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The giant in front of her continued about his intimidation techniques without so much as acknowledging the femme bounty hunter in his path, and Ryke found herself getting bumped and shoved by a solid WALL of a man, you might think she were being pushed back by some sort of construction vehicle and it happened so fast.

All but losing her footing, Ryke struggled to stay standing but staggered backwards and attempted to stay a step ahead of the brute but being stuck between the not so jolly green giant and that a** hole of a partner Kane was hardly safe - she was more or less, screwed.

Thinking fast, Ryke let herself get bulldozed over and stumble where she quickly righted herself once on the ground so to fall back against Kane's very much unprotected legs. Partners or not, the female hunter had no quarrels with grabbing her knife from her right boot, turning it around in her hand so she could very easily jam the blade into the older hunter's right thigh, her left hand grabbing a hold of her sidearm with her left hand and shoving it barrel first right into the man's well - the goods. She didn't pull the trigger, oh but she was tempted.

"Hey a*****e, how'dya feel about a change in gender eh?"

[Pime Taradox'ed]

Home.

Ryke was finally home, back in the not so quiet humble little town of Aekea, and yet despite the constant noise, the perpetual construction, the traffic, the smog, and the less than savory back alleys, the red-headed bounty hunter was extremely fond of her hometown.

From the outside, Aekea was nothing to sneeze at, just another town with far too much smoke and noise for anyone's taste, but you had to really live here to see what made it so great.

Ryke was one of those people who saw the place for what it was, and she loved it.

HoH was over, or at least for her it was. Her team had blazed through the tournament so far, only to meet their match against an excellent team. Her final fight had been enjoyable, and her opponent a good guy, someone she could see herself kicking back with on some occasion, sharing drinks or stories - just shooting the breeze.

After being eliminated from the tournament, placing fourth (or at least unspoken placement) Ryke was pleased, and thoroughly satisfied. It was time to get back to work - and did she ever love her job.

The only disappointment she had walked away with was never having settled things with Colin.

That was a shame, considering she'd had some pretty good times with the former merc, but then, neither of them were the type to commit just yet and she figured they were both better off. Who needed a love interest when you did the kinda work she did anyway? Romance would've got in the way of her bounty hunting and frankly she was more inclined to choose a steady job over a man.

Her family was the first stop on a list of visits, along with some old haunts and good acquaintances she was curious about checking up on. They of course had welcomed her back excitedly, proud that she'd gotten as far as she had in the tournament, as well as amused.

Though after a couple of weeks, she was missing one important thing:

Her best friend.

Izzy.

It'd been a while since they had talked, let along gotten together and Ryke was honest-to-goodness missing her partner in crime, the crazy, trouble making shapeshifter always brought a grin to her face and the bounty hunter needed some gal time.

So she grabbed her phone, flipped it open and dialed the punker's number.

It rang.

For like a good minute before the dial was replaced by a far more aggravating, ear splitting tone that would drive anyone to the brink of 1st degree murder once they discovered the creator of such agony.

"AGH Sonofa-" And there began the cursing. Ryke was never shy about the cursing.

“I’m sorry, the number that you are currently trying to connect with is currently unavailable. Please, try again later.”

...

Her anger fleeted quickly, retreated and allowed for confusion to rise and take its place. Confusion and a blank expression as she pulled the phone away from her ear slowly, and stared accusingly into the LCD screen as if it were to blame for the irritatingly uninformative message.

In all the amount of time Ryke had known Izzy and been calling her on this number, never had she once been greeted by such a message and felt the urge to continue her tirade of cursing and angry grumbling while nursing her ringing ear.

So it wasn't like it was a common occurrence.

She thought long and hard about the last time she ever heard that kind of recorded message and what the reason behind it was. Izzy was a woman of simple needs but her phone was her biggest lifeline and got by as long as she had it, her cigs, booze and well, Ryke's "generous" habit of "loaning" her money (ie. footing the bill).

After wrestling with the key in the lock of her apartment front door (honestly she had asked about five times for them to fix that s**t), still baffled over the message, the bounty hunter managed to wriggle the handle and shove the door open.

Home sweet home indeed.

Liss had stopped by a few times here and there to make sure the place was holding up without being occupied. Ryke stopped in the door way with a smile etched onto her lightly freckled features, only for it to scrunch into a disgruntled sort of pout.

Sure, her sister stopped by and visited often, along with Noah, but...

It felt so empty without her other half, her twin, occupying the room just down the hall from hers.

Ryke wasn't the mushy mushy type, nor was she a social butterfly but she was human and thus craved human interaction and company and now that Lissy had moved out, well, it really wasn't the same.

With a huff, though more of a sigh, she grabbed the mail, stepped in, and tossed her keys on the nearest counter.

What to do, what to dooo...

The Izzy thing was still bugging her and she wasn't sure what to do about it. It wasn't like she could call back and be like "Hey your phone's not working", she couldn't text the woman, she didn't have a land line and Ryke didn't know any of her family members and couldn't call them.

Soo, that left one person:

Noah.

