Ghost's text history with Isabel was a little one-sided.

Heeey. You are a nice lady. I need help with ... something.

She didn't mean to be vague, but reinforcements were needed. Cafas had made her an appointment. There was a Mansion kiddo, sweet girl by all accounts, who needed a little womanly guidance. The area she needed help in? Well, there Maya was somewhat lacking. So she texted her best bosom buddy. That was, the buddy who Maya guessed had the most bosom.

I won't tell Z.

Did that sound desperate?

I'll bring cookie dough!

Okay. That actually was desperate.

I am coming to find you and you can't stop me.

Yes. Much better. Very proactive. Besides, the new management at the Sanctuary didn't seem as murderous so Maya didn't even feel guilty about taking Abbigail there. Maya slipped her phone into the waistband of her skirt and saw that it was practically time. The elemental straightened her shoulders and took the stairs two at a time.

At the prearranged time, Maya knocked on the prearranged door with Cafas' credit card prearranged to sit in her wallet. It felt quite clandestine, really.

"Abby? It's Maya. Cafas sent me to uh- to take you shopping. If you're ready, that is." She still had time to back out.

Abby was nervous. When she had originally asked Cafas to introduce her to Ghost, she thought he would be there too. Instead she was meeting the woman on her own. Small hands played with the hem of her shirt, trying to let out some excess energy.

>>"Abby? It's Maya. Cafas sent me to uh- to take you shopping. If you're ready, that is."

The knock had startled her.  Though she realized it shouldn't have when Abby saw the time.  "Coming!" she called. The little blonde
grabbed her sandals from the bed and went to meet the woman on the other side of the door. Once the door was open, she was facing the woman called Ghost. "Hi."

In the span of one blink, Maya nearly melted from cute overload. The pixie cut. Shoes in hand. Was that a skirt? Maya felt like she'd found a mini me even if they practically looked nothing alike. She wanted to keep her.

In a hypothetical, non-creepy way.

"It's so nice to meet you." The aeromancer folded her hands on front of her body and dipped slightly at the waist. It was more polite than squealing about how cute Abby was. "We have one other friend who will come with us. I hope you don't mind visiting the Sanctuary to stop and pick her up. She knows quite a bit more about these kinds of things than I do." Quick chest scan. Yeah. Total mini me.

Uhm. So. Small talk. "Cafas tells me you're 13 now. Is that 8th grade?" Jude was 17 and in his final year so counting backwards that sounded right. Maya was sure to walk in pace with Abbigail as they headed downstairs and toward the garage. No. They weren't taking the jet. There was, however, an old station wagon that Maya had the keys for. She was almost an okay driver. Just a little out of practice.

Abby smiled shyly as Maya explained there was another friend they had to go get. Maya said "one other friend" like they were friends. It was a nice thought. Maya seemed nice, and she was friends with Cafas.  Maybe they were.  Abby didn't really understand how friendship worked.  Though she was learning.

>>"Cafas tells me you're 13 now. Is that 8th grade?"

The little blonde skipped a little to keep up with the older woman. "Mhmm. A lot of my classmates are excited for the summer though. You know, trips to parks and all. I just plan on studying so I don't get close to failing history again," Abby sighed. She did have plans to study over the summer, but it would still be hard for her to understand a lot of the material. And American History was done in eighth grade so it would be even more work. "I like the summer; I just don't really wanna go see my Aunt Teresa and Uncle Henry said it was okay to stay here. Aunt Teresa will probably want me to go there for Christmas though."

"I guess history is important, but, man, is it boring. Makes for decent doodling time." Cough. "I mean, school is important. I'm glad you have your priorities in place."

Maya got them both settled into their seats. Except for the fashionable wood paneling, the station wagon was more like a tank than a car: all steel and manual. The gears scraped as she changed to first gear after reversing out of the Mansion garage.

She wanted to ask about the aunt thing, but Maya also had to take time to focus on the road and cringe when she made a squealing gear shift. "Sorry. It's across the bridge. Not too far." Stores were also cheaper the further they got from Manhattan.

Eventually the station wagon coughed to a violent stop a mere 3 feet from fully being pulled into a parking spot behind the Sanctuary. No gold doors at the garage entrance, but it was closer to the residence hall where Isabel was hiding.

"Okay. Plan of attack. There's a bodega right over there? See? Yeah. We're buying a cookie dough bribe and then we're going to shout for our friend Isabel to come out and share with us. Then, we lure her into the car." Total serious adult plan, ready to put into action.

And it hardly took any time to hit the store.

