Erin wakes up. 

She takes a moment just to breathe. That dream was... Something. It was definitely that. 

But hey, it only makes sense that she would dream about Star Trek and Doctor Who after a three day long sci fi marathon. So what if it was surreal and terrifying? It was a dream. Dreams are like that.

That settled, she begins to sit up. Slowly, because all three of her friends are still snoring peacefully in various, and in some cases precarious, places around her. Robin is half sprawled over her blanketed legs, and half off the bed. Which is going to be a problem. Caine and Jamie are curled together on her left side, so she'll have to get out on the right. 

Her position check completed, she slips her legs out of the covers, scrunching them up to give Robin something to cuddle, and gets to her feet. Shifting a bit in discomfort, she heads to the bathroom. 

Her house appears mostly the same from what she remembers last night. Maybe some things are out of place, which is to be expected.

When she gets to the mirror something catches her attention from the corner of her eye. A weird color in the mirror.

And once she looks directly at it she will notice many things, like how her hair is sitting precariously on her head exactly like a wig half-pulled out of place. But that isn't the only thing.

What.

What. Is this...? A prank? But how? 

Erin reaches up and strokes her cheek. It's bumpy. She taps it. Her nail makes a little 'chik' noise as it clicks against the smooth scales that now cover her face. 

She reaches up and tugs the wig - her hair? - the rest of the way off, revealing five short ridges running along her crown to the back of her head. She pauses a long moment to take it in.

Then she smacks her hands down onto the counter.

"What. The FUCK?!?" 

Her voice echoes through the house. The wig hangs from her hand, revealing it's insides, a mesh of plastic material with blinking LED dots. There is no obvious answer to her question.

At the sound of her shout, Robin snaps awake, the suddenness of his movements sending him careening off the matress in a flailing tangle of limbs and blankets. One of those limbs smacks into Jamie on the way down. The other teen, who, at the sound of Erin's uncharacteristic yelling, had been half-way out of bed, instead curls around his wounded knee with a swear. 

Untangling himself, Robin staggers to his feet and rushes towards the bathroom. Caine, following close behind him, notes that he's moving so fast he seems to be blurring. 

Reaching the door, Robin twists the knob, barely registering the snick of the lock turning, and opens it.

"Erin, what-?"

It quickly becomes obvious what the yelling was about. 

"Oh my god."

Robin has a vivid recollection of how it must have been for Erin to come to the bathroom and look herself in the mirror, pulling out her wig.

What a oddly vivid deduction.

Caine reaches Robin's side as he shakes his head like a dog, giving him an odd look before turning his attention to Erin. 

"Ah." He says. He almost looks surprised, if you're paying close attention to his eyebrows. 

After a moment, he steps closer to get a better look. It's... not exactly obvious that this is Erin. The ridges make it hard to tell if her features are still Erin-like, and her eyes are a different colour. Still, judging by the all-too-human shock on her face, and the direction Erin's voice had come from, it is most likely her. 

Having come to this conclusion, Caine reaches for her hand.

"Alright?" He asks. 

 At that moment, Jamie catches up to them, and immediately suppresses a squawk at the sight of Erin's new appearance. 

"Seriously?" Robin mutters in the background. He's blinking hard, a hand on his temple. 

A thin drop of blood drips from Robin's nose.

Erin grips him back, hard. 

"Fine, I-" 

She takes a deep breath, then stills; quick as a whip, she snaps around to look at Robin as he slides his palm down from his forehead to wipe under his nose. Her eyes follow the motion, and the red smear on his fingers as he pulls his hand away, and then she grabs his other hand and starts dragging him out of the bathroom, Jamie quickly stepping out of her way as she goes by. 

Trailing the other two, she hauls Robin up the stairs and into her room, dropping him on the bed and making for her desk. 

Caine and Jamie slip inside and blink at the state of the room. Then Jamie goes to sit with Robin, and Caine heads towards Erin to see what she's doing. 

Erin notices none of this. She's intent on the contents of her desk, fiddling with the lock on the drawer, which wasn't there the day before.

Automatically, Erin places a thumb over the lock, there is a pixelated effect over it and then the drawer opens with the sound of pressurized air escaping.

The drawer not only slides out of the desk, but unfolds, revealing several gizmos made of chromium and plastic. Some look like rectangles made of plastic with glowing writing, there is a series of vials next to something that could be reasonably called a "syringe gun", some other things are of even more arcane purpose. One looks like almost like a sonic screwdriver, with a forked tip.

Something will be off to Robin. There is one more person in the room than he previously thought.

Robin, and possibly the others, might also notice that Sam's terrarium is gone, replaced by a cat bed and tree-like perch that takes up a corner.

Jamie notices. Sam is family. Sam is life. Unfortunately for Sam, whatever the hell is happening to Erin and Robin is more attention grabbing at the moment. 

Jamie lifts the hem of his shirt to dab at Robin's nose, nudging at him to tilt his head back. 

Erin grabs one of the glowing plastic doodads, then turns it on Robin, it's squiggly writing scrolling across the screen and making no sense at all as far as Jamie can tell. It seems Erin can read it however, because she fiddles with it, pressing a series of symbols on the screen. Then she huffs in frustration and lets her hand fall to her side, blinking rapidly. 

"You doing ok, 'rin?" Jamie asks, hesitantly. Robin pulls his hand away to check if he's still bleeding, then quickly puts it back when it becomes clear that he is. Makeshift tissue in place, he glances around, squinting in equal parts confusion and pain.

Erin nods absently, muttering something mostly unintelligible, then, "Not even bleeding, so far as I can tell."

Then she blinks again, and shakes her head, "What?" She takes in the room, "I think I'm hallucinating. Weren't we just in the bathroom? And I thought I looked like a lizard." 

She catches sight of her hand and balks, "Oh, never mind, then."

The mechanisms beep softly and there is a clear pleasantly polite but emotionally detached voice from a drawer device. "Synthesis complete." The device ejects a thumb-sized glass vial with cyan liquid.

Caine reaches into the drawer and picks it up, holding it up to the light streaming in through the window. Some kind of medical scanner/synthesizer set up? He shakes it, and then shrugs; not his area. He passes it to Erin who takes it automatically. 

"You hyperfocused or something," Jamie says, "As soon as Rob started bleeding, you were right on him." 

Erin nods, staring at the vial Caine had passed her. She's happy to ignore her sudden makeover for a little while, but- "We should probably not test the mysterious liquid on Robin before we have any idea what is going on here."

"Good plan," Robin says, a bit muffled behind the shirt. He's squinting intently at the half-open door to the dressing room. If he had to describe how this knowing feels he'd say it's like the feeling you're bein watched, except you're the person watching. Which makes almost no sense even to him, honestly. 

So they're just going to ignore the scaly elephant in the room, Caine assumes.

Robin clears his throat, "Yeah, uh, speaking of scaly elephants, hey, 'rin, where's Sam?" 

Robin feels a "pull" towards the closet.

Robin rises to his feet, dragging Jaime by his shirt. He steps towards the closet, reaching out and tapping the door open a bit more.

 "Sam? You in there, buddy?"

Through the crack of the door, Robin can see a lizard that's not quite the Sam he knows. Quite a bit larger, and with a red crest around his neck. It peeks its head out of a towel nest. 

<Yes, I am, Robin One. What was all the screaming that happened moments ago? Some of us want to sleep.>

"Ack!" Robin half jumps, half falls away from the closet door, losing his grip on Jamie's shirt. Luckily it seems the bleeding has mostly stopped. 

Distracted from the vial by sudden giant lizard, Erin hurries towards the closet, eyes widening as she takes in Sam's new form. 

 "Sam, is that you?" She kneels down in front of the towel nest, reaching towards him. "You look really different! What the heck is going on?"

Caine, meanwhile, seeing that situation is being dealt with, picks up the wig Erin had dropped on the desk and peers at the tech inside of it. 

<Who else would I be? I am not feeling different.> He looks at the closet's mirror. <Same dashing Oroth Lizard of yesterday.>

It looks like a mesh of plastic, LED lights whenever two lines meet, touching it gives a slight electric feeling.

Robin squints at Sam, "But you weren't-"

Joining the others near the closet, Caine interrupts Robin with a more important topic.

"How does this work?" He holds the wig up. Based on Sam's reaction, he can only assume that the giant lizard is the only one who has any idea how to navigate the situation they've found themselves in. 

<You put it on your head. And let it activate the hologram.> There is something somewhat amused about the tone of his words. He turns to Erin. <Is this the result of what human call a 'hang over'?>

Erin- well, she doesn't flush, but if she looked human she definitely would have. Ok, they'd had a bit to drink last night, but only a bit! She'd managed to head off Jamie when he'd tried to sneak into the alcohol cabinet, so they'd only had enough to get them a bit tipsy. And she'd made them all drink water! They definitely didn't drink anything that could have had them hallucinating this. she glances at her reflection. Yep, still a lizard person. 

Then Caine drops the wig on her head, arranging it to sit properly on the ridges. 

And her reflection changes. 

"Well," Caine says into the silence, "I vote we go to my dad."

"Good plan! I am on board with this plan! Let's do that, let's do it right now!" Robin babbles, standing up from his place on the floor and waving spastically towards the door.

Erin stares for another long moment, trying to find any trace of lizard in her reflection. At length, she nods. "That seems like a good idea," she says, and then turns to Sam, petting his fringe in thanks as she stands. 

Sam licks her hand and goes back to his towel nest.

Being closest to the door, Jamie leads the way downstairs, Erin staying behind to pull some clean clothes out of her closet and get changed. The other three duck into the recroom to do the same, Robin taking his meds, and Jaime grabbing the pile of dirty, and in some cases bloody, clothes to drop off in the laundry room for later. Ms Lowry, the maid, will do them if she has time, and if not they'll deal with it whenever they get back.

 Once Erin joins them at the front door, they head out onto the porch and begin the long jog down the lawn to the street, climbing over the fence once they reach it. 

Steadying Robin when he slips on his way down, Jamie frowns when he notices the other boy squinting. 

"Headache?" He asks. 

Robin nods, then shrugs, "Just the hangover, probably."

They make good time into the downtown area, heading towards the condo where Caine and his dad live. A few blocks from the building they turn down an alleyway to take a shortcut.

They are lucky to behold another unusual sight. A man crawling on the ground half-covered by a metallic blob. They can't see his face, but given the way he struggles there is a definite sense that the man would be screaming.

"Holy shit!" Robin squawks. Before any of the others can do anything, he rushes towards the struggling man, blurring again. The skin around Caine's eyes tightens slightly as he follows, swallowing irritation for the other's haste. 

When he reaches the man's side, Robin reaches towards him to free him, his hands coming into contact with the strange substance just as Caine and Jamie reach his side. Caine takes hold of his shoulder, ready to pull him away if the blob tries to switch targets, while Jamie grabs hold of one of the man's un-blobbed legs, ready to pull if Robin manages to detach it. 

 Behind him, Erin pulls out the odd scanner, fiddling with the icons on the screen. The fact that she can read this language when she couldn't yesterday is just another weird thing on top of all the others. She selects the one labelled 'scan substance' and points the scanner at the blob. 

The scanner reads:

Warning: biometrics detect a class five shifting lifeform.

The blob touches Robin and appears to recoil from the contact. It releases the man, who falls to the ground unconscious, but breathing.

'Class five shifting lifeform'?

Once the blob is far enough from the victim, Erin kneels down at his side and fiddles with the scanner again. First, the back button. Then the icon that translates roughly to 'scan health'. Jamie, who had lunged forward just in time to catch the man's head, peers over her shoulder and shakes his head when he still can't read it. 

Meanwhile, Robin and Caine follow the blob as it retreats, keeping a few feet between it and them. 

The scanner reads:

High levels of stress and heart rate. Physical condition stabilizing. Mental condition showing signs of memory loss.

The man breathes heavily and starts to jerk and shake.

The blob retreats up to a wall... and then starts taking shape, coalescing into a humanoid shape.

The shape of the man that is on the ground a few feet behind them.

