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"s**t."

Calcifer's cackling laughter must have been a sign that something had gone wrong with Howl's latest experiment. Along with said wizard's loud cursing, it was a sure thing; one probably did not want to enter Howl's bedroom if they wanted to avoid explosions. A long string of what were obviously welsh cursewords followed. His bedroom door, so accurately decorated with stickers that read 'Danger!' and 'Powerful Sorcerer's Lair, enter with caution' and various other things, flew open.

At first glance, it seemed nothing had changed. The room was the same as it had ever been (well, more or less; there were a few more books tossed to the floor, scraps of paper adorned the bed clothes, which were wrinkled and crumpled in and of themselves... The room was a perfect diaster. Just the way Howl liked it.

With a closer look, however, one could see that something wasn't quite right. Where was the wizard? In his place was a tall and leggy girl, staring in horror at her reflection. Her clothes were baggy; her jeans were loose and might have fallen passed her hips if she wasn't determinedly holding them up. Her long sleeved black t-shirt fell past her waist. Blonde hair fell around her head, and onto her cheeks. Despite the red face and expression of pure rage, the girl couldn't be called unattractive. She was thin, almost to the point of appearing unhealthy.

"s**t," she said, staring into her reflection.

Calcifer flitted over, a look of absolute glee on the demon's face. "Oh, you've really done it now, Howl. Just wait until Sop--" The wiz--the witch summoned a large ball of what seemed to be water. He--she aimed it in the demon's direction.

"Continue that thought," he--er, she dared the firedemon. "I swear I'll put you out." She groaned, and slumped onto her bed. Kali was supposed to be coming over with Lance that afternoon. He certainly couldn't let them know. They'd laugh at him--and never let him live it down. Just when it seemed like green slime was unavoidable, she stood up. "I've got it!"

Calcifer rose a non-existant eyebrow. "Oh?"

"I'll pose. As my girlfriend." With a wave of the hand, he was dressed in a t-shirt, skirt, and black leggings underneath; clearly just as flamboyant as a female as he was male. "Should be believable enough. I do seem to go through quite a few of them."

The firedemon saw one flaw. Kali was going to kill Howl.

Not so bad - now THERE was something that Lance had a hard time believing. Honestly, Lance had never met a person who annoyed him more than Howl did - and he lived with CHARLIE. And Cain! That was pretty bad! Still, Lance managed to hold his tongue, and merely nodded as Kali went on and on about how it wasn't Howl's fault, that it was because he had no heart, and so on and so forth. The Gothic boy honestly didn't care about what reason Howl had to be a little douche - but it was probably better to not argue with Kali for the sake of simplicity.

"He doesn't seem to know when to keep his mouth shut though." Lance muttered, unable to throw at least THAT bit into the discussion. Or how to keep his nose out of other people's business, but he left that bit to himself - it probably be better to not start pointing everything about Howl that he didn't like out. They'd be talking about it all day if he did. "Good to hear that you like me better though." The young man grinned at that bit, pulling the redheaded girl a little bit closer to him as they approached the door.

"...I'll try, okay?" Lance finally said with a sigh and a shrug. "I won't be held responsible if he started acting like a little d**k again though." He kissed her head nonetheless and braced himself for the confrontation that he FIGURED was inevitable - there was no way that him and Howl would be in the same room without the two of them killing each other.

When the door flew open, Kali expected her flamboyant wizard friend to be at the door, gushing and being, well, Howl. Instead, however, she was greeted by a girl.

Now, there were a number of things about this girl that bothered Kali. The first, and most immediate, was her height. Tall, and leggy, she had the part of the typical 'hot girl' physique that Kali lacked. Which, on it's own, would have been enough to make Kali hate her.
However, this girl seemed to really want to die, because she had a list of other things that irked Kali. She was irritating. She was far too friendly.

She was a dirty, dirty, slut. Howl was engaged. Or, as good as, and regardless of his lack of a heart, she had been sure that he was at least loyal to the IDEA of being with Sophie! And, this girl claimed to be dating him?! Not that it was entirely her fault (And, assuredly, she would MURDER Howl for it whenever he crawled back out of whichever hole he'd slithered into) but she should NOT have been dating Howl, who was all but a married man.
The fact that she called Lance handsome, while she was standing RIGHT BESIDE HIM, did nothing to quell the enormous screech of 'SLUT' that was growing in her throat.

To her credit, though, she did not screech the insult like a howler monkey and tackle this b***h down in the front door. However, her lips became a thin, white, furious line, and her already dark eyes went darker. Thin brows knotted in the middle of her forehead, and tiny green sparks danced around her fingers.
She was pissed.

"Funny. He never mentioned you." Her voice was like ice, and so were her eyes. A haughty lilt twisted her voice, and she looked down her nose at her. Or, rather, him. She still hadn't noticed the resemblance to Howl. She was far too furious for that.
"Probably because you're no comparison to Sophie. His wife." She decided with a small, cruel laugh. "Do you follow all of your exes home? Or just the ones you're destined to be with? Take a hint, blondie. And take a hike. And, who are you to offer us tea in someone else's home?!" Her anger was slipping into her voice, making it less like ice, and more like acid. Or just plain fury.

Yeah. She was pissed.
She was probably going to hit her soon.

Howl gave a nervous laugh and gulped audibly. Well, so much for that plan. Posing as his ex-girlfriend definitely hadn't helped his case. At all. The way things were going, he might have had a better chance admitting that he'd attempted to bring Morgan back from Ingary, something had blocked him, and somehow, a transgender hex had bounced back. "Oh, did I say we were dating? I mean we're just...friends. Good friends. You could practically say we're related!" Definitely closer to the truth, but the former wizard was positive Kali wouldn't buy it. He--er, she knew she was in danger from the expression the red headed mage wore.