Armed with a roll of cold, fresh from the fridge dough for each of them, Maya pulled open the door and ushered Abbigail inside. There was no obvious indicator which door in the hall was hers. No bow. Or skull and crossbones. Not even a chubby baby animal. "Iiiiisabel!" So. It was down to the old fashioned way. "Come out, come out wherever you aaaaaaaaaare."

She would avoid Lisa for as long as possible, but Maya wasn't opposed to getting the secretary to talk.

Abby stifled a giggle at Maya's comment about history. Seemed she wasn't the only one who didn't like that class. That was nice. The car was nice too. She hadn't been in a car in awhile.

>>"Sorry. It's across the bridge. Not too far."

"That's okay," she mumbled softly. The little blonde was watching the city pass them by through the window. She couldn't remember if she had been to or near the Sanctuary before. It was possible. Abby didn't keep track of all the places she went.

>>"Okay. Plan of attack. There's a bodega right over there? See? Yeah. We're buying a cookie dough bribe and then we're going to shout for our friend Isabel to come out and share with us. Then, we lure her into the car."

Cookie dough bribe? How did that work? Why were they having to lure their friend to the car? Abby wasn't sure about Maya's plan, but she didn't say anything. As the two of them went into the building, Abby began to open her cookie dough. At the very least she would get a yummy snack. As Cafas' friend called out for Isabel, the little blonde popped a piece of peanut butter cookie dough into her mouth. "Mmmm, yummy," she hummed contently.

There was something very unsettling about hearing her name sing-songed through the halls, especially when it followed a very vague text from a woman Isabel had hoped not to see again for quite some time considering what had happened during their first meeting. She'd even left the text unanswered in hopes the other young woman would seek help elsewhere. Apparently it hadn't worked.

Isabel figured she'd be safe enough holed up in her room but it seemed she'd been wrong about that, too. She wasn't sure if Lisa had sold her out or if Ghost had been to the Sanctuary some time in the past and knew her way around without any help, but in either case there was much too little time between receiving the message and hearing the sender calling her in person.

For a short while she debated whether or not she'd be able to wait out the invasion, but from what she could remember of their previous meeting the waifish woman roaming the halls could be very determined in her pursuits and it wasn't too likely that she'd give up her search. It probably wouldn't take too much more sing-songing before she started knocking on doors individually until she stumbled upon the right one. Or until she enlisted Lisa's help. That secretary was downright icy most of the time and it probably wouldn't be out of character for her to give Isabel up for the sheer enjoyment of watching her being dragged out of the the Sanctuary.

With a sigh she opened her door and poked her head out, looking left and then right to find the white-haired woman. What she hadn't expected was for there to be a young girl in tow. Isabel had not signed up to deal with a child. She hadn't signed up for anything, really, but a child just made it all that much worse. A child cramming her face full of something that would undoubtedly leave some kind of sticky mess because children were always sticky and messy and horrible.

"Is this the thing you need help with?" she offered in lieu of a greeting, shutting her door behind her as she stepped fully into the corridor to confront the pair. She eyed the younger intruder apprehensively, wondering why Ghost would have brought the kid to her of all people and wary of what the answer might be. "Cuz I'm not exactly kid friendly."

"Omigosh, you can't just go around calling people that." That being kids. This was a teenager for crying out loud. They were very sensitive!

"Here." Maya all but slapped the log of cookie dough at Isabel. "This is a bribe." It was a sugar cookie log with a little red velvet heart in the middle. Because something told Maya that peanut butter was not going to cut it.

"Smile, Abbigail." The teeth were the biggest giveaway that this was, indeed, a teenage mutant sharkmaid rather than a child. Well, that and what Cafas had explained to her. Maya hadn't seen the transformation herself. "We two grown up mutant women need your, erm, expertise. It's shopping. Shopping won't kill you and please, please don't kill anyone while we go shopping. Okay? Then it's settled!"

Yes, she was a little bit over happy. It was to make up for the grumpy face she expected to see from Isabel. Also, it helped cover the fact that they were now walking toward a poorly parked station wagon.

>>"Is this the thing you need help with? Cuz I'm not exactly kid friendly."

Abby blinked at the brunette woman. She had a big chest. Green eyes looked to Maya. Getting another person would make sense for what this trip would be for. She swallowed as Maya started talking.

>>"Omigosh, you can't just go around calling people that. Here. This is a bribe. Smile, Abbigail."

