Trish snickered as the message popped up on her phone.

"Huh," she said, hearing the distant wails of sirens growing steadily louder, "If we're both fine, we'd better clear out of here before people show up and start asking questions."

"Oh, by the way," she continued quietly, "I found out a little about the Mother. Apparently she has some school-age official protectors, and they've got some sort of safe haven set out somewhere. I dunno where, exactly-- They all took off as soon as the demons showed up. But they're a pretty weird group, lemmie tell ya." She sighed and shouldered her backpack.

"I'm thinking they suspect something about our part in this, too," Trish said. "One of them gave me a weird glance when I walked in the room, and that guy who dragged you outside didn't seem too happy about you being here either. So we'd better keep an eye open. You don't know what those crazy Society wackkos will do to keep the Mother safe-- even if we're not doing anything threatening."

She stepped outside the classroom, avoiding unconscious bodies and piles of shrapnel as she went.

"Well, even so, I guess we should try and track down this safe haven if we wanna keep our job," she mused. "We could stop at home and get some gear first, but really, my main goal is just to get out of here before anyone else official shows up."

She turned and waved at the teacher, who apparently was still standing at the front of the room.

"Thanks for an exciting first day of class, Mr. Silva!" she said brightly. "Good luck explaining all this to the school board!"

The car Narzeal drove was surprisingly a very nice one. And by nice, I mean he probably dropped $30,000 dollars for it. What Narzeal drove was a 2001 corvette, with a metallic black paint job with made it look gorgeous. Narzeal didn't even give it a second thought, he just opened up the doors and got in.

The ride was nice, real nice. It seems that Narzeal has a good amount of practice driving too, since it was probably one of the most comfortable rides Jacob has experienced. Though another neat little feature was the fact that the windows were tinted, and it looked like there were lights at the corners of both the windshield and the back window. "If you were curious about those, if I need to get someplace fast, those things help a lot it getting people out of my way." Narzeal commented if the lights did catch Jacob's gaze.

When they got to the manor, Narzeal just pulled into the garage like he seemed to have done a thousand times. "Good to be back home." Narzeal randomly said. They probably talked a bit in the car on the way home, but what about, Narzeal couldn't quite place. Probably because he was craving a good glass of wine right now. So after waving Jacob goodbye, and locking his car of course, Narzeal headed to the basement.

The ride was enjoyable. Jacob reclined a bit in the seat and was able to stretch some, and Narzeal seemed to know how to drive well for a guy who used weaponry from days gone by. The two chatted on minor things, not really mentioning the demons or the Mother of Hell.

They pulled into the garage of the giant mansion, with a "Good to be back home." The two waved each other off before Narzeal left to the basement. Jacob went through the door in the garage leading into the house, making a small creaking sound as he opened it. This was Jacobs first time at the mansion; he had only recently become a Protector, his excuse for not knowing all of their names. He's bad with names.

He did, however, know where most-everything was in the mansion, so he didn't need anyone to show him around. After walking a short distance, he bumped into Nathaniel, brooding over his closed cell phone.

"Sir." Jacob said with a small salute before heading upstairs. This mansion had plenty of showers and rooms, so Jacob randomly picked one of each in the eastern side. He first went to the bathroom and took off his dirty clothes, stepped into the shower, and began to relax.

Zack pointed Jimmy to the last room on the right. "With your room there, you'll be across the hall from me and two rooms down from Laurella. I'll leave you to get settled. You can ask the maids to supply you with any kind of amenity or furniture you could possibly want."

Zack walked back down the hall a ways, to Laurella's door. He could hear Laurella's music blaring from the other side. He knocked softly. "Laurella?"

No answer. He knocked a little louder. "Laurella? Are you decent? Can I come in?"

Laurella picked up the remote and turned off the stereo system. "No, I'm not decent, but come in anyways."

She must have taken a shower. Why else would she just be wearing only a towel? Laurella sat on the end of her bed with her legs crossed, combing her hair. "What'cha need, Zachary? They didn't kill Jimmy, did they?"

Narzeal came into the kitchen, holding a very nice looking bottle. "Hey." He said, as a general greeting to all that were in the room. He walked over towards one of the cabinets, and started rummaging for a glass. "So, how hard was it to take care of the school?" Narzeal said, trying to make a little small talk. Figures the butler would have to hide his favorite glass. "From my understanding you had almost the entire school possessed." Narzeal went on as he scrumaged for the glass.