Robin hesitates at the sight, and then glances back at the sounds coming from behind him. Caine stops at his shoulder and watches the shapeshifter, content to stay at a safer distance now that Robin isn't rushing into danger. 

Erin sets the scanner down, "I think he's having a seizure," she tells Jamie. He loosens his grip on the man's head as it jerks, not wanting to strain his neck. 

"What do we do?" He asks. 

She pauses, then tugs on his shirt, "take this off and bunch it up under his head. I'm going to see if I can make sense of this scanner."

As he does as instructed, she picks up the scanner and presses the button labeled 'recommend treatment', then tugs out the device that spit out the vial last time. Along with the two devices she also brought: the hypospray, a packaged set of six vials, the possible sonic screwdriver, and a small device labeled 'sanitizer'.

The shapeshifter stares at Caine wide-eyed. It is moving its mouth, but he is apparently not very good at it, and no sound is coming out.

Erin starts a process that involves mixing the vials and applying the sonic screwdriver, causing the contents to change color, then she can apply the final result, which she knows is a "neuro-overload stabilizer".

Caine watches it evenly in return. Or perhaps him, or them, or her. He has no way to conclude what the shapeshifter's preferred pronouns might be. 

Robin, seeing that Erin has the situation well in hand, turns back towards the shapeshifter. He frowns, watching it struggle to verbalize. Tentatively, he steps forward, saying (and, though he doesn't quite realize it yet, thinking very intently), "Are... are you alright? What were you doing to that guy?" And, to the air in general, "What the hell happened while we were asleep?"

 The treatment complete, she comes out of the fugue once more. Blinking hard, she looks down at the vial in her hands, and then picks up the hypospray and inserts the vial into the socket. She glances at Jamie for a second opinion, "I only sort of know what this does. But I think it should help?" 

He shrugs, "Better him than one of us," he says. 

Frowning lightly at his response, Erin nonetheless leans over the man, presses the pointed end of the hypospray to his neck, and pulls the trigger. The hypospray makes a small ksssk sound. She leans away from him and watches closely for any results. 

The man appears to stabilize and eventually his eyes flutter open.

Both man and the shapeshifter let out a grunt. The man tries to get up, very slowly.

Erin and Jamie each grab an arm to steady him, helping him into a seated position.

"How do you feel, sir?" Erin asks, shifting to hide her sci fi tech from view. 

"Like I just woke up from the worst hang over after spending the night drinking and smoking we- I feel terrible." He is blinking at the sunlight like it is bothering his eyes.

Robin takes another step closer and then stops, Caine's hand on his shoulder preventing him from continuing. He scowls at the younger boy, and then looks back at the shifter, squinting in concentration. 

He may not be as observant as Caine, but even a guy like him has got to get a clue eventually. All this weird stuff happening, Erin having a hologram disguise, mysterious futuristic medical equipment, Sam being telepathic... and then the things he's been seeing and... sensing all day. 

He focusses, reaches out and... listens. 

Jaime grins, patting him on the back, "I've been there, man. You feeling good enough to walk home? We can help you out if you're in the area."

Erin shakes her head, then reaches up to shade his eyes, pushing up higher on her knees to get a look at his pupils. "Are you seeing any aura or black spots?" She asks. She pulls out her waterbottle and offers it to him, "Here, have some water, it might help the headache."

It's probably pretty weird for a teenager to be acting like a nurse, but at least he's not likely to find her too suspicious. Hopefully they can send him on his way without noticing the tech, or the guy who looks like him down the alley. If the general population doesn't know about aliens... she's going to assume there's a good reason for it until she knows enough to decide whether it's a good idea for herself. 

He can listen to the shifter's thoughts... they mostly go around in circles screaming "I got caught! I got caught!". Robin feels a stab in his forehead. Brief, but acute.

"I am not... I think... he looks up the street. Oh, I am close to my atelier, I can just walk there myself, thank you."

He did get caught, yeah. Doing something apparently very painful, or possibly just terrifying, to some poor guy.

Despite the circumstances, Robin feels kind of bad for the guy... person... being. 

Jamie and Erin help the guy in question to his feet, steadying him and then backing off.

"Try to be a bit more careful about where you pass out next time. You never know what might happen in the back alleys in this city," Erin advises him, wry, and still a little concerned. 

Jamie, meanwhile, goes to join the other two, stopping a few more paces away than they are. He compares the copy to what he'd seen of the original. 

It is an insanely good copy, the clothing is identical to the point of having the same colorful stains around the legs.

The original moves slowly and makes his way across the street.

Oh yeah, there were stains, weren't there. Wonder what kind of art the guy does, Jamie muses. 

Robin glances his way as he reaches them, then turns back to the copy. He reaches up to rub under his nose, wiping away the trail of blood that has begun to trickle out again. Tugging his arm out of Caine's grasp, he takes one step closer, Jamie following.

"Hey, we're not going to hurt you," he soothes.

Caine sighs. The shifter seems to be having some kind of panic attack. Which honestly makes him more tense about Robin and Jamie getting closer to it. Even if it wasn't the kind of being that had literally just sent a man into unconsciousness, he wouldn't have advised getting too close to it while it was panicking. People can get violent when they're like this. He remains wary, ready to jump into action as soon as the shifter gives any sign of hurting his friends.

Erin watches the man until he's across the street, and then turns to watch the boys and the shifter. 

The shifters thoughts start becoming more repetitive, but turn into dark questions about what they are going to do to him. He realized that the technology isn't from Earth.

Robin backs off, putting his hands up placatingly, "Hey, I mean it, we-" 

He pauses. He reaches out with his mind, We're really not going to hurt you, he says. 

Caine catches sight of Robin's expression and stares. Robin, he thinks, very deliberately, Are you mind-speaking at the probably hostile changeling?

Robin side-eyes him, He's just scared, he sends, maybe if I calm him down we can get some information. 

Jamie, unknowing of the telepathic conversations going on around him, edges a bit in front of Robin. His fsce scrunches a bit in confusion as he looks at the shifter, feeling... something. 

Medani! Screams the shifter's mental voice.

And he presses himself against the wall, mentally pleading not to be mind-wiped.

Then he blinks and Jamie, a sliver of hope half-forming around the word "friend", then wordless fear.

The shifter tries to run.

Robin is distracted by his conversation with Caine - he can only focus so much, he's new at this - but he catches Medani, whatever that means, and 'friend', though not what that thought is aimed at. He also catches the fear of mind wipes, though has no idea how he'd go about doing that, and then the fear almost overwhelms him. 

When the shifter runs, he's a bit too distracted by the blood pouring from his nose to pursue.

Jamie turns to help Robin immediately, deeming his well-being more important than the escaping shifter. Erin joins them, pulling out the vial of liquid the synthesizer had made at the house earlier and brandishing it and the hypospray at Robin, who nods rapidly. 

Caine, however, attempts to pursue, but the shifter escapes the alley before he can get a grip on him. He dashes out into the street, racing after the fleeing man-shaped being with all the intent of a wolfhound. He's only a few meters behind him, and getting closer.

The shifter is looking back at him.

Which is not the most tactically sound decision, since the shifter runs straight into a lamp post. It finally makes a proper sound with his mouth, which is a groan of pain.

When it turns around the head is slightly dented. Not inhumanly so, but noticeably so. And the being quickly recovers from the impact and runs until he finds another alley.

Caine will be just in time to spot the once again liquid shifter going through a manhole.

Once applied, the hypospray stops the bleeding.

He stills with his hand on the brick corner turning into the alley, watching the last of the silvery substance fall through the holes. He frowns lightly, and then turns to make his way back to the others. 

When he reaches them, Erin is just packing away the last of the equipment in her backpack. Robin and Jamie both eye the states of their shirts - the former's covered in blood, and the latter's in some black gunk that it had picked up off the ground. Neither looks happy about them. After a moment, Jamie shrugs and slings the shirt over his shoulder, while Robin turns his attention to Caine. 

 "The - thing? Shapeshifter?" He asks. 

Caine shrugs, "Escaped," he sums up, "Down a manhole across the street." 

"Damn." 

Erin stands, pulling her backpack on, "Well, if it's gone, there's nothing we can do about it. We were heading to Caine's place, remember?" She reminds them.

 All in agreement, they head for the Attens' condo at double speed. 

Meanwhile, Scout 15 makes his way around the piping under the street, luckily, he can follow his own slime trail back to base. Where he reconstitutes itself after exiting through a sink.

The are member members of the collective waiting for him.

No, way, he wasn't supposed to be thinking like that. There is no "him", just a part of the collective.

Also, he shouldn't let himself be distracted by thinking, not while people are watching. The five collective members looked already impatient.

"Report?" Says their leader, wearing the shape of a old woman in a gardener uniform, including the human device that Scout 15 now knew are called shears.

"There was a hostile encounter with non-native, sir!"

Everyone tensed. Their leader was quick to take action. "Worker 23, merge with Scout 15!"

"But, Supervisor 17! Scout 15 is a deviant!" The one called Worker 23 responds. It wears the form of an absurdly muscular man, sweat stained tank top and grey shorts fitting tight to its body. It eyes the reporting Scout with unease, "Researchers 54 and 32 have yet to determine whether its abberation will transmit during merging!"

"That's why I am not merging with Scout 15 myself! Do it, before I start assuming you're a deviant yourself."

The Worker quickly nods, turning to Scout 15, "Yes, Supervisor," it says. It moves towards the Scout, it's hand losing shape to become a blob of coppery material, of almost mercury-like consistency. It reaches out, clearly expecting the Scout to respond in turn.

Scout 15 does the same, and he lets their minds merge, knowing full well that they will know that he attacked an artist on purpose, even if he was ordered to pick someone...

Worker 23 does note this, yes. It also skims through Scout 15s memory of the encounter with the non-native lifeforms.

We're really not going to hurt you, blood streaming from burst blood vessels: inexperienced Medani psychic. Devices made of materials not available on designation-Earth, synthesizer capable of producing neuro-stabalizers: probable Allurian medical technology. Familiar lifeform? Unknown signature, other collective? Possible ecounter with parent-collective? Unknown. 

 Preference of target outside standard Collective protocol, it notes, Why? 

Scout 15 recoils, but pours the answer out through the link.

Art is beautiful.

Worker 23 pauses, ...Art? 

It goes looking for a definition of this word. Instead, it finds a stream of images.

Pencils on a page, fanciful swirls of colour forming an image drawn from the artist's imagination. Hands on a block of soft clay, spinning and slowly forming into a crooked pot. A splash of colour upon a canvas, dripping slowly down to the ground. A detailed painting of a woman, her mouth crooked in the slightest of smiles. A child smearing wax onto a page, her focus and delight clear. An abstract sculpture, its shape conveying to the viewer a sense of melancholy and helplessness. A mural painted over an entire alley, depicting the struggle of a young woman to live her life on her own terms. 

Overwhelmed, Worker 23 almost pulls away as it retreats to collect itself. 

...Oh. 

It unmerges with Scout 15 and turns to Supervisor 17, "Untrained Medani psychic, possible Allurian medical technology, one human, and one Unknown, Supervisor. Lifeforms encountered Scout 15 attempting to absorb a target and removed the subject from within it. Lifeforms were not hostile once Scout 15 had released its target; it was able to flee the scene through the sewage system."

It does not mention the Scout's... unusual preferences. 

"I see." Supervisor 17 says narrowing their eyes. "Scout 15 you're dismissed. The rest of you we have much to discuss."

Scout 15 does not waste a second and immediately leaves the room.

As quick as they're moving, it only takes them five minutes to reach the building. The ride up the elevator is made in antsy silence, Robin fidgeting with his keys and Erin with her scanner. On the tenth floor Jamie takes Robin's hand to stop the jingling noise, having noticed Caine getting more and more annoyed as it continued. They get off on the seventeenth floor and make their way to the second last door on the right. 

The other three loiter around the door as Caine unlocks it, and then file in behind him. The scent of bacon fills the apartment, leading Robin and Jamie to exchange excited glances and push past the others to race to the condo's small kitchen. 

"Hey Mr. Atten! What's for breakfast?" 