The little blonde wasn't sure why Maya wanted her to smile, but she did. Her smile was a little weak, but the abnormal shape of her teeth was visible. Then Maya was explaining what they needed, maybe. The wording was a little weird. Abby knew she wasn't an adult, or fully grown. She wasn't even five feet tall yet!

>>"...Shopping won't kill you and please, please don't kill anyone while we go shopping. Okay? Then it's settled!"

"Hi, I'm Abbigail," she greeted the woman before getting into the car. She wasn't sure where they would be going, but at least she would have people with her. The little shifter was pretty sure she wouldn't go shopping for these kinds of things on her own.

"I call it as I see it," Isabel replied to Ghost's indignation, not entirely sure why it was even all that big of a deal, though not particularly caring if she wound up offending the child either way. The kid would get over it eventually, just like she'd hopefully get over that five foot mark on a height chart.

The log of dough was nearly dropped as it was shoved in her direction, partly because the action caught her off guard and partly because she hadn't expected something so cold to be hoisted into her hands. She managed to get a grip on it in the end, though, and took a moment to analyze the 'bribe'. A tube of cookie dough complete with a bright red heart running down the middle. Cute. A little bit sickening, but acceptable for the time being. It was just a matter of waiting to see if it was still worth it once she found out exactly what her assistance was required for.

Isabel eyed the kid curiously when the youngest in the group was ordered to smile and obliged, showing off a row of rather interesting teeth. "Nice choppers, kid." Bit of a waste of an X-Gene if that was the extent of the mutation, but a mutant was a mutant and the bonemancer was just the littlest bit more sympathetic toward others like her.

And shopping did sound harmless enough, though judging from their previous outing there was no telling how quickly things could spiral out of control. She might as well be full of sugar when she hit that downward slide. The tube of dough was sliced neatly open with the aid of a small blade at the tip of one finger and she wasted little time shoving a glob of it into her mouth. The pure sugary sweetness made her teeth ache in a satisfying, cavity-developing kind of way. Dumb as the heart in the middle was, it still tasted pretty good.

She packed herself in the passenger seat of the car she had somehow been corralled toward without really noticing. If she was being forced to chaperone and shop with a child, then said child would ride in the back seat where child-things belonged. "Isabel," she responded simply as the child-thing offered a name, though she didn't expect to be addressing the kid much during the outing. "I can probably not kill anyone, but I won't promise I won't maybe maim someone. I'm not all that friendly with not-kids, either."

The nature of the shopping trip would determine how likely it would be that she might have to stab someone before the day was out. Shopping with children often required being in places frequented by other children and that sounded like a very irritating trip. She wasn't sure she could deal with very many soccer moms bullying their way through the stores before her temper got the better of her.

"What exactly are we shopping for? And why do you need me to come? I usually help with murdery things, not errand-running things." She had a feeling she might not like the answer, but she was already strapped into the very noisy car and it might be a while before she could make an escape. She stuffed another chunk of cookie dough into her mouth.

Probably not killing anyone was good enough to get them to the car. Isabel even accepted the chilled dough which probably attributed to the slowness in the bowed woman's cognitive processes. Maya did not feel that it excused her own oversight in forgetting to introduce the two ladies, but to be fair she had a lot of things on her mind. Like navigating the cramped streets so that they pulled up to the address she'd looked into ahead of time.

> "What exactly are we shopping for?"

No doubt Isabel was concerned when they squeezed into a parking spot that was headed by a mannequin wearing a little neon glowing number.

"I need your help because..." Must maintain eye contact. "You're an expert." At least, the posters made her seem like one. That and the ample assets. "And you can keep us safe if this place turns out to be as scary as it looks." And please, please forgive me for tricking you into this, she added mentally. Hopefully the sugar had put her in a good mood? And this would be funny?

The Bosom Buddies website had seemed racy to Maya. The store was downright embarrassing. "They offer first time fitting services and custom options for mutants that a box store can't compete with." And Maya was going to be brave enough to step out of the vehicle and face the racey lingerie, blush be damned. "See? Abbigail is a woman now and that's why she needs some friends to take her shopping." Kids didn't need bras.

Oh man, nobody needed these specialty things. Maya put on a brave face and pushed open the door. A cheerful little bell alerted the staff. There was no turning back now.

Abby wasn't sure why Maya and Isabel were talking about killing people. Or not killing people. Or maiming people... The little blonde wasn't sure why that conversation was happening. Maybe they had an inside joke? That sounded possible.

>>"What exactly are we shopping for? And why do you need me to come? I usually help with murdery things, not errand-running things."