Finally he found it, and turned around. He turned around, and popped the cork out of the bottle, and poured himself a glass. Clearly Narzeal was waiting to see if anyone would continue on with the small talk he had attempted.

"I can't say it wasn't the worst day we've had," Troy added, giving his substitute teacher one last farewell wave. Then, he followed his sister down the hall.

"You know," he said as he caught up with Trish, holding up Laurella's bag towards her. Somehow, in the short amount of time he was in the classroom, he had managed to grab it. "Why don't we just use one of your cranes to find her? I mean, if we have one of her belongings, they could track its owner, right?

"Of course, even if we find her that way, that still leaves us with the mess of dealing with them. I don't think they'd appreciate our 'usual' negotiation tactics, what with blowing up everything and all. It's a bit counter productive for us as well.

"But it's not like leaving them alone will help us at that point."

Troy thought about it for a moment. "We could always tell them the truth. That we were in the right place at the right time. It's not our fault they decided to come to this city, this school, and specifically that class.

"...yeah. It sounded just as stupid in my head."

Jimmy opened the door to his new room and walked in, sizing the place up.

"Eh, not bad," he said, non-chalantly, as he walked over to the bed, "maybe I'll sign on to this whole protector thing... fringe benefits seem nice."

The muscles in his neck and back popped as he stretched out a bit, before turning around and heading back into the hallway, closing the door behind him, and heading back toward the kitchen at a rather leisurely pace. It's not like he had anything better to do than gorge himself on free food right now, anyway.

Besides, it seemed like there were quite a few people there earlier, and he may as well listen to them talk. He didn't really want to make friends or anything, but he figured he may as well try and see what the hell he had gotten himself into.

'Heh, hell... that's probably exactly what I've gotten myself into,' Jimmy thought as a smirk came across his face, 'Not like I've never been there before.'

Gael sat in his room, curled up against the headboard of his bed and rubbing the back of his head. While it looked more like he was trying to give himself a massage than anything else, the faint bluish light under his fingertips probably said otherwise.

While he'd sat around in the kitchen and listened as they'd explained things to Jimmy, he hadn't felt particularly compelled to add in. After all, it's not like he represented anyone important. As soon as everything there was taken care of, however, he found a nice corner room on the first floor, locked himself in, and began healing the back of his head. "Damn demons." He muttered to no one in particular. "I suppose I should talk to the Saint's Blood down there later too, we are somewhat related after all."

((OOC: My apologizes to those who had stuff going on ::coughcoughmusicmagecoughcough::, but I’ve had requests to get the show on the road. You are free to utilize a well-placed flashback if required, however. Just note the well placed qualifier.

If you're official, you're at the meeting.

Krylo, it's up to if Jimmy is still hanging about the Manor or not.

If you're not official...just keep doing your thing.))

Nathaniel muttered under his breath, both relieved and worried that Caleb called after all this time. And on top of that, he only called me because he’s being paid too, he thought to himself.

He was so lost in thought that he barely noticed one of the other guys refer to him as “Sir.” It wasn’t until he heard the door slam that he snapped out of it. “Call me ‘Sir’ again and I’ll rip out your skull and beat you to death with it!” he called after the guy.

Blast it, he thought to himself, I thought I’d at least the rest of the night off…it’s going to be a long day…


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A few hours later

Jared Greyhall slowly woke up through the haze of drugs. The hospital room he woke up in was nothing too fancy, just whitewashed walls and a fourth story window.

The drugs and painkillers still clung to his mind. The doctors had to operate on his leg to repair the break caused by the demon’s attack. Guess that’s what happens when your leg gets broken in five places by a demon, he thought to himself.

He looked outside. Dusk was settling on the city. Man…it must be about 7 o’clock or so, he thought to himself. The attack at the school went down this morning…I’ve been out most of the day. Well…looks like I got the room to myself, at least...probably not small feat considering how many students are probably here. I guess it helps to have friends in high places.

He sighed, and leaned back against the pillows. Hopefully, everyone else is okay…I don’t even know how the hit on the cultists went…hopefully it went better than what happened at the school.

With nothing better to do, and with the grogginess starting to slip from his mind, he reached for the remote for the TV in the room. On the news, the bolded letters headlined the story of…

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”Horror at Highschool!

