"Alright." Lloyd said as he closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. Fusing seemed easy as he didn't feel it. Though he didn't know if he were supposed to feel anything. Undoing it though for the first time seemed as if Grayson had been literally clawing through his brain and trying to rip it in half. He grunted heavily as he undid the fusion. Lloyd and Grayson had been separated. "What's wrong?" He asked as he flung his eyes open and Grayson entered his diminutive form and perched himself on Lloyd's shoulder. He allowed Alice to answer Lotus's question as he didn't have the answer to it.

Alice tore her eyes away from Lloyd to look at Lotus. "You naturally have a lot of energy," Alice said. "Like me! But you're still a beginner, so yes, if the fusion doesn't end soon you'll be exhausted. However, you could probably take naps in that form and wake up feeling full of energy again. Like a tiger!" She turned back towards Lloyd, who was still cross-legged. "You alright? I need you to find Daniel for me and bring him back here! He's in a lot of trouble! Lotus's senses will be a big help, but I need you to keep an eye on her, make sure she doesn't cause any trouble."

Lloyd stood up. This would technically be his first mission since transferring. "Very well Lotus, lead the way!" This would prove to be interesting. "In trouble? For what?" He asked curiously. What has Daniel managed to get himself into?

"You'll find out why he's in trouble soon enough!" Alice said with a rather threatening smile. "He's not in appollon, by the way. When you get into the school, you should sense something strange. Just follow that feeling."

"Yeah, I spent most of the day reading outside." Logan lied as he took the text he had been offered. Historical fiction was his favorite genre, but something told him there was more to this book than that. He began to leaf through it casually, doing his best to disguise his interest.

"How about you guys?" He asked.

Adam smiled, completely oblivious to the twitching or demeanour of Logan and Bernice smiled brightly as she softly said "Hello" once Logan had arrived and greeted the group.

"We were studying for our history exam coming up, and Bernice over here stumbled on that weird book" stated Adam.

"It's sort of like that book I found earlier on the history of Darren" she said softly, reminding him of the book she had given him not too long ago. "Except this book is definitely a lot more...fantastical..." she paused, not entirely sure whether she wanted to continue, as she thought the contents of the book were quite unbelievable, at least to her. "It implies that during the War for Independence, there were other supernatural forces attempting to take advantage of the chaos of war. Apparently, there are certain locations where..."she paused once again "the fabric of the living and the dead are thin, Darren city was believed to be one of such places, of course it was Arclight at this time though. Anyways, these malevolent forces attempted to open a 'Hell's Gate' to the underworld, so that they might take over the world or something. Thankfully, we were saved by a group of...clergymen...who defeated the forces and prevented them from opening the gate."

Bernice looked around at the rest of the table and then shrugged. "I know, it sounds crazy"

"It sounds AWESOME!" exclaimed Adam, forgetting for a moment he was in a library.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Damian found his dorm room empty, Daniel was probably still in Apollon, as his bed was still spread from the morning that they had left. As he walked into the room, Damian sensed something in the air, something alien, a bit peculiar. He sneezed. Perhaps it was just dust?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A tiny bell rang as they entered the cosy shop. It's walls were painted warm yellows, and greens, with various types of teas written in cursive on the wall. On the very back wall, behind the counter, was an entire wall covered with jars of tea, meanwhile the counter itself displayed various different deserts from all over the world. Small round tables surrounded with two to three chairs were placed about the room, with small tea light candles in the middle where the pot would be placed.

As Evelyn led Maximilian to a table, where a lilac vine hung overhead overgrowing from a planter that had been placed on an elevated shelf, a young man with an apron walked from the back room. Immediately his eyes lit up as he saw Evelyn getting up to go to the counter.

"Little Evelyn!" he said excited, running from behind the counter and crushing the girl in a tight embrace.

"Hello Harrison" she replied, mildly gasping for air.

"I was wondering when you'd stop by, your sister told me you were going to Arclight"

"Yeah, sorry...I've been busy" she looked to the side, and Harrison looked up having just noticed Maximilian. His expression changed, as he combed his fingers through his auburn hair, and his stormy grey eyes took on a protective glare.

"He's a friend!" exclaimed Evelyn, already seeing where he was going, and immediately his demeanour calmed down. He walked over to the boy and extended his hand,

"Hello, my name is Harry Kline, and I'm the owner of Tea Tyme. Any friend of Evelyn is a friend of mine. Do you have any teas that you'd like to try?"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Once again, Ashley found herself suspicious, how did he know that Ms. Ignianus was a real witch? She shook her head, she would have to have a word with him later about his sources. He was right though, if there was anyone who would have the ingredients they needed for such a spell it would be her. She secretly wished that they didn't have to see her though, the witch creeped her out.

