Welcome to Gaia! ::

The same group of girls earlier passed by again, one of them blushing as the others started to giggle loudly and nudging with their elbows. Matt gave a courtesy grin out of a sense of politeness before keeping his focus out on the water. There was little telling if what was causing the disappearances was really a creature or just some sort of bad luck that followed in the area. It could have been as simple as a riptide or undercurrent-dragging people out deeper than that had imagined. Either way he didn’t want to lose his focus and just completely miss something, his entire promotion was running on the line of figuring out what the cause was.

A few more minutes later the girls had set up a few towels on the ground off to the side of his tower, a cooler, and a few other fun at the beach equipment like an oversized beach umbrella. He watched for a few minutes as they set up before a screech from a kid and a bucket flying caught his attention in a new direction. Someone had been trying to build a sandcastle while someone else’s kid had decided that playing Godzilla was the more appropriate way to handle the sand. Of course it didn’t take long for the helicopter mothers to swoop in and drag both of the kids away all the while giving death glares to each other judging.

Getting up Matt climbed down from the tower chair and walked in a large circle, getting close enough to at least hear from both mothers that their kids were ok and that one of them would be leaving soon if someone didn’t behave herself. The sand was warm under his toes almost enough that Matt wished he had kept his sandals on but if something happened he wouldn’t never be able to run where he was needed.

The sound of jealous was easily noted as Matt shrugged his shoulders.

Hell no. He completely ignored the snarky to anger in Kasi’s voice as she continued to raise her voice at him. It was already annoying to deal with her possessive nature he didn’t need her boredom as well. Heading back to the tower seat he avoided all eye contact with the girl until she ran over to him and tapped him on the shoulder.

”Hi, sorry you looked sort of bored just sitting around and…. Well my friends said I should at least say hi and well my name is Kate.” She held out a hand as a genuine smile was placed on her face. Kasi of course screamed in laughter as Matt returned her handshake with a polite smile of his own.

”Not really bored just making sure everything on the beach is ok. Name’s Matt it is nice to meet you Kate.” He continued on his way back to his seat trying to ignore the fact that she was still trailing along beside him rambling a whole bunch of words off. Something along the lines of school, and vacation, and when he was getting off lifeguard duty. Getting to the steps he turned around and gave her a bit of an awkward, unsure look of how to tell someone the truth or maybe more so nervous of telling lies.

”Sorry I am on duty for the whole day, and when I do get off I promised to meet my girlfriend for dinner. It suppose to be our anniversary of moving in together.” It was a lie, not that it mattered to Matt it was at least believable enough to cause the girl to go red in the face as she looked at him.

"Oh, I am...sorry um thanks for talking to me anyways. Um yea... see you around then maybe." She quickly waved and turned tail back to her friends who by the expression on their faces meant the girl was rather upset with Matt for turning her down so quickly.

Smooth aren't we.

Eventually the dance off, or fighting, or something that he wanted to avoid had ended and the group of teenagers eventually wandered off to do something else. A few other people started to show up, some of them wearing jeans and dark colored t-shirts, not even a pair of flip flops to at least look as if they would sort of blend in with the rest of the beach crowd. At first Matt didn’t think about it a whole lot, it wasn’t as if you had to really wear swim trunks and bring towels to the beach and it only meant they would be rather uncomfortable but that wasn’t really his concern. If he really had to judge everyone what they wore he would have least told a few people that less wasn’t better and that they should have invested a little more money in obtaining at least a cover up of sorts.

A few kids shrieked running along the edge of the water as a few of the guys jumped, one woman glanced over glaring at the kids as she lit up a cigarette that was held in between her shaking fingers. One guy seemed extremely preoccupied digging his feet into the ground as he tried to give some sort of advert glances over at Matt as if trying to figure out what his deal was. Still loitering wasn’t really a crime so he couldn’t do a whole lot in shooing them off the beach. At least there wasn’t some sort of long pier that could hide under, well at least not on this side of the beach otherwise he would have really started to wonder what they were planning on doing.

A few minutes later Matt noticed a few other people coming and going from the group, some where the beach goers while others were people who had simply drove up parked, and chatted and then left. A few times he could see them shake hands on occasion, as the same guy kicking the dirt would look over at Matt to see if he was really watching. Another kid shrieked in delight as one of the women dropped something into the dirt before hastily picking it up and shoving deep into the bowels of her purse. A few minutes later another guy who had driven his car and parked hurried over, he wore something similar to that of a suit pants and a dress shirt and his car did a great job of screaming money. He quickly handed over a wad of cash when he shook the woman’s hand and then headed immediately back to his car peeling out of there as if cops were following behind him.

