Welcome to Gaia! ::

It felt good to be out on the field, alone. Not alone, really - the muted presence of the short trainee whose job it was to get files hadn't really made her feel like she was in any sort of reliable company. But it still felt good to feel the weight of investment lifted off of her, which did not bode well for her partner, in truth. It probably would have been better to go on missions with someone she actually cared about.

Being a Moon without attachment meant deferring to her old, selfish self. The Death trainee, with his gloriously humble and nondescript name of John, and his flat, black rimmed glasses that appeared so cookie cutter they almost hurt to look at, was not in good hands. She was sure of this. He did not seem to care, or at least, she couldn't tell if he did - he refused to look at her. This might have caught her attention another day; spurned her to make him look, to make him interested, to make him pine, but she was playing the right kind of tool for once, today. She was the shield. Shields did not need the attention she so desperately desired. It was this truth that had her second guessing Moon for much of her hunter training.

She was long past that conflict, now.

John broke the door open with the little tools he'd been fiddling with; maybe they'd known he belonged in Death Division when they took him off of the streets, because she could tell he was real good at breaking and entering. He didn't even turn to brag when he walked into the unlit room, which meant she had no chance to make fun of him for being cocky.

She slumped with disappointment.

She checked behind her one last time before entering and closing the door behind her. When she turned to survey the receptionist's desk, she could barely see his black silhouette, already working on the door to the doctor's office. He was so efficient. So boring. This would have been much more fun if-

She filed away that thought for later self-loathing, and got to him just as the office door unlocked with that satisfying click. This time, he smiled - not at her, but at least he smiled.

So he did have a personality. She was starting to think she'd been teamed up with a robot.

That was a sound to wake up the dead. Maebe's eyes went wide when she heard the elevator signalling it's arrival, and practically shoved the poor boy into the room he'd just opened up, closing the door behind them and very, very carefully clicking it closed. She swiveled around and splayed against the door, eyeing the way he just stood, frozen, in front of her.

"s**t." She whispered, more as an insult than a worried exclamation. "Go. Go go go go get the ******** - just - will you move already?" Her feverish whispers woke him out of his daze, and he scrambled for the desk, rushing through the files until he found what he was looking for. Maebe pushed hard against the door, and winced, waiting for the inevitable feel of someone trying to get into the room. Their jig would most certainly be up the moment the mysterious person felt the pressure keeping the door closed, but if John could get what they needed, Maebe still felt like there was a chance they could portal out and be unseen.

It wouldn't be clean. It wouldn't be stealthy. But Maebe was neither of those things, and Deus had known that from the moment they'd assigned her. All she cared about was getting the job done.

The moment she felt the push against the door, she held her breath and waited for the fallout. Instead, the voice behind the door was blaming it on a jam, and Maebe's eyes sparkled with hope.

Were they seriously going to get away with this without a hitch?

She waited, long enough to hopefully give them time to leave, before waving her hands in John's direction. He'd frozen the moment someone had tried to shove the door open, too - but her frantic movement spurned him back into action, collecting the files of children and setting them down to take them with him.

"Pssst." Maebe whispered, perhaps a little too harshly. "Aren't they going to miss that s**t if you take it with you?" It was true, the files themselves were being carried away, but John hadn't been given specific directions on how to get the information - only to bring it back to the base. Maebe's reminder had him second guessing his quick theft, and instead, he pulled out his phone and began to take pictures of the top page inside of each file. Within it listed all the information for each child, including a small blurb of notes on each. Hopefully, it would be enough.

Maebe started to regret the decision, when she realized John was meticulous about his work, and about getting the pictures just right..

"Faster." She whined, before pressing her ear to the door in hopes of hearing any returning people.

She tapping was too even, too long and rhythmic, to be a mistake. The longer she listened to it, the deeper her heart sank.

"Don't stop." She barely whispered to John, as she slowly summoned her scythe and held it behind her back. A haggard voice in her head told her to wait, wait until confrontation came to her, but she had long since stopped listening to voices in her head.

Mostly.

She bent down, and looked through the keyhole first, to check what she could see on the other side.

She launched away from the door in horror, scampering backwards until she hit the wall and couldn't move any more. John had moved to the computer to download appropriate files onto a small drive, and his head tilted to stare at her crablike movement with one risen brow.

She held her trident up in front of her, wings placed carefully in the line of fire, and then pushed herself back up to her feet.

"Time to go, John." She informed him, with an agitated tap of her fingernails against the desk he was working on.

"Thirty more seconds." He whispered, making her agitated tapping even quicker. "No. Now."

For a split second, Maebe wondered if her paranoia had finally gotten the best of her. Maybe that really was a little kid on the other side of the door. Maybe she needed to chill the ******** out and stop thinking everything was a clone, or a monster, or some kind of soul sucking zombie demon vampire out to kill her.

It could happen.

She kept her weapon summoned, but placed her finger to her lips when John looked at her, and then gestured for him to keep working. Then she returned to the door, and opened it just a crack.

"Shh." She whispered conspiratorilly. "I'm playing hide and seek. You're going to blow the game for me."

It was worth a shot.

"Good." She whispered, shooing him away with one hand. "Then you know how important it is that you stop standing there and blowing my cover, right? Go hide back there, somewhere, and wait until someone finds you. Just.. go."

This wasn't working, this wasn't working, and she was running out of ways to stall for time, and she was terrible with kids and they were so going to get busted.