((Continued from Internet Exorcism.))

Stupid.

Stupid. Stupid.

Stupidstupidstupidstupid! The internet never forgives, never forgets! There were probably GIFs of her stupidity, her incriminating stupidity, from here to Timbuktu!

Ghost raced through New York tipping trash cans and newspaper stands in her wake. Skirts flipped, hats were unseated, cars quivered at her passing.

The speed felt good. Recklessness felt good.

Did she kill him?

That thought stopped her mild rampage short.

Oh no. What if she did kill him? Her life was over. Everything she'd built was, in one moment, destroyed. And she couldn't even blame anyone else.

Ghost was surprised to hear herself hiccup. Was she... crying? She was too angry to be crying, surely.

For Isabel, heading out to wander around the city was always a bit of a gamble. Either people recognized her and somehow thought it was still a good idea to get the cops involved, or else she was spotted and some fool with an serious misunderstanding of their mortality thought it would be a good idea to poke the bear and tease her about any number of events she was known for. They usually went for something maid-related while she settled for removing something important of theirs. But since Zephyr had taken and interest in her and put certain restrictions in place her options for retaliation were more limited than she would have liked. It was usually easier to put the fear of god into someone and give up for the day than acting on her murder urges and having to deal with the windy consequences afterward.

Speaking of windy there seemed to be a rather strong breeze kicking up. The gust was strong enough that she could hear car windows rattling and unhappy civilians protesting as their hair and clothing were mussed up. And despite the fact that the sun was out in full force Isabel couldn't help but instinctively glance up to make sure there wasn't a storm rolling in. And as her luck would have it, no sooner had she angled her face upward to check that she got a face full of water as a condensed cloud passed by.

Her head quickly dropped and her hands rose to pull wet hair out of her face as she stood there and gaped like a fool at the sudden soaking. This had definitely not been on her list of what to expect when a known murderer took a stroll through the streets. When she looked back up to locate the source of her shower she spotted what looked like a cloud hanging close the the ground and raining gently in place.

There was no way to stop herself. It was just much too curious, no matter how angry she'd gotten over being splattered. People were starting to skirt around the anomaly and risk walking in the street to avoid the low-hanging cloud, which made it all that much easier for Isabel to get closer and examine the thing.

Was that... a hiccup? Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Please god let this not be some kind of weird crying mutant cloud. She couldn't deal with crying people, nevermind sobbing forces of nature. Sobbing forces of nature that had just drenched her in its weird sky tears. Gross.

"Um... there, there?" she addressed the thing, feeling a little foolish to be poorly consoling a cloud. "Please stop crying all over the sidewalk, strange floating cotton ball? Or else maybe take it to the sky like a normal cloud?"

> "Um... there, there?"

Oh no. The voice was kindly, though clearly uncomfortable with the notion of giving comfort. Comfort was what she wanted, but it wasn't what she deserved right now. It especially wasn't helping her hold on to that anger that was almost kind of sort of keeping the tears at bay.

"No don't." Her voice was watery and strained. "If you are nice to me right now I'm gonna loose it completely."

She could float up to the sky. Ghost hadn't really thought of that. She probably was in the way down here. She should just go up and up and up and never come back down.

Instead she moved her little cloud self up toward the kind stranger's shoulder. She would try not to rain down her misery there, but... well, she wasn't in a state to make any promises.

"I just need to... break something." Because, clearly, she hadn't broken enough things today already.

Oh good, the weepy weather didn't want Isabel to continue her awkward attempts at consoling it. On the other hand, the cloud being able to tell her to stop being nice to it made it clear that this was definitely most likely a mutant she was dealing with. A mutant that was apparently on the brink of breaking down entirely and Isabel very much did not want to deal with anything that was having a breakdown, especially if said breakdown could potentially contain things like thunder and lightning.

This thought was especially not comforting when the thing decided it wanted to perch over her shoulder like some kind of ghost parrot. Thankfully the downpour had mostly stopped, and while her shirt was getting gradually soggier, it was more of an intermittent shower. She didn't really appreciate her soggy state, but bit her tongue for the time being out of fear that swapping from consoling to berating would have the same effect and essentially drown her before she could get away.

At the mention of breaking things Isabel gladly latched onto a subject other than the cloud thing's emotional state. "Oh? Breaking things happens to be something I excel at," she replied, though she decided it might be best not to mention that the stuff she was particularly good at breaking tended to be things like skulls. Not that a cloud had to worry about that sort of thing. "Is this urge to smash more of a break something or break someone? Because I can probably accommodate both."

Oh? Was this girl must have been having an equally hard day if she was admitting to her breaking things too. They were just two peas in a pod, then. Could Ghost use her body to give the girl a hug without hurting her? Eh. Probably shouldn't risk it.