Despite knowing that t was obvious some sort of drug dealing going on, it wasn’t still any of Matt’s concern no matter how much he gritted his teeth in annoyance. He would of course call the police later and at least let them know that something as up but as for now it wasn’t suspicious enough to consider a threat to Deus. It was just sleazy for the most part, and even worse that they willing to handle it in a place that kids where. If it wasn’t for the fact that he thought if he did call the police would cause some sort of disturbance to the mission he would have had them all hauled off.



Matt gave some sort of low growl, Can it Kasi. No one is worthless doesn’t matter if they are on drugs or selling. It shouldn’t be done with kids around and or in places that families go to have fun. This is supposed to be somewhere safe, or at least mostly safe that is.

A noise, someone screaming as a man laid on the beach his body convulsing as the woman kept pounding her fist into his chest. Matt flew out of the chair skipping most of the steps down as he aimed for the sand and took off running towards the figure, his cell phone in hand already fumbling to find right buttons to get passed the lock screen to dial 911. When he got to the figure he had stopped shaking, instead he was leaning on his side coughing as pieces of something covered in saliva flew into the sand.
“Are you ok? Is everything ok, you need to go to the hospital, or at least a doctor as soon as possible.”

The man waved his hand at him, ”I’ll be fine I’ll be fine just leave me alone.” Matt helped him get to his feet only to have him looked annoyed and shrugged him off as he left with the woman down the beach. Looking down he noticed what the man had coughed up, it was something familiar like candy.

Fear candy.

What the hell?

A couple of hours later Matt was dressed in a pair of worn out jeans and t-shirt and a pair of his favorite worn out running shoes. His hair was down and braided to the side and the look of sunburn had already faded into a deeper tan. It had taken him a few minutes to realize that the man who had the seizure on the beach was one of the few that had shook hands with the oddly dressed group on the beach. It had taken even more watching and remembering what the woman had dropped that it was the fear candy itself that they were dealing as drugs. Of course he had no real proof other than some observations and a near death experience but after a change of clothes he spent the rest of the day tailing the group around after they had left the beach.

What they did to humans he wasn’t entirely sure, or why any human would even want to eat something that belonged to one of those disgusting minipets but humans weren’t always intelligent. There was also the deeper question of how in the world did they get a hold of something like fear candy, was someone at Deus selling it as a profit? Part of him didn’t want to believe that someone, another hunter nonetheless, was willing to expose others to something as dangerous as fear candy just for a few bucks but he couldn’t underestimate some people’s greed. There was also the obvious idea that this was nothing more than a horrible plot arranged by halloweeners themselves, it was no doubt in his mind that they had planned this for a while. Handing out fear candy like drugs, getting some addicted while others died, it was the sort of thing they would do.

The group had dispersed for a while, he tuck trailing the one woman he had seen cramming the fear candy in her purse assuming that she had to be one of the handlers of the goods. After an hour or so of her picking up some fast food dinner and then off to what Matt could only assume was some boyfriend’s house she started to make her way back to the rest meeting them outside of a warehouse. Other people were heading in, obviously none of them really looking as if they were there to work some sort of job, instead most of them looked like the woman or even looked as if they were the people he had seen earlier approach on the beach. There was some security, but after circling around he found a window that seemed unoccupied and with few people around to pay attention he climbed through and started to make his way to the room where noises of cheering and yelling seemed to echo around the building.

Keeping to the center of the crowd Matt noticed a few more people quite a few of them were easily downing fear candies while others kept their eyes darting around judging not only what was going on below but at each other as if they were unsure of the people that had dared gather around them. There was of course more than just the typical strung out addict with the nervous glances and clothes that looked as if they belonged in a thrift shop. No, there were more a few in the crowd wore dress slacks with buttoned up shirts, others even as far as owning bespoke suits with the flash of a watch that had some sort of expensive car attached to it somewhere. This was no longer merely a crowd of drug addicts on some sort of drug induced rave, instead it was something else. Something a lot worse in Matt’s mind. A fight club, a fight club that as he looked down to the arena was a human holding a simple dagger versus some sort of Halloween monster.

s**t…. Matt hissed under his breath as some guy in pinned stripped fitted slacks elbowed him as he yelled out when blood hit the ground.

”Dammit, watch where you going ********. Damn glasses can’t see s**t anyways.” The man pulled them off his face before his buddy next to him glanced over at him. ”Suck it up man, glasses are better than not seeing s**t right. It’s not like you have to wear them forever or something.”

Matt continued through the crowd, noting more people wearing brands and clothes that spoke more of wealth than the people he had seen on the beach. Almost all of them were wearing some sort of glasses on, leaving him only to assume that they were meant to see something down in the arena. He could assume that it was likely the monster but since he could already see it wasn’t completely sure of it or not. There could be something else down there without his knowledge but the glasses didn’t seem to appear laying around for him to easily pick up.

The fight went on, screams and cheers rose as blood splattered along the dirt, both parties where worse for wear.