"Very well," she said as she took out a ring of keys and placing one that looked particularly old with a rune inscribed on it and placed it into the lock of the door and turned it. Opening the door, Ashley and Daniel entered the Mystorium.

"Oh my, should you be here?" spoke an old voice from immediately behind them, Ashley refused to jump, quite accustomed, (as one could be with the old crone), to the woman's tactics. Suddenly, behind the counter in front of them stood Ms. Ignianus with her staff, tapping it on her crystal ball. "Quite a chase. Quite a chase," she said with a chuckle. "Hurry hurry, don't delay"

"We're looking for rare ingredients of a spell" stated Ashley calmly.

"Yes, I know, I know," she said waving her bony hands dismissively at the girl "My friends have told you've made quite a ruckus. What do you desire?"

"We need the moss of a henge, and" she paused "The blood of a halfbreed?" Ms. Ignianus began to cackle loudly, for a woman of such short stature she sure had a loud laugh, it almost seemed to echo throughout the store, or were those other laughs from the unseen?

"Blood magic? Turning from your white witch ways?" she said with a sly smile "It is the second darkest of all magicks, this is quite interesting," she rubbed her chin, amused, "Now, I can get you your grass, but the blood, is quite rare and even I cannot obtain it. Halfkin are quite rare these days." She snapped her neck in Daniel's direction "Tell me green eyes, what will you do now?"

Ashley placed a strange key into one of the doors and opened it to reveal the Emporium. Daniel was amazed. "Magic is so cool," he said as they entered the store. "Who makes these keys?"

The emporium was filled with all sorts of goods. Daniel had no idea what effects most of them had. Every time he came into the shop he left with a huge bag of everything interesting. Now he didn't even have to leave the school to get here. He could easily access the shop now, anytime he wished.

It was hard to get Ashley to tutor him, especially because she only practiced white magic. White magic was useful, and the beginner-level spells came easy to him, but there was an entire world of magics out there to explore. He was very eager to learn the arts, and his Omnivident powers fascinated him as well.

Ms. Ignianus was clearly a master of many forms of witchcraft. Maybe he should seek a kind of apprenticeship under the old woman. He could visit her every day now, and it was doubtful that Alice would be able to defeat her in the worst-case scenario.

Ms. Ignianus made a strange, cryptic comment almost as soon as they entered the shop. Perhaps that was why Ashley didn't like the old woman much. Or perhaps it was how she could throw her voice to anywhere in the room. Even so, Ashley gave her their request in stride. The witch's answer was disappointing.

"No halfbreed blood? Exactly how rare are halfbreeds, and what are they?" Daniel asked. "I guess my main goal is to learn more about magic. But it's not safe for me at the school. That's why we were trying to summon a creature from the ether, to protect us. Would you teach me more about magic? Since we're probably not about to come across halfbreed blood anytime soon, I need to at least be able to protect myself. Please teach me!"

From Middle Earth to Outer Space, all kinds of humanoid contraptions seemed to line the hallway before Derrek. All had their quirks, but it was honestly not Derrek's forte to fiddle around with things. Not that he would know anything about these things, he never did work on the car, or whatever every day thing would translate here. And of course he wouldn't fit into any of them, do to his body shape, so no Gunman adventures for him.

...

Oh wait, wasn't he a Dormitory? Yeah. So these were Medieval Battle Bots, controlled by people's wills. That was kind of cool an all, but all in all, messing with the magical medieval equivalent of race car wasn't Derrek's speed, he never had the father/son car fixing cliche. No, this might be something to mess with when he had free time and was awake, but for now he felt like talking a nap. But first, he would need to move a statue out of place again. This could potentially be his own personal Batcave.

---

So, not exactly as planned, but it seemed to have worked, with the stallion showing something other then apathy towards her. Standing up and brushing herself off, Tsubaki could see the horse was drawing what seemed to be sigils into the dirt. She didn't know exactly what the one that was completed was, but she seemed to understand the meaning, the words it translated to. She decided she'd try it. Taking a step back, she began her common motions to create a sigil, then filled in the details before softly speaking, "Lux, share your light."

The command cause a Japanese paper lantern on a small handle to appear for Tsubaki, producing a warm glow all around.

She smiled a bit before musing, "Share your light. Did you do that on purpose? So what's this next-"

The new lantern vanished post-haste as Tsubaki nearly went prone once again to dust away the second sigil. It was one she was familiar with, but not one she was comfortable even knowing.

"Sorry, I mean, thank you for teaching me Lux, and all, but I already know this one." She gestured to the ruined form quickly before continuing, "So, if you don't mind, I'm not going to try this one out, but Lux is nice, so, again, thank you very much!"