"People are horrible. But I don't want to break a person. There are too many that need breaking." Ghost roiled over Isabel's shoulder. This was messed up on every level. She didn't need to premeditate murder. Or, rather, she shouldn't be murdering at all.

Though... Jiri hadn't been planned... "No." Her voice was firm now. "No, I don't want to think about it anymore." If she was going to turn herself in, if this was going to be her last few moments of freedom... "If today was your last day alive, what would you do?" Not that she was dying... today. But the principle was the same. She didn't want to spook her new friend by admitting what she'd done.

So she and the little black rain cloud seemed to be on the same page when it came to the general population and their need for breaking. Where they differed was their personal desires to follow through with the idea. Isabel was all for breaking as many individuals as she saw fit, regardless of if it ever even made a dent in population numbers. Her new acquaintance, however, seemed to find this a rather daunting task, or else she was he kind of person that talked about violence but had no taste for participating in it. Pity.

And whatever 'it' was the cloud's soppy demeanor seemed to stem from it. Not that Isabel was curious enough to pry into the matter. Listening to weepy drama wasn't exactly her idea of a good time, and definitely not if said weepy drama let to the weeping happening over her shoulder.

Her last day alive was an unexpected follow-up and one she hadn't particularly put a lot of time into thinking about. Somehow she didn't think Sprinkles would care for an answer like 'go on a rampage and take as many people down with me as I could' would be an acceptable answer in light of her lack of interest in breaking people.

"Well, I guess if I knew I was gonna kick the bucket I wouldn't be too happy about it," she started. It was easy enough to picture since she wasn't often very happy about most things. So it would be simple enough to deal with it like she usually did with more mundane irritations. "So drinking would probably be pretty high up on the list and I'd sorta of go from there. Get enough booze in your system and you can forget just about anything."

Drinking. Hmmmm.

Ghost continued to swirl as she thought it through. "Can you really do that? Drink enough to forget?" Because that sounded handy. Maybe that was why so many people drank. Plenty of people at the Mansion drank.

Was that why Sam drank soooo much?

Well now she needed to do this thing to test her theory. It was just a happy coincidence that she had plenty to forget about.

"Where can I do this drinking thing? I... I did it once before, and it wasn't so bad." Until she'd learned that she'd gone home with her brother of all things. "Uhm. I didn't bring my wallet." But beggars could not be choosers.

Oh no. The poor little sky marshmallow had never drank so much that its night was all fuzzy in the morning. Had it ever been drinking at all? Was this its first time descending from the sky to mingle with people and their strange land civilization? This was going to be fun.

"Oh yeah, totally. Ever hear of getting blackout drunk? As in, you drink so much  that you blackout and can't remember anything until you sober up? Because that's definitely a thing that happens." She may or may not have known from personal experience. Though she didn't often drink until that point. Usually she just got drunk enough to severely regret whatever followed. With that thought, maybe drinking wasn't the best idea. But then, it was the cloud that wanted to drink, so she could totally limit her personal intake, if she decided to also drink at all. "Usually people hang out at bars or clubs if they wanna drink."

Isabel was under no illusion that the cloud had a wallet on it. Or pockets. Or anything, really. But it was fairly amusing that it felt the need to announce it. "Oh, don't worry about that. I know one or two bars that'll put it on a tab so it can be paid for later." Not that they had much of a choice but to play along and accept the sham of a tab. It was the least they could do for residents at the Sanctuary who provided them with such excellent protection.

"I don't think I've ever drunk... drank? enough to even have much of a headache the next day." The headache she'd had at Simon's house was fully Simon induced, she decided. So that didn't count.

Hm. No. She'd totally seen that at bars. "I went to a club once! Twice? There was dancing." Twice, if she counted the time she'd gotten the courage to meet up with a friend there. And now tabs started to make sense too. She'd read about them. Seen them casually talked about on TV. She'd kind of known they were money-related.

"Tabs sound convenient." Yeah. She was warming up to the idea. "Which one is more fun? A bar or a club?" And, after a beat, she decided she had to ask, "Which one gets your drunker faster?"

"Well, if you're looking to get forget-about-my-day drunk, you'll probably be nursing a headache in the morning, so you're gonna wanna take some aspirin and have a glass of water before you crash to help it not be so horrible. I mean, if you can remember to do anything before you pass out." Isabel didn't often get splitting headaches after she drank, but she'd dealt with some nasty hangovers in the past on a few occasions and knew how unpleasant they could be. Though she couldn't say for sure if each and every one of them was because of the alcohol or if it had something to do with the people she'd had to deal with the next morning. Like Zephyr.