Caine's dad glances up from his place at the stove, giving the boys a smile as he transfers bacon from the pan to his plate. 

"Morning, boys," he greets, "Breakfast is whatever you make of it. There's more bacon in the fridge, along with eggs and bread. You know where the cereal is if you want that instead. Is Caine with you or are you here for my own company?" 

"Yeah, I'm here dad," Caine says as he enters the kitchen. He gives his dad a small smile as the man offers him a strip of bacon from his own plate, which he accepts, and then heads for the cupboard to grab some oil to fry the bacon Jamie is pulling out of the fridge in. 

"Favoritism!" Robin claims from the stove. Erin snorts as she goes to sit at the table across from Mr Atten, still fiddling with her scanner. 

Samuel stops eating once he catches sight of the scanner. He slowly puts his fork down, and then leans forward to get a better look. 

After a moment, he clears his throat. Erin looks up, and blinks in confusion at the look in the man's eyes. 

"Where did you get that, Erin?" Samuel asks quietly. 

Erin glances down at the scanner, then back up at Mr Atten. "Um. It was in my room this morning, and it wasn't there last night."

The others pause in their food-making, turning to participate in the conversation.

"Yeah," Robin says, "And apparently I'm psychic or something now? I definitely read this... guy's, mind just now, and I think I maybe saw some things earlier, too?"

"And apparently Erin's a lizard person," Jamie adds.

Caine hums, "Robin moved much faster than was natural twice this morning," he mentions. 

Robin whips around to stare at him, "I what?" He exclaims.

Jamie nods, "Yeah, I thought he seemed to be blurring a bit inthe alley, but it could have been the light." 

Robin waves an arm at Jamie, "And you didn't mention it?" 

"I mentioned it now, didn't I?" 

Erin shrugs at Mr Atten, whose eyebrows have climbed up his forehead and look likely to disappear into his hair at any moment, "So, yeah," she says, "It's been a weird morning. And that's all before we ran into that shapeshifter basically eating a guy on our way here."

At that last, Samuel half stands from his chair in alarm, "Shapeshifter?" He asks, "You ran into a shapeshifter on the way here? What happened, were any of you injured, were any of you copied, did you see where it went?" 

"Yeah, we ran into one," Jamie tells him, concerned. "It was trying to eat this artist guy, it let the guy go when Robin touched it. Then it freaked out for a bit and ran off."

"Went down a manhole," Caine offers.

"Damn," Samuel breathes, "Damn it all." He leaves his breakfast and rushes out of the kitchen, making for his office. The kids all follow him, confused, and then watch in suprise as he opens up a secret room behind his bookshelf.

They catch a glimpse of what looks like some kind of high-tech armory mixed with a thief's wet dream before the bookshelf closes behind him. 

When it opens again about two minutes later, he's dressed in some kind of armoured bodysuit complete with a utility belt, carrying several weapons which look like something out of Star Trek, and carrying a device made of the same material as Erin's med tech. 

"Right, you four," he says quickly, most of his attention on the device in his hands, "You did good bringing this to me. I need to go, but once I get back I'll explain what's going on. Stay here, and stay out of trouble."

And then he activates one of the buttons on his belt and vanishes. 

There's a long moment of silence.

Then Caine starts for the door, the other three following.

"We're not going to listen to him are we?" Erin sighs. 

"Of course not!" Robin says, "Have you met us?"

Erin nods, "Usually Caine's at least somewhat sensible," she laments.

"Nah," Jamie snorts, "He's just a good actor."

They make their way down to the lobby and then out of the building, pausing once outside as they try to figure out how to track Caine's dad. 

"Hey, Erin, can you use the scanner to find him?" Robin suggests.

Erin frowns, pulling the device in question out of her bag, "I don't know," she says. She fiddles with the screen, seeing if there's anything that looks likely to help with that.

There is a function to find similar "bio-signatures" that can help her find family members if she has a template to work from.

A legitimately useful function, and not just in this particular situation. She taps it, and hovers the scanner over Caine, who bears it stoicly. It beeps, and then does a search of the area. It eventually locates a matching signature, and beeps again. The others, watching over her shoulder, while still unable to read the language, can make out a topographical map with a blip on it, showing a position fairly nearby. 

"That's probably him," Erin says, "Unless you have any immediate family we don't know about. The way this day has been going, I wouldn't be surprised." 

Caine snorts, and they begin following the blip through the city. 

The blip goes towards the industrial district, Samuel is moving fast enough that they have a hard time to keep up, but they still managed to keep pace.

It is plausible that they wouldn't recognize everything in this part of their town, but that abandoned factory building really isn't familiar. Nor is its gray logo which the name "Mercury Synthesis" beneath.

'Mercury', huh? That seems suspicious.

Jamie takes in the locked chain-link fence and then gestures the others to stand back. He backs up to give himself some momentum, and then runs up to the fence, springing up and catching some higher up links, and climbing up. At the top he tests whether there's and current coming through the wires above by listening closely, and then dropping a saliva-soaked hair on it. 

Safe from being electrocuted, he still unties his dirty flannel from around his neck and lays it over the wires, tying it down with the sleeves, to prevent them from cutting him. Then he carefully clambers over, unties the flannel, and drops down. 

Now on the other side, he slinks into the dark security booth and knicks the keys, then tries them on the gate lock until one works. 

One of these days he's going to get a lockpick kit that has the tools to pick padlocks. No matter how much fun going around obstacles can be, and how difficult getting ahold of a locksmith grade lockpick set will be, they're losing time right now that they wouldn't be if he had already had one.  

Key found, he pulls the gate open enough to admit the others, and then they make their way to the nearest entrance.

The place is completely deserted.

Jamie... finds the layout easy to navigate. Eventually the scanner points that Samuel should be in this large area. Oddly enough it isn't or can't give a more specific coordinate.

The large area is some kind of large and empty deposit space.

There is no sign of Samuel.

"...Was he onto us, you think?" Robin wonders. He tries to scan the area for minds, but doesn't find anyone other than them.

Except maybe there's something familiarly lizardlike hiding at the edge of his range, but then it's gone before he can pinpoint it. 

"This place is pretty cool," Jamie comments. He's sitting on his heels on a shipping container about twelve feet above the others, looking around for anything interesting. 

There are several containers, some industrial machines (fixated to the floor), a rectangular section of the wall that appears to be at an angle like an ajar door, a whole lot of pipes.

That looks suspicious!

"Hey, there's something over here, we should go check it out." 

He slides down from the container so he's holding on with his fingers and then drops down carefully. 

"What kind of thing?" Erin asks.

"A secret door, it looked like." He leads them over to it and then peers inside. 

There is an old room, dusty and cobweb covered, the town's map hangs from the wall with several areas circled in red ink. There is an office table beneath it, with several papers strew about. Plus several file cabinets and a dead potted plant.

Poor potted plant. Jamie pats it on the least crumbly-looking leaf as he passes. Robin pauses to poke at the soil and then shakes his head and moves on.

Erin takes the map, copying the red circles' positions on her scanner's map. Then she joins Caine in looking through the papers on the table. Jamie and Robin each take a filing cabinet. 

The files seem to pertain about the purchase of various chemical supplies. They might be typical for this kind of factory, though common household sugar stands out as particularly weird when compared to the other things...

Also, there are files on various individuals from around twenty years ago, thus very outdated. But the positions are recognizable.

Caine lifts one of the files up and nudges Erin, drawing her attention. 

She frowns, "Wasn't he the mayor?" She asks of the file. 

He nods at another file on the desk, "That one's on the old police chief. He invites my dad and I to dinner once in a while."

"Hey, guys," Robin calls, "Is it just me or is some of the stuff this factory ordered really weird?" 

The others glance at him, and then Jamie waves the file he was reading, "There's more people here," he adds, "The Hospital Director, the Superintendent; it's like the who's who of the city circa 20 years ago." 

"So," Robin reasons, "This happened before. The shapeshifters. Or maybe they've been here all along, just laying low?" 

"What about all the other things that have been happening today, though," Erin asks, dissatisfied. "I'm an alien, apparently, and Robin has psyhic powers, and Caine's dad is some kind of secret agent? And we found out about it all on the same day as we found out about the secret shapeshifter invasion?"

The others exchange looks and then shrug; they can't explain it either.

"We should keep looking for Mr Atten," Robin suggests after a moment. 

Erin lifts the scanner, "I still can't get a lock on him," she says, frustrated. 

"What do we do then?" Jamie asks, glancing at Caine, whose brow is furrowed in equal frustration. 

He huffs, "If we can't find him, we don't have much choice but to head back to the apartment," he says reluctantly. 

Agreed, they gather what files they can carry and then head for the exit, Erin checking the scanner one more time. 

Scanner is increasingly less confident in its results, it will sometimes point at Caine, simply because it is using him as the template.

She shakes her head at Caine when she sees him watching. 

Jamie locks the gate behind them as they leave, heading back to the apartment. The walk back is quiet. Caine walks ahead of the other three, leaving them to watch his back with concern. When they get back to the apartment, they beeline straight for the office. 

Robin pokes around the desk, looking for a switch of some kind. Caine searches the bookshelf. Jamie leaves for the kitchen after a few moments, scraping the food from Mr Atten's abandoned plate and sticking it in the washer, and then starting on lunch. Erin pulls out her phone and brings up google maps to compare with the scanner map's new markers. 

Jamie turns to regard Erin as he sets the timer for the mac and cheese, "You're no where near as all right about this as you've been acting," he observes. 

She tenses, "No," she says, tightly, "But my breakdown can wait until we have time for it." She keeps her attention on the screen, avoiding eye contact.

Shaking his head, he crosses the room to stand next to her and leans back against the table, nudging her, "We have time now," he argues lightly, "Since we couldn't find him, we should really sit tight until he gets back." 

Not that he plans to wait more than a day before going to check out those spots on the map, but the idea is to get Erin to open up, not worry herself into shutting down more. 

Their conversation is interrupted by a loud dragging noise. Caine pulls away from the bookshelf and glances back at Robin, noting the position of his hand under the desk: a hidden switch, as expected. 

Robin comes to hover behind his shoulder as the bookshelf slides out of the way, revealing the room they'd caught a glimpse of before. 

There is a vast variety of what looks like high-tech weaponry. Most are obviously ranged weapons in the vague shapes of fire-arms. There are other kinds of equipment, like bits of body armor, high-tech gloves, discs and many other things.

Caine moves to the center of the room, turning slowly to take everything in. 

Meanwhile, Robin heads straight for the phaser-alikes, practically hovering in front of the shelf with delight. Jamie, having left the kitchen along with Erin as soon as they heard the bookshelf moving, eyes a shelf full of little kits and doodads, poking at one of them and jumping back when it sparks. Erin shakes her head and pokes at her scanner. She's not sure whether to expect any help identifying anything in here with it - it is a medical scanner after all. 

Her scanner detects some weapon-components that are potentially dangerous but labeled "safely contained, but handle carefully". She also recognizes lesser versions of her equipment, mostly meant to set bones and close wounds.

She hums, and wanders over to look at the medical equipment, pausing to stop Robin from touching one of the more dangerous weapons. He grins sheepishly, then gestures at a blank spot on the racks, "He took a bunch of stuff," he offers. She nods, turning to look at Caine. 

The younger teen is studying the far wall, where the discs and other gadgets are located. He picks up one of the discs and lifts it up to the light, hoping to get a clearer view of the words written on it. Jamie steps up beside him with a pen-shaped gadget in hand, pressing buttons to alter the bit into various key-shapes. 

"Guess I won't be needing that lockpick set after all," he muses. He looks up as Caine puts the disc back and picks something else up in its place, "What've you got there, Kay?" He asks. 

It looks a lot like a smartwatch, the design is even evocative of "clean", "monochrome", "simplistic" and other Apple-related buzzwords.

It comes to life in Kay's hands with a holographic interface in alien script.

Caine eyes it, then glances at Erin and waves her over, gesturing at the screen, "Can you read it?" He asks.

She and Jamie both lean in for a better look, while behind them Robin picks up one of the weapons next to the largest gap in the rack, looking for some identifier. 