He'd only seen Kali angry twice (it seemed to be happening a lot lately, he wondered what was up with that. Was she still PMSing?) and it looked like he'd be seeing it again. "Probably," he agreed quickly. "I've heard Sophie's the most beautiful girl in these parts." There was something almost wistful in those otherwise empty eyes. "It's no wonder Howl loves her as much as he does."

He--she turned on her heel and fled. To the livingroom that was, though she seemed to be glancing towards the hall that lead to Howl's bedroom quite often. "Come on in," she said again. "Unless you two would rather leave?" She asked, hopefully. "I'm sure Howl'll be back soon..." Oh, he hoped he'd be back. Before Kali decided to kill him.

Well, this chick clearly wasn't doing ANYTHING to get on Kali's good side. Lance kind of pitied the girl, if only because she'd probably get turned into a toad if she kept this up. Though, it sounded as though she'd deserve it at this rate - so, the pity was very, very slight. Actually, he was fairly certain that he'd feel more pity for Charlie after a failed attempt at getting laid, and that was pretty bad!

"I would do as she says, if you know what's good for you." Lance warned with a shrug, slipping an arm around Kali's shoulder in an effort to calm her down a little. Doing that would probably be easier said than done though, what with how moody she'd been lately. The black-haired boy had been forced to become quite careful about what he said around his redheaded girlfriend for fear of her wrath - it was something that he had no wish to insight. "Really. You won't be lasting very long if you stick around here." Lance didn't really catch onto any of the similarities between Howl and this girl - he didn't particularly KNOW Howl very well to begin with. He generally tried to avoid the young wizard, in fact.

As she was dragged outside, a cruel hex formed in Kali's hand, one to cause some SERIOUS bodily harm. She curled her fingers into a fist, and they flared to life with a bright, green flash - but before she could slam her knuckles through this b***h's bright white teeth, she was called an idiot.
Now, usually, this wouldn't have improved her mood in the slightest. Usually, she would have hit her harder; but usually, the 'idiot' comment wasn't followed by a very howl-esque whiny explanation. Her fist froze, and she let the spell fall away, staring at Howl...howl?

Was it really Howl??

She opened her mouth to protest it, and accuse her of telling a well thought out lie - but the slime dropped to the stones below them, and she knew it was no lie.
It was Howl. And that was his disgusting slime, dripping down the siding of the house.

"Don't you dare!" She said quickly, pointing at the droplet. "Don't you dare slime! This is YOUR fault, for pretending like you weren't actually you! You said you wouldn't. You PROMISED." She seemed nearly hysteric over the whole 'slime' thing, and yet she somehow heard what he said about Morgan.

"You tried to bring Morgan here? Alone? Howl, don't you realize how dangerous that is! And why would you do that today?! Why not wait until tomorrow, when I could help you, or something??" She chastised him, then, as opposed to murdering him, or fainting because of slime, she pulled him into a hug.

"Why did you lie? You should have just told me! I didn't mean to try and kill you. I thought you were a crazy fan girlfriend, or something..."

Howl smirked at her reaction to the slime. "I promised," he agreed. "But you can't tell me that it didn't prevent you from murderering me just now. You should be grateful." He seemed to focus on what had been his original thought. "And I couldn't ruin my chances of becoming friends with Lance," he added. "I suppose I already have..." He sighed, and studied the red-headed mage. "I'm sorry, Kali. I was really hoping Lance and I could learn to get along." It didn't look like it would be happening, really.

"I know," he said. "I shouldn't have tried... But I miss him." It had been an honest attempt to retrieve his son. He hadn't wanted help. Morgan his son; it was his responsiblity. "I suppose I could have waited..." He was slightly surprised to find himself being hugged, but returned it when he recovered.

"I didn't want you seeing me like this," he explained with a sigh. "You would have laughed at me," was his only real defense. He fell silent when he noticed Lance. "Hey Lance." He looked to Kali hesitantly. It was clear he didn't want to reveal the truth--at least not to Lance. "Maybe it's best you didn't ask."

Lance glanced to the girl briefly as she spoke, but kept most of his attention on Kali - as far as he was concerned, the blond chick was probably crazy, and he assumed that his girlfriend must've had a pretty damn good reason if she was hugging the psychopath.
Unless she'd lost it too. It was possible, what with how she'd been acting over the past couple of weeks.

Now, if Howl and Kali were any other two people, Lance would PROBABLY just think that they were crazy. Normal people couldn't accidentally change their genders, after all - however, he'd come to discover that magic could do some pretty weird things. The incident when Kali had been turned into a little kid was a prime example of that, after all. So, when Kali said that the blond girl was Howl, Lance found himself immediately making the connections between the blond girl in front of him and Howl.
Lance was VERY tempted to make some comments - at that moment, it would be incredibly easy to do. The look that Kali was giving him told him that would be a very, very bad idea, however. So instead, he cleared his throat and held down the laughter that was desperately trying to loose itself from him.
"A girl. Nice." Oh God, not cracking any jokes was going to be HARD. "I'm guessing that we'll have to help you to change back then." The black-haired boy leaned against the doorway, appearing to be annoyed. "If you CAN - or are you stuck like that?" If so, well, then he'd have plenty of opportunities to poke fun at Howl, and he had no complaints about that. He'd keep that bit to himself though.