Or maybe Isabel actually did murdery and maimy things. The sharp-toothed girl watched the two of them carefully. Did Cafas know about the murdery things? Did he know Maya was introducing her to Isabel? Abby thought the answer was yes, but she wasn't sure. She followed Maya out of the car while she thought. She didn't notice the mannequin or really anything about the store until the little bell chimed.

Inside there were plenty of... female things. In all sorts of colors. Bright ones, dark ones, ones that looked like skin. There were tops and bottoms and pieces that were both. There were even a few that seemed to really only looked like strings. Abby moved so Isabel was between her and the string things. Then she noticed the... She wasn't sure what they were. One looked like Indiana Jones' whip though. Abby grabbed Maya's hand and pulled her to help hide from the things.

”Welcome to Bosom Buddies!” a perky voice called. ”Home of all things Lacy, Racy, and Tasty. How can I help you ladies today?”

It was hard to miss a window display when it was highlighted with neon accents. And really, whatever it was that mannequin was dressed in could hardly be considered much more than accents, ones that deliberately drew they eye to all of the most embarrassing places. What was even more concerning about the display was that Ghost had parked the car right in front of it. Isabel found herself immediately hoping they would wind up dumping the car and walking further down the street to their real destination, but the tone of the other young woman's voice when she started speaking told her otherwise.

Isabel turned to look at the driver, leveling an accusatory glare at her as she fumbled her way through an explanation, though the effect might have been somewhat ruined by the fact that the bonemancer hadn't yet closed her mouth after gaping at the indecent display ahead of them. This certainly hadn't been what she'd expected from a shopping errand. And while she'd played bodyguard in the past, it had never been in quite the same kind of compromising situation. This was going to be a very long trip.

"I did not sign up to be on puberty patrol," she protested, though she followed after the pair anyway. She'd have to go in eventually, she was sure, so sitting in the car pouting would only delay the inevitable. The quicker they got in the quicker they could get back out and never talk about it again. Besides, if she let the pair go in alone and something did wind up happening she was sure Zephyr would never let her live it down. He already made her live difficult enough as it was.

The inside of the store was even worse than the outside. It was incredibly hard for Isabel to find a safe place to concentrate her gaze. There were... intimate things covering the interior from floor to ceiling ranging from almost modest to downright scary. She was so distracted by the intimidating array of items that she nearly jumped when a voice addressed them from behind the register.

The woman who the voice belonged to was far too perky, though it did give Isabel some satisfaction to see recognition flash over the woman's paling face and her step falter once she saw the bow-wearing member of the small group. Unfortunately she soldiered through and forced that smile back onto her face while her focus shifted to the other two.

"Short stuff here needs some help with a fitting or something," Isabel said, wasting no time throwing the kid under the bus by hooking her thumb in her direction after stepping aside to put her back in the employee's line of sight. She wasn't sure if bringing such a young kid into an adult store was against the rules, but she doubted the staff would argue the fact considering who that kid had brought along to supervise.

Tasty?

The woman gave Maya a serious once over declared, "Push up," with full sympathy and moved on to the next in line, Abbigail. Maya was flustered in gathering her thoughts, so she was glad that Isabel stepped in with all her rational honesty.

> "Short stuff here needs some help with a fitting or something,"

"Y-yes!" That was enough to snap Maya out of it. She squeezed Abby's hand in hers for encouragement, hers and Abby's. "Abbigail needs her measurements taken and— you have another form, right? Is there some consideration to be taken there?"

That was the real reason for coming here to old Order territory. The unexpected consequence of the woman turning pale and nearly losing hold of her eyeballs once she looked up from Isabel's boobs? Well, that just meant she would stay honest. Right?

It was the woman's turn to stutter. "M-mutant considerations are our specialty after all! Are you all— will you all be needing measurements taken today? Or...?"

Abby stayed near Maya as the adults all talked. She didn't really know what they were here for... well, she knew what they were supposed to be getting. Girl stuff. Things Abby didn't really have any experience with. Boobs. Boob holders. Bras.

The sales lady looked funny after looking at Isabel. Abby wasn't sure why she looked like that, but it was funny.

"M-mutant considerations are our specialty after all! Are you all— will you all be needing measurements taken today? Or...?"

"Just me," Abby squeaked out. Her squeak had the unfortunate consequence of turning the sales lady's attention to her though.

"Alright, hun. Come with me." The lady turned and moved through all the racks and things between the front of the store and the dressing room area.

Abby turned to look at Maya before following the lady. She kept her hand in Maya's for as long as she could. She hoped the older woman would come with her. The lady was kinda scary.