None of them can, the script is different from all alphabets they have been exposed to so far.

The weapons are labelled, but it isn't obvious how to divine meaning from the symbols.

Erin shakes her head, "Sorry, it's not the same as my scanner," she says. 

"Damn," Caine bites out. He sets the watch back down and whirls around, stalking out of the room in possibly the most emotional display any of them gave ever seen from him. The others trade worried looks and follow, Robin settling the weapon back into its spot. 

Caine leans his forehead up against the floor-to-ceiling window in the living room, focusing on the fog his breath makes on the glass, trying to clear his head. He's just being impatient, he tells himself, if he were thinking clearly he'd have stood with Erin and convinced the others to wait for his dad to get back in the first place. There's no reason for him to be so worried - Samuel Atten is the precinct's best detective and apparently also a secret agent of some kind. 

It's not like him to hide something like this from his son, though. He'd only have done so if he believed the danger in him knowing outweighed the danger in not knowing, and Caine can't see how that would be the case. Unless something had proven otherwise. 

He has so many questions; his dad had better be prepared for a real inquisition when he gets back.

Having regained some measure of calm, he turns to his friends, settled on the various soft surfaces in the condo's living room. Erin has curled up with her chin on her knees, looking at her reflection. Robin is laying half-on, half-off the loveseat, squinting at Jamie and rubbing at his nose, thankfully not spewing blood. Jamie is sprawled over the couch, watching Caine watch him with concern. He smiles when Caine nods, beckoning him over. He goes, nudging the other boy over and squeezing onto the couch. 

Jamie immediately flops down on his lap once he's comfortable, patting his bicep, "Better?" He asks. Caine nods, so he turns to Erin, "So about that breakdown?" He asks, getting back to the topic from before. 

"Have I always been a lizard person?" She asks blankly, poking at her face and then tugging at the wig. It, and the illusion, remain stubbornly in place. She's actually not sure how to remove it now that she has it on. 

"Weeell," Jamie says, dragging the word out like taffy, voice cracking in the middle. He clears his throat, "I'm pretty sure Sam hasn't always been six feet long and waist high," he offers after a moment. 

"Yeah, there's definitely more going on here than meets the eye," Robin agrees. 

After a momeny of silence, he starts humming the Transformers theme, causing Caine to snort. Jamie shakes his head, "Sentient Robots are the last thing we need at this point," he declares. 

Robin shrugs, "I dunno, I think we could use some Autobot help. I'm sure they'd be helpful for dealing with aliens." He pauses, "Or maybe someone from Marvelverse. They deal with skrulls all the time, I bet they could help us with Erin's scaly alter-ego."

"Guys," Erin says sharply, "Could we just... not right now?" 

Robin coughs, "Sorry," he says. 

She sighs. 

"Let's just... eat lunch. Wait for Mr Atten to get back."

They do so, Jamie wandering back to the kitchen to finish making the pasta, and then bringing out bowls for himself and the others. 

They eat in silence; at some point, Robin flicks on the tv, turning it to the comedy network, which is showing some old specials. 

The day passes in this way, Erin ignoring any attempt to talk about her problems, Caine watching out the window despite his father's invisibility gadget, Jamie playing with his new lockpick, and Robin falling asleep as soon as he finishes eating, the psychic backlash having left him more exhausted than he'd realised.

The eat a late dinner of fish and chips and then clear the furniture from the center of the living room, pulling the futon out of the couch and settling down to wait restlessly for Mr Atten to return. They fall asleep one by one, Caine lasting longest, playing a game on his phone to keep him up, until he too falls asleep in the early morning. 

They are woken by sounds coming from the kitchen the next day. They don't sound like someone is cooking.

Normally Caine would be the first one woken up by strange sounds in the kitchen. However, since he was awake until the wee hours of the morning, it's Jamie who wakes first instead. 

Lifting his head just an inch from Erin's stomach, he squints in the direction of the hall for a moment, and then lets it fall back down. It's probably just Caine's dad, is his first thought. He stares blearily up at the ceiling for a long moment, waiting for his brain to wake up, and then sits up so fast he wakes all three of the others. 

"Wha-" Robin groans. Jamie pats him apologetically as he gets to his feet. Caine follows after a moment, looking more alert than should be possible considering his late night, and rushes towards the kitchen without delay. Jamie follows close behind him, while Robin curls into Erin's side, accepting her hair pets with a tired sigh. 

"Dad?" Caine asks, as he passes through the door to the kitchen, with Jamie just a step behind. 

Sam has somehow managed to open the fridge's door and inspect its contents. He half turns towards Caine. <Our names are similar, but you should be able to tell that I am far more handsome.>

Caine is briefly startled, but his expression doesn't show it. Meanwhile, Jamie sucks in a breath in shock and starts coughing on spit. 

Checking that he's alright from the corner of his eye, Caine nods at Sam in apology. "Have you seen him?" He asks. 

Back in the livingroom Erin coaxes Robin out of bed with the promise of waffles, which Mr Atten always has around for the four of them. Robin goes reluctantly, shuffling into the bathroom to take one of the pills he keeps at Caine's place in case he forgets to bring one. 

<No. Do you have olive pits? I am hungry>

He frowns lightly, preoccupied by his dad's continued absence, but answers, negatively, "We get them without pits."

Jamie nudges the lizard a bit as he reaches into the back of the fridge to grab the screwed shut container of olives, opening it up to show him, incidentally offering him the pit-less olives if he'll take them instead. 

Sam gives a lizardly shrug and takes the olives. <Lacks the crunch, but still have the flavor.>

Erin comes in and immediately slides down next to Sam to pet his frills. Jamie hands her the canister of olives so he can go looking for waffles in the freezer. She shakes out a handful and offers them to her newly embiggened lizard, getting the grease all over her hand. 

Robin shuffles in and looks at her imploringly, leaning against Caine's shoulder, "Waffles?" He asks. Caine shakes him off and stalks down the hall, checking his dad's room, as well as the office and its hidden room, and then his own room just to be thorough.  

Erin watches him leave before posing a mostly rhetorical question to the room, "So are we skipping school today, then?"

Sam noms the olives and licks the grease with his surprisingly prehensilve tongue.

"Guess so," Jamie states in answer to Erin's question. 

Ignored, Robin makes a pathetic face as he slumps into the room to take a seat at the breakfast table. He perks up again when Jamie waves a packet of instant waffles at him from across the kitchen. 

Caine comes back in just as Jamie sets the toaster toasting the first four waffles. "He's not here," he says, hovering over Erin, all controlled restlessness. 

"So we're going looking for him, then," she nods, having been expecting this. She shakes out another handful of olives. 

The toaster pops; Jamie puts another load in. He grabs four plates and plops a waffle on each, and then hands them out, pouring a dollop of syrup onto his own from the toppings on the table. The others make their own topping choices and then dig in. Erin shakes the remaining olives into the lid of the canister and sets it down where Sam can get at it easily.

Once they've eaten their fill, the dishes are left in the sink as they gather around Erin's scanner to get a look at the map and the markers she'd copied from the factory. Caine fiddles with the space-apple watch, which he'd picked up earlier from the secret room. Erin absentmindedly offers Sam a leftover raspberry as she brings up the map. There's a lot of points, but there has to be some way of narrowing them down...

Sam noms at the olives and then climbs up the sink to drink some water straight from the tap.

There are several metrics that they could narrow down, including the alien language in it. They can't read the words, but they can notice the repetition of about four "words" around the map.

"Four types of places," Caine says, pointing out the repeated sets of symbols. Erin follows his fingers and nods, zooming in the map to get a closer look at the area around a few of the first category, trying to see if they have anything in common aside from the symbols. 

One of the words appears to be focused largely in the residential areas. Two of the other words appears to be in non-residential areas. The fourth common word shows up all over the place.

Hm. The homes of people replaced by shifters, some unknown category, the workplaces of shifter imposters, and... Bases, maybe? All from the invasion 20 years ago, he guesses, based on the information they collected last night. 

Is there a symbol corresponding to that factory they were at last night? That seems like the likeliest place to start looking. 

The warehouse they visited falls into one of two non-residental word categories. There are four like it around the city, it is the smallest category.

So the last one is probably something to do with supplies, considering the list of weird orders Robin found there. 

He offers his thoughts to the group, who all agree this seems reasonable. 

"So which one should we look at first?" Robin asks. 

"Are there any locations near the factory? We should start there, since that's where we lost track of Mr. Atten," Jamie suggests.

There a couple. One is the residential-area-related-word (it is located in the edge of the industrial zone) and the other is the word that shows up regardless of area.

"That one," Robin says, pointing at the latter marker. "If you're right, that should be a base. All the stuff about where the shifter copies were living and working probably isn't up to date, since this is from twenty years ago, but the bases might still be used by the ones around now." 

Caine nods, agreeing with the logic. He turns to Jamie, "You know anything about the area?" He asks.

Jamie frowns, "I, uh. Normally I'd say yeah, but... I didn't actually recognise that factory last night, so maybe not as well as I thought?" He takes a long look at the map, "The maybe-Base is on one of the side streets, so it's probably not a warehouse like the others around there. It'd be hard to get trucks in there." 

Robin stands, stretching a bit, and then gestures towards the office, "Should we take something from your dad's lair, you think?" He asks Caine. 

Caine hums, then glances at Erin, "Can your scanner tell us anything about the weapons?" He asks. 

She shakes her head, "I tried last night," she explains, "All it could say was that some of them contained dangerous substances, but that they were stored safely." 

"But it might be dangerous to go looking into shapeshifter bases. We should take some of the small ones at least," Robin argues. 

Caine snorts, "Would you even know how to use one?" He asks, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair to give the standing teen a Look. "No, they'd be more dangerous to us than anyone else." 

Robin huffs, but gives in. Mostly. "You know how to shoot though, right?" 

Caine shakes his head, exasperated, "Yeah, I can use some firearms safely, but I have no idea what those weapons even fire, let alone how to use them safely."

"Come onnn," Robin wheedles, "Just bring one, just in case. What if we run into a shifter with a blaster and we don't have one? Never bring a sword to a gunfight!" 

Caine frowns lightly, then sighs and heads into the office, nodding to Erin and then the scanner in a silent request that she follow. Jamie and Robin do as well. 

Is there anything on the weapons racks that looks small, easily concealed, and which Erin's scanner isn't worried about? 

There are a couple of ray guns and a thing that looks like a wand with a trigger. Some other objects also fit in the category, but it is harder to divine how to use them, they could explosives or ammunition.

Caine goes over the weapons Erin pointed out, and ends up picking up one of the ray guns. He's still not sure firing it is a good idea - he has no idea how it handles, if there's any recoil, if whatever it shoots is likely to go through walls... It's just a bad idea in general. But Robin's not entirely wrong that it could be useful, just in case. He tucks it into his jacket's inside pocket and checks to make sure there's no obvious bulge.

This done, he joins Jamie in looking over the various tools and kits. Is the purpose of any of them obvious? Caine has the watch in his pocket, and Jamie still has the lockpick, but there might be something else they could use. 

Some kits in Samuel's wall seen to contain the chemicals found in the supply list. They notice that the possible-residential-place is in route to the other non-residential place near the warehouse.

Also, some places in the map appears to be locations dedicated to produce or store the chemicals in the supply list.

"Hey, Erin, any idea what these chemicals could be for?" Jamie asks. 

Erin turns her scanner on them, pulling out of the map function and switching to the treatment function. 

Robin glances over thoughtfully from where he was poking at one of the larger ray guns, "Hey, that one home marker that was near the factory, that's on the way from here to the base, right?" He directs his question at Caine, since Jamie and Erin are busy bent over the scanner. 

Caine nods, "We could stop there on the way. It wouldn't cut into our time." 

Agreed, they moved to join the other two around the scanner. 

After poking a bit on the scanner the chemicals appears to be... shapeshifter food. Or rather, they are the basic elements that compose the shapeshifter bodies and thus required for their growth.

