Earth

Alex found his other hand being grabbed as he felt a swift movement like he was being on a speeding roller coaster or sitting on an airplane as air rushed through his ears before he found himself at a little pub and being ordered to stay. He ordered himself a whiskey on the rocks as the bar tender passed him that strong drink and he took a sip, letting the harsh liquid go down and burn his throat.

Katherina then re-appeared, mysterious recapturing the girl. How she did, no one would ever know.

"Thanks for your help," Alex said to Katherina "Order what you want. It's on me."

Turning to Shijima, he looked at her.

"Who were those guys?"

Katherina smirked. She picked up a third gin and watched Alex. This ought to be interesting, she thought. She sipped her gin and stared at the girl.

Andrew was at the beach. The sun was behind him as he looked out over the ocean. The people around him were enjoying themselves. Off to his right, a four-armed man was building a sand castle with a two-armed boy. These mutations have seriously screwed up some families., Andrew thought as he looked around. To his left, a girl was levitating a book in front of her, flipping the pages mentally. Andrew turned and walked back to the vendors, about thirty yards away. Once there, he went back to the alcohol vendor, and saw the girl who had tried to pick his pocket, Rina, with a man and woman, though Andrew doubted the two were a couple. He put a dollar on the bar, and the bartender took the bill, scrutinized it for a moment in the light, then placed it in the register and got Andrew his beer.

"Why'd ya check my bill, Tom? Don't ya trust me?" Andrew said, using the man's name.
"No, I trust you. But recently I've been getting more than a trivial amount of funny money. Gotta be careful."
"I hear ya. Later."
Andrew opened up the beer and sat down

Ace clumsily moved through the rubble of the old building, he spotted Peris, kneeling under a table holding her head. "Are you okay Peris?" the words quickly slipped out, a jumbled mess of themselves. He examined her, she looked as if she'd hit her head on the table. Quickly, he reached in his pack pulling out the treasure he'd discovered. "Hey um' Peris, I found this," he paused turning over the small pouch of markers in his hand. "I figured you'd want it." I popped open the button on the pouch revealing a set of retractable sharpies; there was a blue one, a yellow one, a black one, a red one, and a purple one. They all looked fairly new, like they'd never been used. I held the small pouch to her, wondering if she'd take it.

Mumbling something unintelligible, mostly for frustration's sake, and moved towards Ace? Right, it was Ace. Didn't she already say that? Her head was still ringing and she stopped rubbing it in fear of adding more unnecessary scratches to her growing list. A louder and even more mangled voice spoke up, which caused her to focus a bit because really they weren't standing that far away from each other and somehow she still couldn't understand what he was saying. Peris heard something resembling her name come out of the boy's mouth (When did he learn her name, anyway?) as he produced a packet of beautiful sharpies from his pack.

Mother of God, he's got colors.

Still, there had to be some reason for this guy to be bringing sharpies to her. Perhaps he saw her scouting for treasure and decided he wanted a piece of the action. Maybe he wanted a trade or something. How did he know she liked sharpies anyway? Turning over her wrist, she didn't really need to respond to that thought, eyes rolling over all of her sharpie-fied bandages and even her gloves which had been gone over twice as much with that silver sharpie she had found a while ago... Stop. Point lost, turn back to the object at hand. Thank you.

"Okay, pause, re-wind. Let's try this again," she said mostly to herself, but also willing Ace to repeat what he had said. "What exactly are you doing with those and why are you giving them to me?"

Ace felt slightly pressured by the fellow Justice member, as is she never talked to him, ever. Ace was surprised she even knew his name, the only reason he knew hers was because of his lack of friends. He didn't have anyone, so while he played his music he watched everyone. He learned names quickly and always practiced matching faces to names; just in case something horrible happened at base. He wanted to be able to tell, who was Justice, and who obviously wasn't.