Whether to find a bar or a club was really a personal preference sort of thing. Each had their advantages. Bars were typically quieter with less people, but clubs provided the crush of a crowd that made is easier for recognizable faces like Isabel's to get lost in. Not that her soggy friend needed to be brought up to date on all of Isabel's more news-worthy misdeeds. She might very well turn into a tornado if she thought she were fraternizing with a mass murderer.

"Hm, well I guess it depends on what atmosphere you'd rather deal with. Like a bar is going to have less people if you don't wanna deal with them in your break things mood," she explained, belatedly hoping that bringing up the smashing wasn't going to make the thing all soppy again. "A club's gonna be busier with more people to break if you change your mind on that, but it'll have better music, and there's the option of getting up and dancing which can maybe get rid of some aggression and maybe probably help to not get too hammered too fast. At least, I think the exercise-makes-you-more-sober thing is true."

Isabel stopped and pondered for a minute, regarding her puffy companion. "That is, if a cloud even can dance. Or drink, but it sounds like you figured that one out yourself."

This girl was a pro. It seemed everyone drank more than she did. Ghost was really behind on the learning curve, but she was learning.

"Club." That one was a no brainer. She didn't want to be singled out right now if someone came looking for her. It suddenly occurred to Ghost that the girl might not be planning to come with her. "Uhm. You'll come too, right? Please? You're probably the nicest person I've met all day." Probably because she didn't know who her family was. Or that she had... a puppy.

And just in case it was a problem, "I'm not always a cloud. It's just... easier. Sometimes." She liked it more than Simon ever had. The change in senses and the safety from others made it an ideal form to take right now. She wouldn't recognize her own father so long as he didn't talk.

Oh no. Dad. He was going to be so disappointed.

"Can we go? Now?" Or was there some rule about drinking during daylight hours? Dusk wasn't too far off last time she checked, but she couldn't exactly tell.

Well that was easy, club it was. Isabel rather preferred them to bars as well. Crowds weren't exactly her favorite thing, but the loud music and the cover it provided were nice whenever she was out drinking with the intent to disappear and take her mind off of whatever had irritated her to the point of needing a drink.

"Yeah, I'll tag along. I've got nothing better planned today and blowing off a little steam is always welcome in my book," she assured the cloud. She did find it a little funny that anyone was considering her a nice person, but she let the comment slide without further input. If Sprinkles was dealing with people worse than her then she'd definitely need to get some alcohol into her system ASAP.

Not being a cloud all the time made a lot more sense in the context of clubbing and drinking in the past, and would make it a lot easier to partake again once they reached their destination. If she waked through the doors with a cloud trailing after her and had it continue to hover all night they might attract a little more attention then was comfortable.

"The sooner the better. It'll be a bit of a walk, though I don't suppose that'll bother you any." Isabel turned on the spot and started back the way she had come, aiming for the territory that the Order had carved out for itself in the area of the city surrounding the Sanctuary. They weren't too far away, but it'd take a few minutes to get to the place.

She was aiming for a club that was just barely inside the Order's boarders. Just far enough away from the Sanctuary that people were afforded the illusion of security and weren't too nervous to stop in for an evening, but close enough that there wouldn't be an over-abundance of anti-mutant fools looking to poke their noses around.

Club Crimson fit right into the Order's aesthetic, so there really was no excuse not to loop it into their boarders. The big, red lettering on the front of the building was eye-catching even when not yet lit up, and the black furnishings inside gave it an interesting dark, dangerous sort of vibe, though Isabel suspected the color was to help hide any spills and stains which would be hard to spot once the lights started flashing. Plus they were excellent for curbing any panic whenever Isabel got the urge to give any over-friendly someone a sharp jab to get them to back off.  It may be to a cloud's taste, but Isabel appreciated it on a few different levels.

"There might not be to many people there yet at this time of day, but once the sun goes down they'll start coming in pretty quickly."

She shook her head. A bit of a walk would not bother her. Of course, all head shaking just interpreted as more cloud roiling. Ghost stuck close to her new friend. She didn't bother to look too hard at the place they were going into. Colors meant nothing to her in this form and when the letters were all connected like that on the signage, it was too difficult to decipher the name of a place.

And, in the end, it didn't even matter. She didn't want to remember anything from today at all.

"That should be fine. We're not really here for people. And once they get here, maybe I'll have decided they're not so bad after all." Alcohol was also good at changing people's behaviors, right?

Only once they were inside did Ghost want to change back to normal. Not only for the ability to drink, but because the whole place, despite being empty, was thrumming with music.

"Find a seat? I'll get us something to start off."