The side of Erin's mind that knows Sudden Bizarre Alien Medicine feels that makes complete sense, but the other half has sufficient knowledge about chemistry to be completely surprised that even half of those elements are meant to go into a living being without killing it afterwards. Even shapeshifting alien goo.

Once the sugar is identified, Jamie licks a finger and sticks it into one of the bags, pulling it out and sucking it off. Erin makes a face; Caine sighs heavily.

"Yep," Jamie announces, going back for another, "Definitely sugar." 

Robin shakes his head, grinning, then glances down as Erin pokes back to the map. He frowns, "Hang on," he says, leaning in to get a better look. He swipes the map over to one of the markers, pointing it out to Caine, "Isn't that..." he trails off, uncertain. 

Caine stares at it for a long moment. Then he nods, "Mom worked there," he murmurs.  

After a long moment of tense silence, Jamie clears his throat. "Come on, guys, let's get going," he motions towards the door, "We should try to get to the industrial district before school starts, or we'll have to deal with people asking what we're doing out." 

Jackets are grabbed, to combat the early morning chill, and waterbottles and granola bars are packed for later. Before they leave, Erin kneels down in front of Sam. 

"Are you coming with us again?" She asks, "I'll pack you some food if you tell me what you want."

<I will come. I might not be around all the time.> He transmits what he wants for food.

Jamie packs it up for him, and then they all head out of the apartment. 

 As discussed, they make their way to the spot on the edge of the residential district near the warehouse first. They slow to a stop half a block away on the other side of the street, trying to get a good look at the place. Erin brings her scanner to bear, as has become her habit, searching for anything unusual in the area. Robin tries to pay attention to the minds around them. 

It is pretty easy to identify the place. It appears to be a half-ruined candy shop, what makes it really strange is the fact that it appears to be covered and sheets of some kind of white substance. Or at least it was at some point, then weathering and defacement peeled away some of it, leaving a weird ruin.

Looking at it, Jamie finds himself thinking about the attack on the artist... but also about candy, the vivid taste of glucose mixed with artificial flavorings.

Coming upon the scene, Jamie is almost instantly overwhelmed by the scent, and taste, of sugar. He's always had a sweet tooth, enjoyed maybe a bit more candy and other sweets than was healthy. He's never felt so surrounded by it as he does now, though, despite the fact that the deterioration obvious here should mean there would be less sugar than in any of the candy shops he'd visited before. There's just something about this place...

He blinks.

 The sign reads Gem's Bakery and Confectionary. They beam up at it proudly, taking in the streams of eager customers and the busy hive of employees. Slipping through the crowd, they beam at the boy manning the confectionary counter, coming to a stop before--

--A shadowy figure tips their face up, taking in their features with a keen eye. "Acceptable," the figure says after a long moment, releasing them with a thin, pleased smile, "The target will find you quite pleasing, I am sure." They feel a rush of pleasure and nervous anticipation and--

 --Terror, as the stream of molten plastic chases them through the alley, herding them towards a dead end. They try to dodge away from the trap, screaming as a few drops strike them and they feel--

--Large, soft hands on their face, fingers in their hair, on their back, trailing down--

--Curling up on an old couch, shivering beneath the blankets, the lights on full blast to keep the figures in the shadows from reaching them, knowing--

--I won't be what they want me to be.

And his eyes open.

He gasps for breath, staggering back from the dilapidated building. Behind him Robin's hand flies up to stem his suddenly gushing nose as he half-lunges towards Jamie.

"Robin?" Erin exclaims in concern, tugging out her medtech as she prepares to make another vial. Caine reaches for Jamie, drawing back with quickly-hidden hurt when the other boy lurches away from him, falling to his knees, his hands cradling his skull. 

Squinting, Jamie cranes his head up at the building, searching for something. He has no idea what that was, but while the- the vision, or whatever it was, is fading, he remembers a sign, and the weapons - the plastic guns, he remembers those. 

The building stands there, oddly ominous for a building covered half in white plastic in the light of the day. Looking closer, the plastic does not quite look like glued on strips, but something tighter fitting and unnatural. Easy to miss, if you don't know what to look for.

Jamie knows what to look for. 

That... person, he saw, they weren't hurting anyone. They were afraid, hiding from someone, or maybe everyone. Those people with the plastic weapons... the gear they were wearing looked an awful lot like what Caine's dad was wearing when he left. 

Jamie doesn't know what to make of that 'vision,' but he does know how to spot the stuff those weapons left behind. 

He staggers to his feet and reaches out to Caine, who offers him a shoulder to get his balace on, the stiffness in the other boy's shoulders relaxing when Jamie leans against him. Jamie knows he won't be able to play off his brief rejection as anything but what it was. He can only hope Caine knows it wasn't about him. He probably does. Caine's good at noticing things, though social queues, particularly ones about him, sometimes fly over his head.

Erin holds out another vial of nosebleed-begone  out to Robin, whose nose is in fact still gushing. He necks it and hands the vial back, then turns to Jamie, nostrils pinched between two fingers.

"What was that about?" He asks, nasally, gesturing at the dilapidated building. 

 Having regained his balance, Jamie steps closer to the ruin, reaching up one hand to hover over a long ropy strand of plastic, twisted together from the decades it spent wasting away in the ice and sun. He doesn't touch it; if he'd noticed he might wonder why, but it's an instinctive wariness, so he doesn't. 

"I think I saw the person who owned this place?" Jamie half-asks, half-answers. He pauses for a long moment, then continues, "I think the organisation your dad belongs to killed them," he adds, glancing at Caine. 

As a continuation on her theme of late - Erin turns her scanner on the plastic. 

The scanner helpfully informs what kind of plastic that is and how it's harmless to most creatures.

But with the notorious exemption of being harmful to the shapeshifters, particularly ones in their transitive liquid state.

Erin frowns down at the scanner, lifting it to show it to the others before remembering that they can't read it.

"So Jamie's psychic too, now?" Robin asks rhetorically. 

 "Psychometric," Caine corrects absently, "Like Quinlan Vos."

Robin noticeably stills, turning to stare at Caine, taken aback by the sudden show of nerdiness. He has enough control not to make anything of it right now, but any other time...

Erin steps forward, gesturing at the bearest strand of plastic with the scanner, "It's some kind of plastic compound. It's harmless to just about everyone, except..."

"Shapeshifters," Jamie finishes for her. He steps back from the plastic, glancing around at the others. At their looks, he shrugs, "Some of the things I saw... I think they were some kind of... Seduction specialist or something? Except. Not a specialist. Just told to go seduce someone. Then... I don't know what happened, but I think they were just... minding their own business, living a normal life, when those agents came for them..." 

He frowns up at the faded sign, dangling from one corner. 

Robin coughs, awkward, "That... really sucks," he offers. "At least we know what those guns Mr Atten took were, now?" 

Jamie shrugs, "Guess so," he mutters. Robin pokes at a strip of plastic as they all pause in silence for a long moment.

Giving Jamie's shoulder a gentle squeeze, Caine takes a step back from the building, and then turns away. "Come on," he urges the others, "We have somewhere to be." 

At their own pace, the other three turn away and follow. 

They find themselves approaching another dilapidated factory space, though this one is a solid block of building with a few chimneys rising from the top. It covers half of the city block and bears the faded logo and words "Mercury Synthesis" that they saw in the factory last night.

Eyes sharp as ever, Caine takes in the factory, looking for any sign of movement. He glances over at Erin; scanner out, she pans over the factory, from one side to the other. She stares at the results for a long moment, and then looks up at him.

"Well, there's definitely shifters around. It can't tell anything else, but the scanner can tell me that much." 

Arms crossed, Jamie leans against the wall of the building they've taken shelter behind, across the street from the factory and protected by the thick shadow produced in the early morning light. He hums, "So," he starts, "How are we gonna do this?" 

Robin frowns, glancing back at Erin, "We need better information on what we're walking into," he says. He waves at Erin's scanner, "Do you think you could get better readings somehow? Is there a setting you missed, or maybe if we get closer?" 

Erin looks down at the scanner, taking a closer look at the home screen. 

There are indeed some setting she can fiddle with, though they take a few moments to readjust or require rebooting the system.

She reboots it, then. No time like the present.

Caine, meanwhile, turns back to the factory to keep watch. 

Someone clears his throat behind them. 

When they whirl around to look, Samuel raises an eyebrow at them, "Hello, kids," he states neutrally. He really doesn't need to say anything else to get across the message of 'what are you doing here' and 'you're in big trouble'. 

Caine shifts guiltily, taking in his dad's unimpressed face. He looks down, avoiding eye contact, then glances at the others. 

Robin clears his throat, "Heyyy, Mr. Atten," he says with a strained grin, "Fancy meeting you here." Jamie snorts, nudging him hard enough to shift him over a bit, "Hey!" He mutters loudly, scowling and rubbing his arm. 

Erin hugs herself around the middle, "Sorry, Mr. Atten," she says, about half-honestly, "We were worried."

He raises his other eyebrow, "About me?" He asks, rhetorical. He shakes his head, "You should know better, kids." He gestures across the street, "I'm finished here," he says, eyeing them sternly, "But if you'd snuck in while I was in the middle of the operation you could have gotten hurt." 

"Sorry, sir," Robin mutters, eyes everywhere but his face. Caine and Erin echo him, though Caine addresses him as 'dad'. 

Jamie frowns, rubbing his hands over his arms. Something feels... weird. 

Yeah, it's hard to put a finger on what's off.

Erin's scanner produces a chime informing it has startup. It's oddly familiar.

More importantly gives off a detection alert.

Erin glances down at it, startled. Then she reads the alert, which looks familiar for another reason. She looks up at 'Samuel', wide-eyed.

"We can talk about this more when we get home," the imposter says. He half turns, waving them ahead of him.

The others begin to move towards him. When Caine passes beside her, Erin grabs the gun from his jacket pocket and aims it at Samuel.

"Guys," she says, finger hovering over the trigger, "That's not Caine's dad." 

He gives her a puzzled look, and then notices the scanner. He huffs out a sigh, "Cursed Allurians," he mutters. 

Quickly, he pulls one of his own weapons, aiming it at Jamie. 

"Now," he says, "Why don't we calm down before someone gets hurt?"

Jamie tenses, recognising one of the plastic guns from the memory. Caine, meanwhile, frowns, remembering that most of what was missing from the shelves was from the same section, the weapons that were good against shapeshifters. The one that wasn't was bigger than this one is. 

Robin steps to the side, trying to put himself between Jamie and the gun. Erin's hand shakes, before she takes a deep breath and steadies it. If it looks like he's going to fire she needs to do her best to get him first. 

"Uhp," he says pointing at Robin with his other hand, "Now now, don't move, you wouldn't want to startle me, would you?" 

Robin stills, and the imposter smiles, "That's better," he says. He looks over at Erin, "Now, how about you put the weapon down and we can talk about this like civilised beings?" He suggests, like some strange, villainous version of Caine's dad. 

Okay, he has watched this for long enough and the angle is just right for a sneaky attack.

The four teenagers will spot what appears to be a section of the wall peeling away. It's like someone painted themselves to camouflage perfectly against the brick, then they extend an arm and the paint washes away...

"Deep Hibernation." Says the pointy-eared young man holding a leaf-decorated staff.

There is a surge of green dust that surrounds not-Samuel and the impostor falls asleep.

With the gun out of play, Jamie relaxes. The others don't, or at least not all the way: Erin lowers her weapon, not willing to aim it at a seemingly helpful stranger, but raises the scanner at the same time; Robin steps fully in front of Jamie, completing his intended action automatically, even with the threat out of play; Caine relaxes only the slightest amout, turning all of his deductive skills on the pointy-eared stranger. 

Elves, now? He wonders, What is this, crossover fanfiction? 

Robin snorts despite the tense situation. His own tension broken, he clears his throat, "Um," he says, "Hi?" 

Very nice, he thinks, Very smooth. Good job. 

He turns an inquisitive look at them. Then he asks. "Serious question. What do you guys think about the fact that elves can be naked in public?"

He sounds completely serious.

Robin freezes at this unexpected question, suddenly imagining... things. 

