Damian slouched in his chair, slowly spinning his drink while Fiona asked the billion dollar question. It was a question that he figured a more experienced student like Adi or Evelyn or even Alice could answer. Most of the group probably wouldn't have a clue or at the very least he... and Derrek perhaps wouldn't. He chipped in anyway. "Maybe she's not being really cryptic and weird and is actually talking about demons, which we've already been fighting anyway." He almost hoped it wasn't demons, it felt like every other day they were fighting for their lives against them and 'the war has barely begun' sounded like they would have to deal with demons 24/7, probably armies of them too. He enjoyed sending them back to the inferno, but an army would be too much. "Can't someone just ask her?"

Heather walked into the tea shop. Heather's appearance was a mess. Her hair pointed in every direction, she had bags under her eyes, her shirt wasn't tucked in, and oddly one of her shoes weren't tied. She had her backpack on it was unzipped slightly revealing a large amount of books inside. Heather walked over to the counter and looked up from the book she was reading.
"Um, Yes... I need 4 double shot espressos and one yuanyang to go, please."
Heather remained standing there until the drinks were handed to her. She then handed the girl a card to pay for the drinks. Heather then with a huff put the book into her backpack. People could hear her murmur to herself about leaving it unzipped as she zipped it up. With her hands free she gathered up the drinks and turned around. Then she noticed the group gathered at the table.
"We don't have a meeting for like..." Heather jumbled the drinks around as she fished out her pda looking at the calendar. "Oh look at that! It is today.Time does fly when your reading some good books." Heather made her way to an empty seat before unloading all of her drinks in front of her on the table. She then grabbed and downed the first espresso before reaching up and turning her hearing aids on.

---

Unlike the other kids Id easily shrugged off Miss Rachel's comment. Id went about her "normal" life causing chaos where ever she could. Id went down to the s**** quite frequently to fuse and test how long she could maintain it. This usually ended in the forceful blast and Id laying on her back exhausted. As she had learned after everyday of training she spent the next day regaining energy. This style however hurt how much she was able to harass others.
A week before the meeting at Tea Tyme Id realized this and began to invoke her reign again. She made sure that the bullies at the school still feared her. Before expanding outward back into her turf.
She was finally able to expand her area of harassment due to the motorcycle she had recently gotten. When Id got word of the meeting she decided to show up. The day of the meeting Id got on her cycle pulling her goggles over her eyes. Then she put in one of her earbuds before speeding towards the tea shop. When she drove up her motorcycle could be heard inside due to it's powerful engine, she came to a screeching halt before pulling her goggles back atop her head. She began walking into the tea shop as she did she removed her earbud and shoved it back into her pocket.
Id paused a moment at the door as Ego flew down and landed on her shoulder. She walked in the shop late as usual. She looked at Damian as he finished his sentence.
"Why?" Id said as she made her way to the table. "Why are you all letting this bother you? This is just some normal Ms. Killjoy mumbo jumbo." Id leaned on an empty chair at the table. "And more realistically if we just ask her she'll just respond with more riddles."
Id then flipped the chair around before sitting down. She rested her arms on the backrest that was now in front of her.

"Oh," Derrek raised his head out of his arms and off the table as the group roused to life. "Some sort of demon war huh? Man the little bit of research I did do is bunk then. I thought she meant the war we had over in the middle east not that long ago." He shrugged and placed his head back down.


"Actually, they could be one in the same." It was Tsubaki's turn to speak, but she did so in a cautious whisper. "Miss Rachel has all but said that this is the beginning of another War of Souls, and they are normally begun with or run parallel with a human war, or some great loss of human life at least. And I checked with my mom overseas, and a lot of the shrines in Kyoto are seeing increased spiritual and demonic activity. Much like Darren, the veil is thinner around Kyoto, and activity picks up there when a War of Souls is imminent. Though, it sounds like we're having it worse here."

She looked down as stirred her tea once or twice before taking a sip. Being a bearer of bad news wasn't something she had been particularly looking forwards to, and it weighted on her to be such. "It would be foolish of us not to accept it as truth until we could confirm otherwise, at least."

Phora had learned to listen to Tsubaki. In fact, she had superhuman senses, so she listened to just about everything that was happening in the tiny little tea shop. Naturally, she wanted to know if the staff there had overheard what she had heard about the... 'War of Souls.' She hovered over to Tsubaki and tugged her sleeve. "You know, Tsubaki, I'm not sure if Derrek is really the best person to talk to about the war of souls. Maybe it would be best to whisper your thoughts about this subject into Alice's ear or something."

Evelyn nodded in agreement with Tsubaki as she took a sip of lavender tea. She let the aroma soothe her senses as she felt the warmth flow through her body. Darren's winter was a lot more brutal than what she was used to in the Alps. Pulling her pashmina closer around her body, she spoke:

"My father has mentioned something similar taking place in Rome," she said while recalling the Skype chat she had had with her father a few nights ago. Supposedly, supernatural events were happening at a rate that had not been seen since the Second World War. Random attacks committed by seemingly healthy and mentally sane individuals were quite frequent events in the Italian news; her father had implied that these might be possessions.