Her little brother. She fished her phone out of her pocket again and flipped it open. Fingers tapped away at the keys and entered his number. Fortunately it rang several times, and she expected to hear Noah's voice as he picked up the line but after a few more rings it set off the voicemail greeting.

"Must be busy."

Blah blah blah...she waited for the recording to finish it's rambling repetitive message and listened eagerly for the Beep that signified where she could begin her message.

[BEEEEP]

"Hey kiddo, it's Zandra, uh, listen I just tried calling Izzy and got this strange recorded message, something about the number being unavailable. I don't know what's up but I'm kinda worried so if you see her anytime tonight or tomorrow, or just as soon as possible could you have her get a hold of me. I'd like to know what's up. Alright well, when you get this, hit me back. Thanks."

*Click*

She flipped the phone closed and tossed it aside somewhere, not really caring where it landed at the moment.

Something about this not being able to get a hold of Izzy was bugging the s**t out of her.

Wait

...

Had she maybe forgotten to pay her bill? That could explain it, the copycat was pretty lackadaisical when it came to anything more important than booze or heaven forbid, Reggie.

Well, if that was what happened, it was an easy solution right? Just reminder her to pay the damn bill. No biggie right?

Riiiight?

~

And what had Noah been up to all this time?

Why, at the store trying to figure out what kind of food to pick up for Reggie of course. Izzy hadn't the cash to fund it and he knew she ran out of most anything worth giving the little guy, so he took it upon himself to surprise Iz with a treat, for her and Reginald.

How sweet huh?

He hadn't heard his phone buzz and so didn't know any better to pick up the phone until he was finished and got outside.

It beeped a few times, alerting him he had voicemail. Being the fastidious fellow he was, checked it immediately. He had this thing about letting his voicemail pile up and anything over ten caused him to twitch and end up deleting them all without listening and sometimes leading to missing important messages

...

Yeah he was a bit strange, but then - he WAS a part of the Ryke family wasn't he?

Reason enough.

A moment was all it took to adjust the bags in his hands (he ended buying a whole two day's worth of groceries instead of just snacks o3o ) in order to pull out his phone and listen.

...

It was from his sister. Something wrong with Izzy's phone?

Well, it was a good thing he was on his way to see her now!

NOAH TO THE RESCUE! 8D

Alice still paniced by the whole incident, clung to Jor tightly, shaking like a new born deer. She would open one eye slowly to see the door, and then saw what she was doing, her face would turn beet red as she jumped back away from him and began to straighten out her clothing, pretending to brush out any wrinkles that might have been in what little clothing was left of her uniform.

She then saw the size of the building and slowly began to back up while looking up trying to get a better view of the top of the building. She continued to back up and would bump into Jor, but she wouldn't notice or care, but looking rather frustraited by the fact she couldn't see the top from where she stood. She looked around suspiciously looking for a hint of the beach they were at, it must have all been an illusion, it HAD to be. How else would they have been able to get there so fast. She was still very skeptical about there actually being magic in this strange place. However she would still not realize that she was still pressed up against Jor.

"So this is the Dryad?"

She saw the color change in his face and quickly pulled away pretending she wasn't affected by what just happened. Although the fact that her face was now a bright red said other wise. She then looked over to the signs that read "Beware of cat" and "watch out for plants" and looked dumb founded and quickly changed the subject.

"Why are there warning signs saying 'beware of cat' and 'watch out for plants'? Is that some sort of a joke?"

She looked over at Jor looking highly confused. Her aquamarine dark eyes looked over to him looking for some sort of answer.

Alice jumped away quickly as she waw the huge man lunge at Jor. She looked over at the strangely large man and looked a bit scared. She felt so small compared to alot of the people she has met in this world. She kinda just stood back and watched them.

She was abit surprised to hear the girls voice come from behind her. By the way Helen talked she had thought for sure that she was way older, but when she turned around she was very surprised to see her. The girl was very blunt, she admired that. The girl had guts, Alice would give her that. She turned over to the girl and spoke softly.

"That question is simple to answer... non we have just met... and as far as their size goes, yes I am very intimidated by it, but being the size I am compaired to them you can imagine why..."

Alice would nod to Helen and smile softly.

"It's pleasure to meet you helen... My name is Alice Pendragon Von Hellsing. Genjanger? That is in fact german for gene hunter correct? That is quite a strong name for someone so young... do you plan on trying to live up to it?"

She was obviously teasing the girl in a friendly manner. By the comments that Jor and Ankou made about her, they had made her seem like some sort of demon. But she looked quite friendly. Alice would hold her hand out to shake Helen's.

Alice would look annoyed as she looked at the girl curiously "What is a Gundam and what is an Otaku? I am not familiar with either of these terms... And regaurdless of what you think miss it is my name..."
Alice had avoided giving out a snotty tone, but it infuriated her to listen to some random girl poke fun at her family name. She crooked her head to the side and pretended she didn't give a damn as to what Helen thought. Alice would pretend to yawn boredly.

"Although I have to say... Genjager is a pretty borringly common name..."