Jamie leans out from behind him, "I support your life choices?" He offers. 

Caine huffs, shifting closer to Jamie and eyeing the (nudist?) Elf more seriously. 

Erin side-eyes the boys, then returns to staring at the elf, "Um," she says, and then stalls. 

She tries again, "I think... anyone can be naked in public? They'd just be arrested for public indecency if they were?" 

The (nudist?) elf (?) turns his gaze at Erin and nods after a long moment.

He is wearing a mix of normal clothes and fantasy-style leather armor. Like a cosplayer half way done through the costume.

"That was a serious question, and not an invitation," he clarifies, "would you say that you or your friends have experienced... a change of opinions recently?"

Caine relaxes a bit, eyeing the other boys as they blink innocently (Jamie) and flush (Robin). He notes that Erin is looking down at her scanner to see if it has anything to say about the new arrival. 

Observations complete, he looks back up at the elf?, "About elf nudity?" He asks, dry. 

"About opinions in general." He looks around. "We shouldn't talk this in here."

The scanner identifies him as a human/elf hybrid. Elves, the scanner says, are a mysterious species native to Earth.

What.

Erin stares at the scanner. 

Then she recalls that she is actually a lizard person, tucks this revelation in among the 'this is my life now' set of files, and carries on. 

Robin recovers from his embarrassment, glances from the unconscious shapeshifter to the Mercury Synthesis building, and then to Caine, who he can tell is not inclined to agree with the stranger's suggestion. 

He nudges Caine, "Come on," he says, "We weren't sure how to get in there without being found - which we didn't manage anyway..." he trails off, "Maybe this guy has some idea what's going on?"

Caine gives in, grudingly, and the four of them follow the half-elf.  

Wordlessly Fenris pushes not-Samuel to a corner then he says. "Camouflage." And not-Samuel appears disappears. "I do know what's going on, to a degree. Follow me." He starts moving. "How long since you noticed things?"

"Well," Jamie tells him, squinting at the spot where Not-Samuel had been as he passes it, "If you mean 'when did things start getting weird', I'd say yesterday morning." 

He nods over at Erin, "At first it was Erin, and then Robin, and then Caine's dad turned out to be some kind of secret agent, and now apparently I have psychometry?" 

An astute sort would notice that the only secrets he's revealed are his own and the one that was already somewhat obvious due to what the Samuel imposter was wearing. 

"At least we managed to find you fairly quick. First of everything, there is... a force - one could say it's magical - that has been changing places. They go from normal to having supernatural things of various sorts."

Robin frowns, "But. Mr. Atten - the guy that shapeshifter was copying - he seemed to have fought shapeshifters before? And we found all these files, about the last invasion, 20 years ago or something." 

And, the presence of Sam's mind reminds him, "And Sam said he'd always been giant," he adds, a statement which night not make any sense depending on whether their rescuer can see the giant invisible lizard. 

"The phenomena alters memories, objects and even places. All my childhood pictures have pointy-ears now and no one remembers otherwise." Pause. "At least in the affected areas. If you go outside range there is a layer over changed things and they sort look normal again and people remember things as they were."

Fenris does not appear to be specially bothered by the giant lizard comment.

Erin is struck by curiosity over whether any of her childhood photos depict her lizard form now. Not that there's a whole lot of them, mostly school photos and formal family ones. Maybe not, then. 

Something else occurs to her, though, "My parents were out of town," she says, "They were supposed to get back early yesterday morning, but I haven't been home to check since before they would have gotten home. What happens if they were outside when the... change happened?"

"Oh, I am sorry, but if they step back in town they are going to be changed to fit in."

Jamie's not going to say anything, but considering the way Erin's parents treat her he wouldn't be surprised to find out they'd been lizard people all along, never mind this 'force'. 

"So if everyone is supposed to forget that it wasn't always like this, why do we remember? Why do you?"

"I want to go somewhere safer before I go into all details. But the force that causes this picks a group of people. The changes are extrapolated from them. In my case, it was me and my D&D group. I gather that you got something more sci-fi ish?"

"Yeah," Robin agrees, "Alien invasions, pseudo-science space magic, futuristic gadgets- the works." 

"Is it just you here? Are you taking us someplace in particular, or should we be going to one of our places, or?" 

"I was looking for a city park, but one of your places should work just as well. There are others, we split up to cover more ground."

"My place is closest," Robin offers, the he shakes his head, "But we're actually, kinda, skipping class right now, so we should probably go to Caine or Erin's instead." 

Caine nods, and moves to take the lead of the group, though of course his friends all know how to get to his place as well. 

"Will your group be able to find you?" Robin asks.

"Once I have directions to give them. I do have a phone, but given the sci-finess I figure it's better to use a communication spell once we are somewhere secure."

"A spell?" Robin repeats, "You said it was your D&D group, so, what, you're all D&D characters now?" 

They reach the edge of the industrial zone and begin walking down a low-class residential street. The apartment is a good 20 minute walk further. 

"Yeah. It isn't a direct translation and I didn't become my own character, but it's pretty obviously based on D&D tropes and the like. What's your theme?"

Robin shrugs, "We seem to have a generic Sci-fi theme," he says, "You know, sci-fi not-magic and psychic powers, hologram disguises, shapeshifters, tricorders, mysterious medical tech, apparently shapeshifters are vulnerable to a certain kind of plastic? That sort of thing."

"Huh, and are you star trek or star wars fans?"

"Yes, we were actually having a science fiction marathon over the weekend. So... it draws from our interests? Your D&D group, our sci-fi shows..." 

"Yeah, not necessarily strong interests, just something everyone in the group has in common. There is also at least two other fantasy-ish cities and a super-hero city."

Robin nods, "Are there vampires?" He asks. He expects that there are vampires.

Fenris flinches. "There were vampires."

Now that they are going through better trafficed streets they can notice people reacting (or lack of reacting) to Fenris' ears. His attire still grabs some attention, but probably just "cosplayer" attention.

Robin notices that flinch and looks away awkwardly, "Sorry," he says. He may be tactless sometimes but at least he apologizes afterwards.

The lack of reaction could just be played off as them thinking the ears are part of the costume? It's still kind of weird, though. 

Shortly, they arrive at the building in which Caine lives. They file in, wave at the security guard, amd make for the elevators. 

Once the elevator door closes Fenris takes out a conch shell out of a pouch and does sparkly magic things to it before saying the place's address and that he found "the seeding cluster".

He is not the most talkative person.

Caine has hardly said a word since they met him, so he's clearly not the only one. 

Once they're inside the apartment they all settle down in the living room. "You want something to eat? Or a drink?" Jamie asks. 

Shrug. "Do you mind if I put up a small ward around the room?"

The others look at Caine; he shrugs, "Go ahead," he says. 

While he does that, Jamie wanders off to grab the jug of iced tea from the fridge and snag a stack of plastic cups from the cupboard. Erin pokes at her the synthesizer, accepting a cup when it's dangled in front of her, and the others all settle in to drink while they wait for the incoming people.

The ward - or at least some step regarding it - involves coaxing a bell flower to grow and reshape itself closer to its namesake.

Soon enough there is a knock at the door with three people standing on the other side.

One of them looks like Fenris, but with different clothes, more of a wizard theme and an rune-scribed eye-patch.

There is another young man with pointy-ears, but also grayish skin and very small tusks. He carries a sword and shield, but isn't wearing anything else obviously magical.

Behind them there is a tall blond guy, shirtless, but wearing jeans. There is an ax behind his back and one might notice what appear to be shackles around his wrists, with three chained links dangling from them.

Robin leans forward to watch the flower growing with barely contained enthusiasm. If he'd looked even a little less focussed Robin might have peppered him with questions. 

Jamie's the one who opens the door when the knock comes. He looks them over, pauses at the shirtless guy with a blink, and then smiles, turning to the identical twin.

"I guess you guys must be with..." He pauses, "Uh, we never did get his name," he says, suddenly sheepish. 

Felix returns that with a bright apologetic smile. "Don't worry. I am not surprised. I am Felix Bright, and he is Fenris. These are Henry and Gabe."

"Hi, may we come in?"

Jamie's smile brightens in response to Felix', and he nods towards Henry, "Of course," he says. 

"I'm Jamie, Jamie Starr," he offers in response as he leads them in. When he reaches the living room, he gestures around at the various alienville residents as he introduces them, "These are Erin Newark," Erin glances up from the synthesizer to wave, "Caine Atten, who lives here," Caine nods, "And the guy who looks like he's going to die from gardening enthusiasm is Robin Chiswick." 

Robin looks up from the flower when he hears his name, waves at the new arrivals, and turns his grin on Jamie, "He grew a flower with magic, Jamie!" He exclaims in delight.

"I don't doubt he did." He takes the liberty to approach Fenris' flower and puts a hand on it. It acquires a golden glow.

Fenris smiles at Henry and turns towards Felix. "Did you check?"

"Yeah, they are the cluster. Too bad we didn't bring Temperance then, she is an actual wizard."

Robin leans back in towards the now-glowing flower, "Space telepathy is cool," he mutters, looking wistful, "But, man, imagine the stuff I could grow if I had plant magic." 

"What's the significance of wizards?" Erin asks. She sets the synthesizer to the side so she can pay attention to their guests, noting their unusual features now that she's paying attention. Tusks ain't nothing when you're secretly a lizard person.

Felix and Fenris exchange a look. "Well, apparently Fenris didn't tell you anything. Might be smart given the shapeshifter situation."

"I did tell them about other places having other things. But I didn't elaborate much. Also, the term is Magus, not wizard."

"Hey, the important thing is that they can make things go boom by poiting at it."

"Probably a good precaution to make," Erin agrees. Then she reiterates her previous question, "What's the importance of Maguses- eh, Magi? Then, in this context? Aside from being useful in a fight, I guess."

"Our cluster thing is classes. Felix can explain."

"Oh, okay. The magic that create these changes, will pick some sort of archetype or concept to base the creation process. Our cluster was classes, similar to D&D or video game classes. A Magus is a spellcaster stylized after wizards, they have spell tomes, versatile and strong magic, but are more fragile than say, Warriors or Champions."

Gabe waves when Felix says Warriors and raises Henry's hand for Champions. Henry rolls his eyes.

Caine knows a little bit about D&D. Not from playing it, but he read his way through the locl public library's collection of Forgotten Realms books one summer. "Champions are Paladin equivalents?" He guesses. 

Robin looks up at this point, "What's the plant magic class?" He asks.

"Exactly." Felix tells Caine. "And presuming that you're talking about Fenris' class. It's Shaman, they actually combine druids and warlocks which means that Shamans make deals with spirits - usually nature spirits - in exchange for their powers."

Caine leans forward, "So this force can create gods?" He asks. "Local ones, I assume."

"Do the classes only apply to your city or can we learn to do your magic, too?" Robin wonders. He's gone back to hovering over the flower. He has enough restraint not to literally poke it, but it's tempting. 

"Small local gods might be a good way to put. Though, Champions and their less fighty equivalent, the Saints, don't really need to have a faith. And the classes are teachable. Though we will likely have to deal with your shapeshifter problem first."

"Right," Jamie says, "How are we going to do that? Is there some way to make things go back to the way they were, or do we have to work within the system?" 

"There is a way to partially get things the way they were, but it's tricky. The source of the change is concentrated on a thing. We call it the Seed, it's somewhere in the affected area. If we give you access you will be able to edit things, changing some things back, but completely undoing everything makes the magic fight back."

"Even without it fighting back, it's likely somewhere hard to reach and guarded. If you're having a shapeshifter problem, I bet we will have to go through them first either way. Also, we given some our experiences it might be better to just ameliorate whatever problems the changes are causing. We managed to erase one kind of vampires, then the next city had another nastier kind of vampires which we even tried to make less nasty, but had to resort to destroying them as well."

I bet that's going to come back to bite them in the ass, Robin muses, finally turning away from the flower. He nods, "In that case I guess we'll have to work with what we have," he says. He gestures at Erin, "We've got the scanner, which can identify shifters if we check." Erin has just finished turning the scanner on each of them when he mentions it. He waves at Caine next, "Caine's dad left a secret room full of gadgets and weapons, though he took the weapons that are meant for fighting shifters specifically. Only problem is all the labels are in some strange language none of us reads." He shrugs, "And Jamie and I have some kind of space magic powers."