"It makes sense," she continued "There is a demon prince somewhere in Darren for whatever reason" Her expression darkened, "If we are entering a new era of war, we may be facing very dark times ahead. While spiritual activity is a major component of these events, the most disastrous result is that the artes war with each other. My great grandfather says that when wickedness wins, an arte falls into darkness. To this day, none of the fallen artes have ever been redeemed."

"Wait, what?!" exclaimed Fiona "Demon prince?!"

"Yes," spoke up Adi candidly "We discovered that some demon which considers itself a prince has taken a human host"

Fiona's blood ran cold as she remembered her own experience from the winter ball. Still, she was quite shaken from the experience, being trapped and tortured in your mind while you watched yourself commit horrible acts of violence. She wouldn't wish that upon anyone else.

"Th-That's horrible..."she said quietly, almost unable to speak.

"It's almost as concerning as something else I have noted," said Evelyn in a grave tone "I have not sensed the presence of any ghost besides Sir William within a great distance of Arclight Academy. It's almost like they've all congregated on a single region in the south end of town."

"Great," Daniel said. "A war between artes. I'm the only Vitri in the school and Evelyn has been exceedingly cruel to me. I don't want any part in this stupid war anyway. Since I clearly haven't been useful enough for Ms. Stone Cold Killer, I'd rather just leave the school and focus on solving this issue so I can go back to studying. Has anyone seen Lotus? I miss her."

Alice laughed from her seat. "If Daniel leaves, I'm going with him. Calculus sucks, I want to burn more witches." She put a finger to her lips, humming thoughtfully. "The school is very secure, but while we're mulling about during class and waiting for missions, the demon prince and his minions are preparing to whipe us off the map. Strategically, we shouldn't be screwing around like a bunch of idiots."

Pity spread through Damian as he caught Fiona's reaction to the news of a demon prince in Darren. Seeing her so shaken now after her freedom shook him as he wondered of the horror of the experience. His thoughts drifted for a moment to Carter and Johnny, wherever the hell he was. He pondered how differently Johnny held up, how differently Carter... would've held up. He didn't doubt the experience changed them all, for worse. Damian felt a slight anger within him. Demons were easy to hate but the very act of possessing people bothered him more. He sighed and tried to shift his thoughts in an effort to relax. Anger would only be a nuisance here. In this discussion, cool heads were needed so he sipped his drink and shut his mouth. It wasn't difficult to turn his focus to something else. After all, Evelyn mentioned the cluster of ghosts in the south end of town. That was something he hadn't been able to pinpoint. Though he was well aware that Evelyn was obviously going to be more sensitive, he figured it was no excuse to not tune his own senses. He would just meditate more. There's always room for improvement, he thought as he sipped his drink.

"Grave news indeed..." Tsubaki mumbled as Evelyn finished and Daniel and Alice began their tirades. It bothered Tsubaki greatly every time Alice brought up witch hunting, but she was right about something.

"Actually," The meek girl suddenly interjected before lowering her volume again, "we don't have too. Wait for missions that is. Miss Rachel did a point you and Adi as leaders. Guides. Trainers. I'm sure if you assigned us missions as training, it wouldn't be outside your power. We have a possible one right now, courtesy of Evelyn. Finding out where the ghosts are gathering and why seems pretty important, and we have 3 Spiritum that would be perfect to scout it, with two of them able to fly and a third that can go invisible."

She looked over at Fiona and smiled before continuing, "Not that I'm volunteering anyone! But I mean... it kinda seems like if we don't figure out what's going on, it might be too late by the time Miss Rachel does. She probably thinking she's protecting us, but she's supposed to be training us for this exact thing, and we've show ourselves to be capable in small groups like this before, so it's not like we'd be in anymore danger then any other mission, or even the ball. Obviously we can't all go on recon, some of us don't have a powerful enough spiritual sense, or the right powers for it, but we can look for other sources of information, like Father Albright maybe, or anyone else that may know something. They don't have to be Omnivident."

While she left room for suggestions Derrek added, "Shoot, I mean, I doubt they'd be many clues left after all this time, but we could backtrack to places we've dealt with something before. Without a monster in the way finding any clues that remain should be a breeze."

Phora didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Tsubaki seemed strategically minded, but didn't seem to realize how much Alice was struggling. So, Phora tugged her sleeve again. "Alice's... umm, she doesn't know what to do after the crash... And she wasn't made for some huge war, she's a witchhunter... maybe we should let Daniel have a say. If it were my choice, I'd say we plan the main offensive later, and maybe try something they won't expect. I think it's too risky, we don't know where the demon prince really is." She smiled and bit into a pastry, which no one had noticed she had, and spoke more. "What if he is in this tea shop right now? You'd think we could sense him, right?" A loud crash could be heard as a waiter spilled a tray.

A waste of time, he thought. To his juniors, and perhaps even senior Pearson, who possessed no amount of discipline, the lack of action was getting to them. Then he chided himself. They had just come in to the awareness of the never-ending battle against demons and their kind. Yuriel had given him an appreciation of the magnitude of the conflict. It behooved him to let them come to terms with their new reality.