She bowed too many times; she knew she was being really rude, but that sigil freaked Tsubaki out. She understood why it was created, by why it was so important that she learned it was just beyond her. It hung over her like a bad omen. She'd have to light a candle when she got back to her room, that is, if it wouldn't bother Sangeeta to much.

OoC: Sorry this took so long, my Agraphia was killing me for some reason with this one.

Lotus looked at Alice almost overjoyed that she could stay in this form for a while.but a couple of questions came to the front of her mind. " Umm. You want me to go into the school... Like this? Or am i like ghosts and only certain people can she me in this form?" she said motioning to her feline body. "I honestly have no idea how I changed into this form or how to change back." Lotus didn't want to change back but she knew she would need to eventually. She was saddened by the fact of not knowing the next time she could 'wolf out'. But nevertheless she was prepared to change back.

"Pleased to me you." Maximilian gave the store owner a slight nod. He was quite weird-ed out by Mr.Kline's reaction to him and was unsure of just what his relationship with Evelyn was... As far as tea was concerned Maximilian was quite unsure of what he wanted. No matter how hard he thought he was unable to draw the name of a leaf or blend to his brain, possibly because he was still caught off guard by the owner's reaction to him.

"I'm quite partial to all kinds of tea, so I think anything will do." He shrugged. "Just pick something for me that you personally like, I'm sure it'll be great." He tried to give Mr.Kline a straighter answer in hopes that it might shoo him away.

"I thought it was obvious," Alice began. She smiled before continuing. "But I guess I'll slow it down for you. No, you definitely shouldn't run around the school in that form, Chester Cheeta. Reversing the effects of fusion is simple, but unpleasant. If you focus a bit, you can feel the difference between Dot's soul and yours. All you have to do is separate them, and kick Dot's soul out of your body. You're going to hate it." Someone put their hand on Alice's shoulder. She turned around to see Phora, whose cheeks turned a rosy red.

"Will you f-fuse with me?" The pixie said nervously.

Alice smiled warmly. "It's been a while, hasn't it? Come over here. I need some new clothes anyway." They held hands and closed their eyes. The wind picked up and light began to gather at their feet. It travelled up their bodies, until they were enveloped completely in light. After a few seconds, the light drew away and only Alice remained. She had sprouted large butterfly wings from her back, ripping the back of her clothes, and sharp claws were now where her nails used to be. Her face was a more sharp and "pixiesque" beauty, though it was still easy to recognize Alice. She sighed deeply as she opened her eyes. "Don't you guys get the feeling that this is how you were truly meant to be?"

Lloyd nodded. It truly had been exactly like how Alice mentioned. After the flashback, he and Grayson were now more close than ever before. "So are we planning on heading out on our mission?" He inquired.

-----

These 'clergymen' sounded awfully like the Omnivident. Why was it in the school library and not in the s**** or in Apollon? He had to learn more about its history. He was Omnivident after all so it made sense. "Did you say if there were any more books like these?"

Lotus knew that her senses were sharpened only due to the fusion. She also didn't know when she would be able to change back to her animalistic form.
"What if I don't want to change back?" Lotus asked a slight amount of hostility in her voice. She could feel the primal urges beginning to rise within. She shook her head. "This is the closest I've ever been to my beloved felines. And I want to stay!" She stood on her back legs to increase her size, much like a wild tiger would do to intimidate a a predator.

Alice -- or was it Phora? -- giggled at Lotus. "I say we beat her up." She said. "No, no, let's keep it civil." She glanced at the cat-girl and giggled some more. "Aww, but look at her just raring to go! She doesn't know what she's doing, Phora. But it's cute! Can't we just rough her up a little?" Alice played with her hair a little bit and studied Lotus. A little smile crept across her face. "This isn't like you at all, Alice. Frankly, I'm disappointed. What would your friends say if they saw you being so soft? B-but we have work to do!" Alice found herself balanced in a fighting stance, even as she said that. Phora's excitement was clearly taking its toll on her. "It's dark out already. It would be like hunting! Besides, you can't be driving them like slaves all the time! We'll pick up the slack later." Alice weighed this in her mind for a second. But only for a second. "Deal!" She said as she took flight and charged Lotus at an incredible speed.

Lotus saw Alice lunge at her. Memories of bring out matched by the fusion rushed through Lotus's mind. Last time the being was to fast for Lotus. Lotus, hoping to at least lessen the pain of the blow, moved to the side. Much to Lotus's surprise she moved completely out of the way with time to spare. Lotus realized Alice may have strength and experience, but lotus had speed and plentiful energy. Lotus lunged up onto a pillar,holding on with her claws, as she dis she knocked down the torch. It crashed to the ground extinguishing itself.