“In the city of Taylorsville today, a suspected gang reprisal attack rocked the halls of Taylorsville High, as a hallucinogenic was introduced into the school’s air conditioning. In the resulting chaos, dozens of students were injured as, according to reports, students began to attack each other. Also half of the students at the school are believed to have been affected by the as of yet unknown hallucinogenic, and local health officials will keep the building quarantined until they have the compound identified and the school fully scrubbed down.

“According to reports, the attack may be a reprisal for a raid on a gang hideout this morning. Reports from the corner’s office indicate that more than 30 suspected members of the Hellions gang were killed when police raided one of their hideouts on the outskirts of the city, and hospitals report that at least five officers were wounded in the assault, some seriously, and it is unknown if any police officers died in the raid, and the names of the killed are being withheld from the media pending the notification of next of kin.

“The Hellions have been the most feared gang in the city for almost 10 years, and despite the best efforts of police, the gang seems to be gaining strength. The gang is know for their brazen attacks, often accompanied by the use of hallucinogenics, which make it so that witnesses to crimes committed by the gang are confused with reports of monsters or demons. Given this information, police say, the leading suspects in the attack on the school are Hellions.

“At this hour, more than 200 students of Taylorsville High have been hospitalized, and hundreds more were treated and released at the scene. No deaths have yet to be reported among the student populace, despite reports of two bodybags being removed from the school. Sources within the police department have told us that those may have been the ones responsible for the attack, but this remains unclear. This is Abagale Norn for channel 5 news…”

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The TV in the “family room” of the McCragge Manor flipped off, and Tessa Scott walked to the front of the room. “As you can see, the media seems more than happy to believe our story of the ‘Hellion’ gang.”

The Protectors in the room had varying reactions to that. Some S.E.C.A. spin-doctor had concocted the “Hellions” years ago when the local media was starting to wise up to the increase of Hell cults in the Taylorsville area. Even after 10 years, the media was hungry for any story involving the now nearly legendary gang.

“That aside,” Tessa went on, “Several things of note came to light because of the events today. First off, despite the fact it was a decoy, the S.E.C.A. killed a lot of cultists today, and, between the raid and the attack on the school, we’ve accounted for the two blood-summoned demons were knew were at large. In any other situation, this would be enough to call it a good days work.

“However, as we all know, today was hardly typical. Until now, the Enemy was never brazen enough to attempt to get the Chosen in full view of the general populace. To go from keeping a low profile to possessing half of the local student body is a leap that, frankly, we’re at a lose to find a reasoning for. Also, the fact that they were willing to sacrifice that many cultists seems to signify they have more forces in the area than what we currently believe. S.E.C.A. is in the process of identifying the bodies of the killed cultists, and are comparing them to lists of known cultists, and I understand that The Society has members going over the bodies of the demons to confirm the initial findings on how they were summoned, and to see if you can make sure that they were summoned by the one of the guys we took out today…hopefully if they’re skilled enough to summon demons of that caliber, their on our lists.

Tessa sighed, and looked around the room. “Also, several of you reported that there were those at the school that seemed to be immune to demonic possession, or trained to resist it. Harm even had an encounter with a man who claimed to be a Protector, but seeming as he’s not here, and as far as I know, none of the other organizations claim have anyone matching his description in the area. It is also clear that these people fought the demons, as well. Despite this, I would recommend caution if you come into contact with these people. However, just because they fought demons doesn’t mean their on our side. We all know that there are organizations who believe that the world would be better off with Laurella dead, so we can’t discount the possibility that those people were agents of those organizations.

“Finally, good news for some, bad for others…school has been cancelled for the rest of the week. S.E.C.A. and the Shepards are going to going through the school with a fine-tooth comb to make sure all the least demons got banished, and the Society is going to take the opportunity to place warding sigils in and around the school…which, in hindsight, we should of done years ago…to make sure we don’t get a repeat performance of what happened today.

Tessa sighed again, clearly relieved to be done with that. “Questions, comments, concerns?”

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Jacks Joyrides and Games was basically in the middle of nowhere, about a half-hours drive from Taylorsville. The once promising themepark had gone under almost two decades ago, and the grounds weren’t in the best location, so the land hadn’t been sold, and the old park remained relatively intact, though the elements had taken their toll on the park.

Is there any place more creepy than an abandoned themepark? Nathaniel thought to himself as walked to the old meeting place. He had seen what he assumed to be Caleb’s car, so he knew he wasn’t the first one here. However, Nat wasn’t really in a trusting mood, so he had is Garand strapped to his back and his machete at his side.

He reached the meeting place, and cast a look around. “Well, are you here or not, Caleb?”