Adi paused to clarify the issue of a demonic prince before returning to his beverage. As it was, he doubted there was anything he could personally do to resolve the situation faster. Still what junior Yamikatsu mentioned was worthy of note. Dr. Dawn had foolishly left both him and senior Pearson somewhat in charge. The senior's sprite was correct however. Senior Pearson could in no way be considered qualified for the scale of the conflict. As for Adi himself, he simply boggled at their need for his guidance.

"I applaud your initiative junior Yamikatsu." He lead off with a compliment. "I never did receive a conclusion to the Mystorium and scrapyard incidents. Not to mention my own encounter with an Exitimus. Waiting is something you'll have to get used to though."

Though he had his doubts on Dr. Dawn's methods, Adi could at least trust in her power. Beings much more powerful than him played on a vastly different stage as Yuriel had shown. As a simple pawn all he could do was await his marching orders. That didn't preclude him from striving to sharpen himself of course.

"Perhaps regular patrols might alleviate your-"

Then something crashed in to the floor of the shop. Adi's gaze snapped in the direction of the noise, senses extended.

"Hold that thought," he said, abruptly getting up.

Fiona couldn't help but jump as the plate crashed onto the ground. All the talk of warfare, and demons was still quite a lot for her to handle. Still, she knew she had to be strong; what she had gone through, Fiona never wanted anyone else to go through it themselves.

Evelyn watched calmly from the side of her eyes, as Adi stood up to investigate; the timing of the crash was quite inauspicious. Her mind however, was mostly focused on the various things that had been brought up by the others around the table. She ignored Daniel's barb, self-pity would get him nowhere. She had to admit though, Tsubaki was right, they had yet to truly look into the missions which they had completed. Perhaps they were missing vital clues that could lead them into discovering this mystery and maybe prevent, or at least ,greatly hinder the war efforts of darkness.

"Ah, so it is here you have holed up" cackled the ever eccentric Ms. Ignianus, it was her sudden entrance which had caused the plate to fall from the tray of the young server. She pushed past Adi, while winking at Alice, as the old woman ungracefully pulled a chair against the floor to their table and sat beside Daniel.

"Daniel, my child," she said, completely disregarding any conversation that they had been having before "You have not come to visit me since school has picked up again. Did ol' Iggy do something to chase you away?" She nudged him playfully in the ribs with her bony elbow. Her face becoming a bit more serious, though her eyes still maintaining their mischievous glint, Ms. Ignianus turned her attention to the rest of the table:

"I've been meaning to meet with you all for quite some time, but little-miss-amber-eyes has been quite distracted, it seems. Nevertheless, I have come seeking a bit of a favour, you see, my friends have become a bit quiet as of late. They've grown distant, and much more difficult to hear. It's almost as if they're being drawn away, though I cannot imagine how..." her voice trailed off as she looked at the group, not entirely sure if they were interested.

Evelyn humoured the woman's arrival, but her presence always made her feel off. The old lady, or rather, the witch, had a very odd aura about her. She had fought various creatures and monsters throughout her life, and still, she found Ms. Ignianus creepy. What she alluded to however, seemed to corroborate with what she had been sensing as of late. She looked up at Adi and then to Li, watching to see how her competent seniors would deal with the woman.

Alice eyed Ignianus suspiciously. "What's in it for us?" She asked.

The old woman cracked a mostly toothless grin in reply to the girl's question: "Tut, tut! My dear, is it not your duty to handle such phenomena? Alas, it seems the latest generation of seers is plagued with selfishness" she said mockingly while placing her hand on her forehead dramatically.

"If it were anyone besides you, we'd be out the door already," Alice said pointedly.

The crone admittedly had Adi tensing up as she bypassed him with nary a thought. There was no evil or malice that lurked in her heart, save perhaps those born of senility. Even then, he could tell that she was setting the tone, dictating the terms under which battle was going to be taken. Negotiations were akin to such, itself being a form of conflict. Though with how his juniors looked up to him, and look up to him they did and not Senior Pearson, he sighed inwardly. Perhaps this was eternal curse to bear, forced in to doing the one thing he did not want to be. He turned to address Mrs. Ignacius.

"We would not know where your," Adi paused, "friends would have gone. Though I would surmise it is because of the demonic incursion bearing down on the city perhaps."

He was sure she knew at least that much. If she did not, then perhaps Adi had to stop overestimating others. Though he couldn't quite help himself, he simply had to tack on,

"I wonder what possessed you to think we could be the solution to your problems."

She clearly did not think much of youth these days and while her longevity could betray her power, it was also her ultimate limitation. The spirit was willing as the flesh itself failed.

"After all, we are simply ignorant children are we not? Perhaps you wished to teach us a life lesson?"

Confrontational perhaps but Adi much preferred she cut to the heart of the matter. The reason for her visit was explained. Adi wished to know what purpose her words served. Responding to the needling of his fellow club members was almost an afterthought. Though it was another reason to skip the niceties, he reasoned.