Ghost uncurled herself from the girl's shoulder and let herself reform as she drifted toward the bar. She only came into her full weight once she was standing directly across from a slack-jawed bartender. Still in her Ghost-chic: sunny, flouncy skirt and tank top, she did not exactly fit the semi-gothic red and black decor. And yet, the bar tender, face full of piercings, looked intimidated all the same.

"I'd like to open a tab, please." And her smile after that comment only seemed to make him sweat. What a strange reaction. "Do you need uhm... identification or something? No? Okay. Cool. Then I'd like to order two of your most delicious drinks, two of your strongest, and then two that you think we might like." He was sweating bullets now, like his life depended on the answer to the test she'd just posed to him.

"You uh- you can go sit down if you want."

"You'll be able to find us?"

The bar keep's eyes flicked back toward Ghost's new friend and back to her.

"No sweat, Miss. Uh.. Here. Actually. Take these to start. On the house." He put two small glasses on the bar and Ghost took them carefully. Shots. She'd seen these last time she was at a bar.

"Thanks." She smiled and went to find her friend again.

"They're really nice here."

Finding a table was an easy enough task. The pair pretty much had the run of the place until the clubbing crowd started filtering in so Isabel could have her pick of just about any seat in the building. She settled on one closer to the back of the floor, close enough to the bar that they wouldn't have to fight through too many people to get new drinks and just far enough away from the large speakers that it wouldn't be too much of a struggle to hear anyone that spoke to them. She also had a good view of the door so she'd be able to spot any trouble if it came their way. The employees were cooperative enough, but their patrons could be unpredictable and foolish.

Her attention drifted away from the door once she realized the young woman headed her way was the cloud that had been rolling around her shoulders up until they'd reached their destination. "Friendly service makes for loyal customers," she replied as the other woman complimented the staff. Loyal customers and non-violent interactions with their landlords.

Isabel gave the other woman a quick once-over as she settled in her own seat, taking in her new appearance. She looked very much like the kind of person that would turn into a cloud in Isabel's opinion. White hair that seemed a little wind-swept, and a waifish figure that sort of made it look like the woman could float away at any moment. She did not look very much like the kind of person that could breeze over a sidewalk with enough power to rattle the cars parked along the curb. But then, looks were often very deceiving when it came to mutants.

The heavily-pierced individual that had been manning the bar seemed to be fighting very hard not to spill the drinks on his tray while hurrying to their table. He hadn't even waited for the pair to finish their shots before trying to quickly set the glasses in front of them. He must have mixed everything in record time. Isabel would have to remember that next time it was her turn to collect. His face wouldn't be hard to remember.

"So I don't think we exchanged names yet," she started, sliding her shot glass toward herself as the young man's shaking hands rapidly disappeared from her vicinity. He seemed to be trying to keep an eye on her without looking like her was staring. It was surprising he could see anything with how quickly his eyes were moving. She waved him off casually once the drinks were all set down and he wasted no time waiting around in case she changed her mind. He'd know where to find their table once they were nearly through with their current order, and she knew he wouldn't keep them waiting long before taking a new order.

"I'm Isabel," she continued before throwing back her shot, cringing a bit as the alcohol burned its way down her throat. She might have been becoming a habitual drinker, but she still wasn't used to that sensation. "I won't be offended if you don't remember my name by the end of the night, though."

Oh. That was a good point.

Ghost settled into the bench seat across from her compatriot and made sure the girl had her shot before she tossed her back. All in one go. That's how she was taught to do it last time.

It didn't go any better this time.

She cleared most of the drink before the burn caught up with her. Ghost sputtered and then it was burning up her nose which led to eyes watering and breathing fire. She covered her mouth with her hand to cough through the sensation.

> "So I don't think we exchanged names yet,"

Goodness! "You're right." She squeaked and set the shot glass down with more enthusiasm than she intended. "I'm Ghost." Lately she'd been insisting that she was Maya, but here? Now? She was back to feeling how she did during the Registration when it was illegal just to claim a name like that. "I'm so sorry about your shirt." She was noticing the water marks now. Maybe she could offer to do something about that.

Ghost looked between the drinks the man had brought them. A red one, clear and deep. There was one that looked like a slush of some kind. And then brown. Just brown. Ghost pulled the slushy one toward herself first.

> "I'm Isabel,"

Oh? Just Isabel? Something sounded familiar, but then it wasn't the most unusual of names. Had Ghost roped a human into taking her to a bar? Remembering the bartender and her accidental intimidation there, Ghost had to wonder if she'd scared the poor girl into it. Then again... when she said things like Ghost wouldn't remember her anyway, it didn't seem like Isabel minded being here too much.

"Thanks again for coming with me." She was rather short on friends at the moment. In fact, she really shouldn't even be here. She should be turning herself in for murder.

Instead she took an extra long draw from her slush. Brain freeze was faster to kick in than alcohol.