"We should still figure out where the Seed is, though," Erin argues.

"We absolutely should figure where the Seed is. I am just allocating a strong possibility that we still will have to deal with shapeshifters beforehand."

"I might be able to identify what your the weapons can do. What sort of space magic did the two get?"

"None of you are aliens, or something?"

Erin coughs, raising her hand, "Lizard person," she says. She runs that hand through her hair, "I'm wearing a hologram disguise," she explains. She still doesn't know how to turn it off, though; the wig continues to be firmly fixed in place. 

Jamie waves, "We think I have some kind of psychometry," he says, "I remembered something really vividly, from the perspective of someone who looked nothing like me earlier. And I think I can tell when someone is a shapeshifter?" He adds uncertainly. 

"Psychic," Robin states. He pauses, "And apparenly I've moved way faster than I should have been able to at least twice."

Caine shrugs when it's his turn, "I haven't noticed anything," he says. Then he nods towards the hallway, "The room's in the study," he offers.

Felix nods. "I am a half-elf and Diviner Mage. Henry, take the explanation from here?" He will follow Caine's lead.

"Sure, do you guys have any questions?"

Caine will lead Felix down the hallway and into the study, where they will find that the bookshelf is covering the hidden door again. He crouches down in front of the desk and searches for any irregularities in the wood. Not finding any, he runs his hands over it, until something gives a little click, and the bookshelf starts sliding out of the way. 

Once inside the armoury Caine gestures to the items on the walls, "They're all the same, so far as I can tell," he says evenly. 

Robin waits for Caine to get out of earshot before speaking, "So can you guys help us find Caine's dad?" He asks. 

Felix approaches... there is a staff on his hand where there wasn't one. He waves and a circle of runes appears in front of him. He removes his eye-patch. Where the eye was supposed to be, there is... it's like looking at a galaxy.

"Huh... I think I can tell what they do, at least in a way that let us test them without being afraid of blowing ourselves up."

"We should, that's exactly the kind of thing Felix does. Uh, Felix's class is Diviner Mage, which sort of represents the DM. His powers are finding-adventure-and-give-advice focused."

"The poor thing was so bored, staying behind when we would have all the fun."

"Hey, yeah, did you guys find anything interesting when you split up?" Jamie asks, reminded. He gestures at the scanner, "We have a map of possibly interesting sites, but we haven't visited most of them." 

Caine hums. Robin would probably say something about the relative goodness of not being blown up, but all Caine says is, "Thanks." 

He looks over at the empty part of the wall, "Can you tell if we have any of the plastic weapons left?" He asks. 

Related, he curses himself for being so distracted as to not grab the weapon the shapeshifter had been threatening him with. 

"What do you mean with plastic weapons?" Regardless he creates more cool runic light show.

"We might have found another alien, but I didn't get any danger vibe from them. Can I see the map?"

"Robin and Jamie mentioned then earlier," he says, "The shapeshifters are vulnerable to a type of plastic. The weapons fire streams of it." 

Erin pokes through the scanner's menu and pulls up the map, offering it to Henry. "I can read this language," she mentions, "But the others can't, and I couldn't before yesterday."

"Okay... give me a few minutes."

Felix sets to work.

"Yeah, same thing with me and Orcish. And the twins with Elvish." He says examining the thing. "The possible alien we saw wasn't in any of those places."

"Yeah, he could just have been racist against people of Orcish descent. Or slave-owners, which is pretty much the same, I guess."

"Wait, Orcs are slave owners?" She pauses, "Shouldn't we, um. Fix that?" 

Seeing as that subject is being tackled, Jamie turns to Henry, "Well, what kind of building was it? I might have seen it," he huffs, "Assuming it didn't appear out of nowhere like the Mercury Synthesis factories." 

Caine leans back against the doorway to watch Felix work. He briefly wonders whether Sam followed them back to the apartment; giant lizard or not, he might know something about this stuff. He knew how to work Erin's wig hologram, after all. 

"You can't! It's oppressing their culture! Just like how people of elven people are allowed to walk around naked."

"Try to be a little less... yourself, Gabe. And the current state of things is our best fix. Our cluster wasn't responsible for the fantasy races, and the one that... caused Orcs died before even got to their town. We managed to make the slavery thing be something like voluntary indenture and add a bunch of provisions against the mistreatment of slaves. And people act like they are out of satirical piece about respecting cultural minorities. It's insane."

"When people leave the affected areas they sort of return to normal. We've been mostly trying to get most enslave people out, it's easier than dealing with magic or trying to abolish the relevant laws." Fenris speaks after a long silent.

"I am sure can't complain about my master." He raises, showing the chain dangling from his wrists, while patting Henry on the shoulder.

Henry flinches.

Drawn into the conversation, Jamie tenses, and then makes himself relax. If Gabe's is as fine with it as he acts, then it's fine, right? Though, Henry looks less than enthused...

Jamie's not actually sure why the idea of forced servitude bothers him so much. Sure, he's had a few iffy foster families, but none of them were that bad. 

Robin blinks, looks between the shackles and the tusks. He's not sure whether or how to address that flinch, but, "How'd that happen?" He asks, "If it wasn't from your cluster... do things from the new cluster start applying to you once you're in them?" 

"Also," Erin interjects, "Elves actually walk around naked?" She glances at Fenris, thinking back to the question he's asked about opinions, "I know you said, but..." She pauses, "And wait, does that mean you and your brother could wander around naked here and not get looked at twice? Or is it just in the cluster that's from?" 

"That question was meant to check if you group was the cluster. So far, the change never affects the cluster's episodic memories. And people would likely me look me twice, but because I am fit, young and attractive. Not because I am doing something illegal. And the thing only holds inside affected areas, in fact, if I leave an affected area while naked, I am likely to spontaneously acquire clothes."

"From what I remember. The nudity thing is like that in the US, Canada and Europe. I am pretty sure in places like the middle-east they don't allow it. Or at least that's what my altered brain remembers."

"Gabe is not part of our cluster, his mind was affected like everyone else's. And that level of information is pretty typical among the affected. Even tried to get him to search about the topic on Wikipedia, but that only got us an error message."

"So you can tell affected people about the changes? Though I'm sure most would think we were crazy if we brought it up," she admits.

"Yeah," Robin says, "And who would we even tell?" 

"What about Granny?" Jamie suggests. 

There's a moment's pause while the other two give him incredulous looks. He coughs sheepishly, "OK, never mind." 

"And the internet isn't affected," Robin says, moving on. "That's good. Is that good? It could be useful to research the stuff everyone's supposed to know. It sounds like the seeding blocks off a lot of stuff, though, so maybe it's not a good thing."

Robin is very determinedly steering the conversation away from the topic of nude elves. He's already embarrassed himself on that topic once, thanks, he's not going to do it again. He's been doing what is in his opinion a stellar job of ignoring the shirtless hot guy's... everything. He doesn't need any more mental images along those lines. 

"Yeah, you can tell people. But they react like you're crazy and often the changes are such that's hard to convince people? The fantasy races were publicly known, but everything else had degree of secrecy, which we are not sure is the magic adjusting or if it's a genre thing. But even the fantasy races don't feel... properly inserted in the world?"

"They don't like to show non-humans on TV because of racism, I don't see why is that such a weird thing to swallow." Says he of shiftlessness - who absolutely notice Robin staring.

"Who is Granny?"

"It sounds as though the magic does its best to keep from changing society too much, with the masquerades, and when it does make big, public changes, like the introduction of new species, it takes every excuse to cause as little fuss as possible."

"My grandma. She's... an experience. I'm almost afraid to wonder what the seed's done with her."

How can he have noticed any staring when he is definitely not staring, nope. 

"We all call her Granny because, besides the fact that she knows everything, she's also everyone's grandma. If you eat any of her cookies, she adopts you. She's like a fairyland of one."

"She might have your space magic powers," Fenris points out. "Any chance she could be dangerous with them?"

"Yeah, though it's hard to tell why it works like that. If it's a power constraint, a computational constraint or something else. It definitely doesn't appear to care about changing people's minds too much."

Robin makes a so-so gesture, tipping his hand side to side, "Eh. Depends on what you mean by dangerous? She probably won't be very... I don't know the word. Careful? Respectful of other peoples' minds?"

"Ethical," Erin offers, "And I agree. She likely wouldn't do anything malicious with anything she learns, but." She shrugs, "I'm not sure I like the idea of her with telepathy. She'd be well-meaning, but that wouldn't mean she wouldn't be reading everyone's minds."

Jamie grimaces, at both Erin's words and Henry's, replying to the latter with, "Why spend energy making a believably integrated society when you can just rely on racism, right?" 

"Ugh," Is all what Henry wants to comment on Granny. "We can send myself and Felix. We all are more mentally resistance than the average person, but that's mostly against being influenced." To Jamie, he says. "Well, speaking as someone who used to be another kind of bi-racial I actually think the societies are surprisingly well integrated. But this thing clearly has the power to create little pockets of paradise and instead uses it to re-enact common YA tropes."

"Not that I disagree, but I might need her help to figure out this psychic stuff, if she really is like me." He pauses, "Though, I wouldn't be surprised to find out she isn't. Despite her busybody habits, I actually have a better source of mysterious mind powers, in that I have no idea who my mom is." 

"That's a good point," Erin agrees, "If this things runs off narratives like that, having a mystery parent is basically asking for it." She grins at Robin, "I bet you're secretly alien royalty." 

"You might think that's funny, but that's exactly how it works. So far every town has at least one royal of some sort among the seeding cluster."

"My favorite was the Prince of Atlantis from the hero city. Gotta love a guy that walks around in only speedos. I totally felt like committing some crimes just to get his attention."

"Oh? Who's your royal?" Robin asks. Don't read too much into that, he tells himself of Gabe's statement, sternly.

Erin snorts, side-eyeing Robin hard, "Is nudity a theme," she asks, "And is it likely to happen to us?" There's lots of sci fi tropes to work with there. The womens' uniforms in Star Trek: the Original Series is only the beginning. 

"Ish? Things that fascinate people. And in a fascinated in... sexual things."

Now Erin is wondering about Lizard Person reproduction. What a brave new world she lives in. 

She wants to tell Robin to calm down, honestly. The guy is cleary some flavour of gay, but he's also probably too old for them. Robin's already 18, but they're still in high school for another three months, whereas this group sure seems to be in their twenties, at least - it's hard to say if being other species, or magic, might have affected their aging. 

Recalling what they were talking about earlier, she brings up the topic again, "The other alien you saw? Do you remember anything about the building? Any unique features, or signs, or something?"

"Oh, right, sorry. Sometimes is hard to keep track of things."

He gives a description of the building. It's recognizable.

"He also forgot tell you that he is our mysterious royal, though in his case is more like the chosen one or something."

"That's because he doesn't like that part of his backstory. Not even his self that I remember like it that much."

"Hey, isn't that Caine's dojo?" Jamie asks of Henry's description. 

"You think it's Master Soren?" Robin wonders. He leans over the back of the couch, shouting towards the hall, "Hey, Caine, Soren's an alien!" 

Caine turns his head towards the door of the study, briefly, snorts, and then turns back to watching Felix work. 

Erin's lips gain a wry twist at Robin's actions, "Well," she says, "If he is royalty, I expect he'll have a lot to learn," she says. 

"I am Henry Oswald. The magic has decided to put me in the cliché role of the prophesied hero. The only thing I have to learn is rebuild the foundations of scientific knowledge, so I can manipulate this mess of physical laws into something more sensible."

"Henry, my dearest half-cousin, I love you, but you be cray."

"Personally, if it is royalty for us, I hope it's Erin," Jamie says, "The rest of us would hate it a lot more than she would." Especially if they couldn't just ignore it. 

Robin dangles half over the back of the couch, squinting into the hallway, "What's taking them so long in there, anyway," he wonders. 

