Welcome to Gaia! ::

Madison slowed her steps as she reached the Amityville Academy campus proper - she'd never been this close to things before. Sure, there was that festival thing, but that had been in the fields and stuff, not right here in the middle of their high school thing.

Stupidest. High school. Ever.

But she had to find an easy mark and bring them back to Caelius within half an hour. Kouki. Gimme some tips here. What kinda thing is easy to trick?

Not demons, the weapon said, instantly. They're too... stuffy. A male, perhaps? Your golem is quite fetching, presently.

If you start talking about my 'hair' again, I swear I'm going to throw you into the ocean when we get back home... okay. Not demons. Fine. A guy sounded good. She knew how to get guys, at least in theory, and... well. She currently looked like a pretty gorgon girl, with delicate green scales and a mass of hooded black snakes on her scalp. That was attractive... maybe? Who even knew, with freaks.

Okay. Time was ticking. Madison looked up at the clock tower looming overhead as she laid out a few possible plans. But all of them required one thing... a person to use them on...

Madison turned, trying not to look like she was checking people out. Or at least not in a suspicious, Huntery way.

Madison heard the freak coming, but she acted like she was surprised anyway, turning around with a frustrated expression on her face. "Oh! Hello to you too... I was just looking for my minipet," she said, with a sigh. "I'm Calliope. What's your name, cutie boil?"

Ugh ugh ugh was she seriously hitting on a freak. Gross. But, inside her mind, she and Kouki were speaking to each other nearly quicker than thought. They had a name. They had a cover. They had a plan.

And it seemed they had a target.

"He's a fancy foxfire," Madison sighed, staring at her golem's feet. "I was walking him and he got away from me... he just pulled the leash right out of my hand! He ran that way-" She pointed the direction she'd come from before Mort arrived, back where Caelius was waiting. "But I-I... I was scared to go there by myself..." She did her best to look utterly miserable, ashamed by her own fear. "Um, if it's not too much trouble, could you... maybe come with me, Mort? I promise I'll make it up to you somehow... I just need to find him!!

Oh, this was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. "Thank you! You're a real gentleman." She smiled at the freak before gingerly taking the offered arm. "Seriously, I appreciate it so much... I think he ran this way? Um, I hope? It might take us a while to find him, he's so naughty," she sighed, sounding exasperated.

She started walking towards where Caelius waited, staying close to Mort, as if she truly were afraid of going further without the freak's presence. "Have you been at Amityville long?"

"Oh, sure~ Fluffy would love to meet yours! They could flutter around together and stuff." Madison giggled. "And oh, you too? I've been here that long too, just about... I got here right after everyone came back from that big trip."

Kouki hissed something to her.

"And I live in the monster dorms, silly boil!" She shrank back as a bat or something flapped out of a nearby tree. "Eee... Fluffyyyy? Are you out there? Fluffy!"

Hopefully Caelius would kinda figure out what she was doing. Just a little bit further...

It was too bad Fluffy never had a chance to answer.

"Eighteen minutes and thirty-two seconds." Remarked a voice from behind them. The faint glow a cell phone betrayed their location as they snapped it shut. Next to them, though it was rather hard to see in the darkness, was a small black door seemingly rooted in thin air, the rectangular frame a faint line of blue.

Caelius looked back up at the two stragglers. "That would have left you under fifteen minutes to snag your specimen in a golem and return from your mission, had I not been here escorting you the entire process." Before Mortimer could say anything else, the Death Hunter re-summoned his scythe weapon - and that would be the last thing the student saw that very second. "You did not even bother to ask me for capture guns to safely contain the specimen, or bother to inquire about any other equipment necessary. A Hunter's weapon makes them powerful, but it is not a ******** all-purpose solver."

He grabbed Mortimer by the back of their shirt - like a rag doll - and tossed them into the makeshift 'door'. "Log out of your golem, Madison. I will see you in Examination Room A for the second portion of your mission assessment."

At least there still was a second part of the mission, though as usual, it was hard to tell if Caelius just wanted to see the trainee dig their own hole deeper and deeper.

Madison was proud for about... ten seconds.

After those ten seconds, she was cursing under her breath. Capture guns! Ugh! How could she have forgotten something so crucial?! Her lips pressed together in a thin line as Caelius threw her little prize through the 'door'. "Sir," she said, then waded her golem deeper into a thicket, feeling thorns dig and scratch into her golem's 'flesh'. It hurt, but she gritted her teeth and forced her way into the center. She was not going to forget to dispose of the thing properly.

Once she was in the center of a two-foot wall of thorns, she whispered the magic words. "Deus ex machina."


((Annnd exit~))