But then again, she may or may not have done the same thing, so Ace didn't question it. As to why he thought of giving her the sharpies, he'd always see her drawing, even on herself, most of her doodling and her pictures were beautiful. He had found the multicolored sharpies in an old box of crayons in a fallen over apartment building on his walk, it was a very pretty box and he just had to open it. Inside he found the colors, in a small pouch along with a few crayons which he had kept for himself. Crayons were made of wax so he figured smashing it all together with a small string down the center would form a candle, yet he hadn't actually put that much thought into it, because he was trying to relax, and thinking about candle making wasn't a stress reliever.

"I found them when I went on a walk, I know how much you like them" he said motioning to her gloves. "I'll let you have them if you let me use this black for a second." He stated withdrawing the color from the package and pulling his guitar from his back, inscribing "Music, is, life.' on the back in small print then continuing to write 'property of Allistar Grace "Ace" ' on the back. Then he placed the marker back into the small package, offering it to her. He wanted a friend, he never had one, well, unless you count sea-turtles.

Peris felt a twitch at the corner of her mouth and licked at the makeshift fangs threatening to come out. Who was this kid? She figured that she would remember someone who looked like him. His appearance stood out too much to miss. So how has she not..?

She wanted the sharpies. She really did. Multiple, multi-colored sharpies being handed to her on a silver platter, her prayers had been answered. But she didn't really know him that well did she? He was in the Justice, but really everyone has their own agenda so that doesn't really give him much credit. He had a guitar, Peris noted, as he slung it off of his shoulders to write something on the side. Must be some kind of musician. She'd heard music playing in the night, when the Justices were gathered in a small clump together. Peris had never really been in that clump, just watching from a distance. Group had never really suited her. This must be the guy who was making those sounds. Okay, that's a few things down about him, but still. It wasn't much to go on.

She didn't even know why she was making such a big deal about this anyway. It wasn't as serious as she was making it out to be. When he offered her the sharpies she should have taken them, thanked him, and then went on her way. Simple.But she had a habit of making things more difficult than they needed to be, much to her chagrin, and now she was sitting here analyzing the ambitions of a kid trying to be nice in a world where kindness is a rarity. Peris started to feel uncomfortable, realizing his hand was offering the colored marvels, and she had yet to make a move. So her instincts started to kick in.

Peris narrowed her eyes, searching his face for some kind answers to her suspicions and found none. She walked closer, a bit too close for comfort and stared directly into his eyes. "You didn't do anything to them?"

Ace was waiting for Peris to take them but she seemed to be preoccupied, just as he was about to pull them back she said, "You didn't do anything to them?" His eyes grew to be the size of marbles, showing his disbelief. 'What could you do to sharpies?'His mind pondered on how to reply, he could turn into a smart-alec and say 'I dipped them in tar and hoped it would make them poisonous. Or, he can be himself with the fellow Justice member and say 'Nothing I just thought you'd like them, always drawing and such.' Ace went with the second choice, even though after not speaking for a few seconds, he was unable to trust his voice. The words came out in a mess, but still intelligible enough so that someone may understand them. He repeated it just to make sure she heard him and added "Honest" holding up his hands. "Or if you don't want them I could take them to someone else, or use them up on my guitar." He said trying to get her to take them.

She scowled inwardly, going against her better judgment and plucking the sharpie pack out of Ace's hands. Peris started to inspect them. "You can never be too careful these days you know," she said inspecting the caps for any sort of danger. "Someone brought in a case of sandwiches for some Justice members and it took about 10 minutes to realize that they weren't supposed to have "rice" in them." She stopped to look him dead in the eye. "Maggots, the whole lot of them were. Burrowed into the meat like dead bodies and wriggling like snakes set aflame." People are too trustworthy. You have to be careful about who you talk to, and especially people you take stuff from. She might be able to somewhat trust him, maybe. He was kind of on her side. He had sort of a relaxed stance. He wasn't on his guard, she was sure of that. But that doesn't mean he couldn't knock her out if he wanted to.

Peris moved in a defensive stance. Feet pointed forward, firmly planted on the ground. Arms spread, and focusing her body in his direction. She eyed the guitar he had and narrowed her eyes at him. "What are you doing with that guitar, kid? Planning on busting someone's eyes out with that thing?" Analyze the movements. Make note of weapons, potential or otherwise.