"Felix's magic is rather slow-working."

"Anyway, who is Master Soren?"

Erin tugs on his shirt, "Get down from there before you fall off," she suggests. He rolls down into her lap petulantly, and she pats him on the head. 

"Master Soren owns a dojo about ten minute's walk from here," she explains, "Caine's been going since he was four."

"He's kind of a badass," Jamie agrees fondly. He pauses, "Soren too," he adds. 

Fenris notes the physical closeness. "You might actually like my kind of magic. Or at least the wolf totem."

"They are adorable, indeed. Anyway, I bet Sorean is the NPC we should talk to."

Jamie, perched on the arm of the couch like a bird, grins at Gabe, "We are the most adorable," he agrees. 

Robin looks up at Jamie, "Food?" He asks. 

Jamie snorts, "Fine," he says. He slides down from the couch and looks around the room, "Dietary restrictions?" He asks, "I was gonna make hamburger helper, but I can switch it up if someone's vegetarian or something."

Leaving that up to the guests, she follows up on Fenris' comment, "What does the wolf totem do?" She asks. 

Fenris sometimes is vegetarian, but not today. No food restrictions. 

 "It gives or boosts magic that affects your group. Or your pack. I can tell where my friends are for example and aim spells at them more easily."

"With the drawback that your emotions about them are stronger. More fondness. Also, more us vs. them mentality."

Erin smiles at the description, "That does sound useful," she agrees. She glances in the direction of the hallway, where various sounds can be heard coming from the kitchen, "It probably wouldn't be good for Jamie, though; he's already 'pack' oriented enough as it is."

"Those drawbacks could be pretty problematic," Robin agrees. Never mind Jamie, Erin's the only one of the four of them who probably wouldn't be too badly affected by that kind of change.

"I manage it, but it's definitely not for everyone."

Felix returns, presumably followed by Caine.

"Bad news, I am pretty sure Caine's dad took all the anti-shapeshifter weaponry. The good news, I think there are enough weapons and spare pieces that we can build some of our own."

"Great, now all we need is someone who knows how to build alien weapons," Jamie comments from behind them.

"Hey, maybe Master Soren knows someone," Robin suggests. 

"We still don't know that it actually is Master Soren," Erin reminds him, "It could have been one of the students."

Caine hums, "We won't get anywhere just speculating about it," he points out, "We can drop by the dojo after school is out." 

"We technically do know someone who can build alien weapons, but he is literally a super-villain."

"Also, outside of town. We probably shouldn't have the shapeshifting aliens unchecked for too long."

Something dings; Jamie vanishes into the kitchen again. 

"The dojo, then," Caine says, pleased to have a plan, though edgy about the all the waiting. The longer they take preparing, the more time his dad remains missing. He wanders further into the room and settles down on the far end of the couch, sighing when Robin slides his legs into his lap. 

Grinning at Caine's exasperation, Robin moves his legs and sits up between the other two, before turning to Felix, "So, how does that work?" He asks, "Do the villains come from people who were already pretty villainous before the seeding, or can anyone become one?" He's mostly wondering if they should be watching likely types for alien powers or something.

The sound of plates and cutlery clattering around can be made out from the doorway. "Uh, hey, could someone come help me carry these things?" Jamie calls.

"I will help." Gabe says, going kitchen-wards.

"I think people that the cluster has some sort of animosity towards is a stronger metric than any sense of villainy. But that isn't a hard rule, our cluster didn't get that. Doctor Projector was a teacher that everyone disliked. The super villain version was changed into a fallen mentor archetype. With lasers."

"Thanks!" He says to Gabe when he reaches the kitchen. He gestures at the stack of plates and cutlery, both of his hands busy with a large pot of hamburger, noodles and sauce. "So, is there, like, a combat benefit to shirtlessness or something? Or is it a personal choice?" He asks idly as he finishes stirring the food and picks it up. 

"I don't think there's anyone at school who's really hated, particularly," Erin muses. "But I suppose the shapeshifters could replace anyone, so that's not really the problem we have." 

"Yeah. It's also worth consideration to know... well, how they replace people in the sense of the shapeshifters being entirely new or being already existing people that are changed by the magic."

"Personal choice with a combat benefit! Am I being too distracting?"

"I had considered that problem, yes," Erin agrees. "If it's the latter we'll have to worry about the shapeshifters having hostages, but if not then we'll be harming and possibly killing otherwise innocent people who have become our enemies because of the seeding." She shakes her head, "I know which one I think is worse, but neither case is good."

"They have hostages either way," Caine points out, posture tense.

"Right," she agrees. "Hopefully the answer isn't 'both'."

Jamie shrugs, "Nah," he says, and indeed he's only abstractly appreciative of the display; he can't deny that Gabe's good looking, but he's not compelled to stare or anything. "I was wondering since I figured you must have been kind of cold outside. It's only April, after all." This being southern Ontario it's not freezing or anything, but it can't be more than 10 degrees out. 

As he talks he scrapes the hamburger helper into a large bowl. He then drops the pot into the sink with the pan and hefts the bowl into his left arm, grabbing a serving spoon and a roll of paper towel with his right. 

Gabe shrugs and takes part of the load. "I appreciate distracting guys and I have cold resistance."

"Anyway, besides the dojo and the places in the map, do you think we have another lead?"

"That would be really useful," he says, a bit envious. Being cold resistant enough to go around shirtless in the winter would make his hobbies so much easier. He's not entirely sure what's so distracting about shirtlessness, though; it's not like Gabe has anything he hasn't seen before. Even the abs - Jamie's seen Caine naked plenty of times by now. 

His other questions - about the slavery thing - are both none of his business and still unnerving him in how much it bothers him, so he leads Gabe back into the living room rather than asking. He sets the bowl down on the coffee table, snags a plate and fork from Gabe's pile, serves himself, and settles down on the couch.

"Well," Robin says thoughtfully, "We should take a closer look at Erin's place, I think," he suggests. "We only looked at a few rooms before we came here to talk to Mr Atten about all the weird. But we still found Erin's med tech and that her lizard is now an alien lizard. If her parents are lizard people like she is, who knows what they might have kicking around the house?" 

"And we should see if we can figure out whether Robin's grandma is psychic," she reminds them. 

Gabe grins at Jamie's comment and then serves himself and Henry.

Henry accepts it. "Should we split up to cover more ground? Also, Jamie's family wouldn't provide any leads?"

The teens all trade glances. Jamie grimaces, "Uh," he says, "I'm an orphan - a foundling, in fact - and my foster parents..." he shrugs, "I basically just live with Erin and Caine." 

"We should still check, though," Robin says, slipping an arm around Erin to squeeze Jamie's arm. "If they've turned into evil aliens or something you'll probably want to stop going back for inspections." 

"As for splitting up," Erin says as she fills a plate for herself, "It's probably a good idea. You were saying we should send two of you in particular to check Robin's grandmother, right?" She settles back on the couch so Caine and Robin can get some food, "Then maybe Robin could go with you, and the rest of us could split up to take a look at the dojo and check my house?" 

"Uh..." they can see his cheeks turn a darker gray. "Can't walk around away from me in a foreign country, without a written permission that we didn't have the time to acquire."

"Same plan, but Gabe goes with Henry and Robin. If it turns out that his grandmother is hostile, Felix will be less helpful in a fight than Gabe."

Erin stuffs a forkful of food in Robin's mouth befote he can say anything. The guy clearly doesn't want to talk about it, and nothing Robin has to say is likely to help. 

"Sounds like a plan," she agrees mildly. 

Robin chews mulishly, then grudgingly moves on, "Caine and Erin should go to the dojo, then, and Jamie can come with us. We can meet up at Erin's after." 

"Sounds like a plan."

They can spend the rest of the time eating and talking about classes. Felix can summon a book "The Diviner Mage Guide to The Changed World" from thin air, which various charts and class explanations. Classes have levels and each level increases your health and mana, gives you ten points that you can spend mostly in attributes (like strength) or skills (like being good at using an ax). How efficient a point is at making you better at those things depends on your class, race or "sub-class". For example, a warrior will get more physically strong than a Magus by spending the same amount of points. In the first level and every three levels thereafter you get some sort of class feature, which is usually customizable to some degree, like picking a sub-class (which expands on what your class can do).

It's very D&D.

So it is. Caine leans forward after the initial information has been explained, "And you can teach these abilities to us," he states. He pauses, "Can you tell us more about what the Champion and Saint classes entail, if they don't necessarily involve gods?"

"We can teach some abilities to you, yes. But in practical terms, what we do is give you a few pointers and then you do something that earns your first class level. Champions and Saints embody or at least perform virtues through vows and living up to ideals. Saints in particular also benefit from proselyting or inspiring others."

"How do we do this, then?" Robin asks, "Can you get us started before we leave? And what kind of thing do we have to do to earn our first level, are we talking getting good enough at the skills for that class, or defeating a bunch of enemies, or what?" 

"And, what kind of virtues do you mean? Are there known virtues, or are they whatever the person believes is virtuous?" 

"There is the matter that we would want to get a better sense of you first. Both to see which class you fit, but also if you would be responsible with more powers. On the topic of setting it up. Time varies for setting it up, there has been at least one case where all it took was Gabe shouting some instructions in the middle of a goblin attack. But usually it's a few hours. There is the additional issue that while I can teach anyone any class, you can only teach your own class to others and there is no multi-classing. It's possible to switch classes, but it takes considerable longer. It's possible to earn class levels with only intense training alone, but combat makes it much faster."

"It doesn't have to be to the death. Though, picking up fights in a bar works better than, say, do a wrestling match with a few friends."

"Yeah, that. It's usually much better if you are trying to win in a way related to class skills. You can try convince the hypothetical bar fighters to stop fighting by trying to convert them into being pacifists or something if you want to be a Saint."

"Both kinds of virtue work. It's more about the commitment to the concept."

"So then, real experience is better than mock experience, or theoretical, right?" He confirms. "Makes sense. And I don't blame you for wanting to give it a bit before you hand us magical powers."

Caine hums, "My guess... Well, I don't know all the classes in dungeons and dragons. Only the basics. Even if I did, your classes aren't the same." He pauses, glances around at the other three teens, "Jamie would be a rogue. Erin some kind of cleric." He's not so sure how well she'd suit this 'Saint' class, however. Erin's a healer at heart, but she'd never really be comfortable confined to pacifism. Which shouldn't be a surprise to Fenris, at least, considering the fact that she was holding a shapeshifter at gunpoint when he met them. 

He looks Robin over, thoughtfully, "I suppose Robin might be a druid, or a warlock," he muses. 

He's not sure about himself; ranger? Monk? Fighter? Paladin? 

Probably not Paladin, he admits to himself. 

"Is the Saint class a healer's class, then, if they're meant to be pacifists?" 

"Rogues translate into either Tricksters and Experts, the latter one is a bit like a bard in the jack of all trades sense. Both druids and warlock translate into the Shaman, though you could make a Saint that fits the concept. Saints don't need to be pacifists, but they are the best healer class, yes. You can take a vow of that lets you injure your enemies as long you heal them afterwards. And even the pacifist vow lets you attack things that don't experience pain, though it doesn't let you indirectly harm living things that way."

"You can technically get someone that can heal out of all classes, not necessarily good healing, mind you."

She smiles, "That does work better," she admits happily. 

He perks up at the bit about Shamans, then smirks at Erin's pleased smile. So kind, yet so scary! Erin likes being dangerous to her enemies, as many would-be middle school bullies had learned to their detriment.

Back on topic, "Shaman- that's Fenris, right?" He glances at the quiet twin, "Awesome!" 

"Ok, how do Tricksters and Experts work, then? All I know about Bards is that they do music," he admits. 

"Correct," says the quiet twin.

"Tricksters learn - appropriately enough - various tricks which are... supposedly not magical, but obviously work through some magical ability to accurately do things. Like, being excellent at dodging, distracting enemies, finding traps or firing implausible ricocheting shots. Experts work similarly, but get something that are more akin to concrete knowledge and can branch more. Ironically, they are not that great at magic singing like a bard, that's more a Saint thing."