler. Vek and Prinny sniped right back, happy whenever she gave them an excuse to verbally jab and dig, but the gargoyle steadily became meeker, more downtrodden. Watching this abominable act inflicted time and again on a mere ghoul was bad enough. Watching the torture of her change was horrific in ways that had nothing to do with what he'd learned about in school. And the screams...jack, the screams were so painful on so many level. Being the succubus' verbal whipping boy on top of it all...

He needed a new career. A healer Boogeyman has seemed like a good, giving job. He wouldn't have to hurt, or even scare. He could heal, and help, and maybe even be part of the Greater Good. A hero.

Chite looked down and swallowed thickly, "I um...need to go...to the bathroom."

The succubus glanced at him, and her irate expression shifted to something disturbingly close to actual discomfort. "Um...yeah, you do that guy." She focused on the statue and then gave a soft sigh of relief when he was gone. "I always get the crying ones."

They continued. Force dissipate. Locate and manipulate Core. Add pure FEAR into the mix. Hope some of it held, giving the Core a healthier body to work within. Snap back to statue. Wait for it readouts to stabilize. Force dissipate. Again. And again. And then quite a few more times after that. It was slower than any of them wished, but the specimen was too fragile to rush the rebuilding all at once. At one point, Chite began to simply leave before Sinclaire began the force dissipation. The succubus didn't comment and he never bothered to explain himself.

One week later...

The bright, painful light faded and Riley crumpled to the ground. Sinclaire walked to the ghoul, and looked down into weakly glowing eyes, the keen knife of victory playing across her features, "You're welcome."

The succubus watched the feeble motion clinically, not bothering to move out of the way. "Well now," she crouched down with a smile that didn't reach golden eyes, "...if you force yourself to dissipate again, I'm afraid I won't bother bringing you back. So have a little care, yeah? You're still quite fragile, even now. Especially now."

The door opened and Chite shuffled in, the gargoyle's head bent, unwilling to look and see what tortured pose the statue was in now. His eyes landed on Sinclaire and then skittered away, he didn't really want to look at her either. He made is way to the recalibration kit and then froze. Slowly his head turned back to the succubus and what was on the ground before her. Awake. Alive.

"Oh my...jack. We...we did it!" The gargoyle's entire demeanor shifted from morose self loathing to elation.

"I did it," Sinclaire corrected with a scowl, but Chite just ignored her.

"I had...all this...we...she...we cured her!" His eyes grew wide and his chest heaved, "So it was worth it! It was...everything was worth it." His voice softened and tears began streaming down his face. "She's okay. We're all going to be okay."

Noting the tears, Sinclaire turned her back on the gargoyle, and looked down at the Illithid expressionlessly. She didn't say anything, but at every hiccuping sob behind them, her lips compressed a little more.

When he showed no sign of stopping any time soon she finally said, "We'll transfer you to an observation cell shortly. Don't ******** yourself up any more than you already have, ghoul. Chite, go get the Tweedle Twins."

"O-o-okaaaaay," the gargoyle hiccuped and fled, his jubilant voice soon filling the corridor.

Vek kicked open the door, and Prinny danced in after, the fae singing as it went, "She was a rock around the clock til tonight! She was a rock, rock, rock, even in broad daylight! She was a rock, yeah a rock, around the clock that's right!" There was some pelvis thrusting involved. Vek bobbed his head in time with it and grinned at Sinclaire's scowl.

When Prinny was bored with it's song it squatted beside Riley and started poking her tentacles. Then her cheek. The one boob, to which it exclaimed, "Hey, they're real! I guess I owe you five silver, Vek!"

The succubus rolled her eyes and snapped out, "You can play later, just carry her to her new room. I need to analyze the rest of the data so you have something nice to wave at your superiors."

The lizard man's smile widened, "I have something nice to wave at you right now." She flipped him the bird and Vek just chuckled as he lifted the mindflayer up.

"Be gentle," Sinclaire cautioned him with narrowed eyes, "...handle her like glass."

"Vek loves breaking glass!"

"I like to chew on the shards, sometimes," he admitted calmly.

"Handle her like other people would handle glass."

"Well...I guess."

"You didn't say please!"

"Oh? Didn't I? Well then...PLEASE...get the ******** out of here and if I find out that she dissipated again I'm withdrawing and taking my people and equipment with me!" Someone's good mood was gone.

"Did you get some Illithid gravel in your vag? Because if you did you should really get that looked at."

"Your tits really stick out when you're angry. Is that on purpose?"

That someone was neither Prinny nor Vek.

The two took their baggage and carried her through the halls, moods entirely unaffected.

"We should toss her down some stairs, I think, see what happens."

"b***h said no."

"But now I'm cuuuuurious!" Prinny whined, hopping up to get another look at the Illithid. "You're curious too, right?"

"Sorry ghoul! I don't gots no parts!" Prinny then proceeded to lift it's clothes and prove it's point.

"I do."

Dropping the robe, the fae creature tsked, "I think dropping her down the stairs would be better than anything like that."

"That's because you don't gots no parts."

The a door squealed open, and Riley was placed down on a small cot with rather more care than would be expected. Prinny leaned over her and poked her cheek again, "We'll feed you later, probably. Sinclaire may have something else in mind. Or I might forget. Never know really. Is there anyone you wanna have visit you while you're here?"

The two Boogeymen looked at each other in confusion.

"Doctor, huh?"

"Why wouldn't she ask for a friend? I was hoping she would ask for a friend so I could say NO YOU! And then maybe she'd cry."

"Probably didn't have any. Illithids you know."

"Yeah, most people don't like the colour purple."

"I preferred her grey, myself."

"You would. But I think I did too! Does that make me you?"

"Maybe."

The sound of rustling robes as the little fae checked for parts, "Nope! Still nothing! I must still be me!"

"So since she doesn't want a friend, may as well get her a doctor."

"Yeah, you think she wants Chite? Maybe bump boulders with him? I bet all that time as a rock changed her tastes!"

"Chite's probably still writing in his die-ary about this."

Soft sniggers, "Well, I suppose any doctor will do."

"Not like she specified."

"Not like she said please."

When Riley came to she'd find Sinclaire sitting in a chair beside her bed, legs crossed, busily writing notes on a clipboard.

((Posting with lizbot's permission~))

Sometimes, the most expedient course is also the most obvious one - at least, that was what Malodore hoped. In the days since Riley's cry had jolted through its mind, the plague doctor had analyzed the data it had collected, met with Nurse Cricket, and discussed matters with its closest friends. It had come no closer to soothing the ache in its heart that had been renewed by that brief burst of terrible hope.

Thus, it had finally decided to do something so simple that it had previously dismissed the idea out of hand: go and just ask. Surely a citizen could inquire as to the well-being of another? This wasn't the same situation as before, after all. It could be courteous, fill out forms, or do whatever that was required. Perhaps it could be easy.

It suspected not, though.

The local headquarters of the Bogeymen was not hidden or concealed in any way, of course - they were allegedly keepers of justice, after all. Looking up at the building (which was an architectural nightmare on par with the monster dormitories, at least in Malodore's opinion), the plague doctor steeled itself and walked up the steps and into the lobby, all the way up to the big, imposing receiving desk.

"Ah... excuse me?"

"One of my friends was... brought here, some time ago," Malodore said, after a moment's hesitation. "Her name is Riley - a mindflayer, and a third year student at Amityville Academy. My name is L.C. Malodore... might I inquire as to her welfare, if not her whereabouts?" It inclined its head politely. "Per favore?"