>>"...Presentable non-drunk mutant adult. If we cannot find, then we will go alone.”

She listened to Miika's additions to her own list. Okay not drunk made sense. Smelly was understandable too. She couldn't fault Miika for the time limit. There did seem to be a hurry to get to the meeting.

"Understandable," she said aloud as she followed him. How he knew where an ATM was was written off as him having been to the area. At least until she watched him pull a bunch of hundreds out of the machine. She was stunned, her eyes widened to show it. Quickly she shook her head to clear it.

Abbigail looked around them, hoping to find someone who matched their needs. She spotted someone at the corner. He was at least a foot taller than her and Miika. His ears easily denoted him as a mutant. And he looked like he had seen them take the money from the ATM.

"Miika, I believe there is someone who can assist us. Shall we ask?" Abby questioned, keeping her eyes on the brown haired stranger.

Maybe he was read too much into things. But through black-and-white security camera of next store they walked past, Panu thought that Agent Tiger was impressed with his Very Smooth display of useful powers. That was what very-wide-eyes meant. He was usually not very good at reading faces, they were always so small and far away on his screens, but this one was easy. She kept talking like complete professional, but she was totally impressed.

Panu maybe puffed up a little, with squared shoulders and Confident Walk. But only a little. He was still Finnish, not American.

Puffing up was maybe distracting though, because she noticed the man before him.

This was not surprising, actually, because the man was coming from a street that was Camera Black Hole and carrying no tech like Caveman Ghost. Abigail also did not carry a phone that was turned on, but this was just Mark of Professional. Probably she had a disposable phone in her purse, powered off so that cell towers could not find her unless she wanted to be found. This man was different. His clothes were lose and scruffy, like stray dog. He had pointed ears, also like stray dog. And black around his eyes that Panu could not quite make out in the cameras—maybe make up, or fur, or just skin color. Like punched stray dog.

This was Hobo with capital H.

Mutant: check.
Not wobbling in place or holding suspicious brown paper bag: check.
Smelly?: inconclusive, closer range needed.

Panu nodded to Abigail. “Good eyes.”

And so the children--or at least Panu--strode Very Confidently over to the older taller man.

“Hello. We are going to meeting and want adult to come with so other adults are not stare at us. If you will come with us, then this is payment-up-front. Same amount after. All you are need to do is pretend you are our Adult and not talk much.”

The small blonde boy shoved a fist full of cash at the hobo. He had found that this was a quick way to acquire temporary minions off of street corners. If he was still with Tuonela, probably afterward another of his teammates would kill the man so he would not talk. But Tuonela was dead and this was small mission, hobo-learns-nothing-important mission.

(Except for their faces.)

(He had forgotten to ask Abigail if this was a problem for her, and if she was the type to Take Care of Problems.)

(...This explained a great deal about her attitude towards bringing unrelated people into maybe-danger. If she was not planning to let the man survive anyway, then keeping him safe was no worry at all.)

...Panu would make Very Good Effort to protect his new maybe-minion. He was Protective Boss.

This kid was going to get the little shark-shifter hurt. Well, and himself, but Adder would rather keep that rat's ass. He'd even keep the tail. As newborn-kitten-stupid kid approached, he caught the eye of someone else on the street, also heading towards them. He remembered her: she had been out here a long time as well. She had no issues with threatening and hurting kids, but he'd given her a good set of scars on her arm.

Her confident approach hesitated, and then diverted. Good. He'd have to talk to the salt softy later about being too much of a softy. Some people weren't safe to go around with, especially in places like this. When he was sure that no one else was going to intrude, he let his gaze return to the - apparently foreign - rich kitten his other senses had never forgotten.

Rich foreign kitten who didn't look at things he seemed to know were there. Mutant senses? Probably. Adder's attention sharpened a bit. Mutant senses were harder to hide things from. They varied so much; he was an example of that himself.

His teeth flickered in a hint of a smile. Foreign kitten was going to pay him with the lethal money to keep other people from bothering them? The payment could extend that to the kitten too. He wasn't going to let anything happen to salt softy regardless - but he accepted the money and smoothly tucked it away, splitting the wad into smaller stashes in casual movements that wouldn't draw the attention of anyone else on the street. Sure, he'd take the money - and be more likely to survive with it than the kitten as well.

He laced his empty fingers and stretched his arms, canid teeth showing a bit more now. Let the kitten see what he'd hired, and let him think that he was amused by the job more than because he was getting paid a lot for something he'd been about to do anyway. "So you just want to not be bothered?" He certainly could do that. He inhaled deeply, putting in conscious effort to remember the kitten's scent. Salt softy's he already knew, and so might be seen to be ignoring.

If she weren't reacting to him, though, either she didn't recognize him - something he normally strove for - or was pretending she didn't, probably to protect herself.

Did she want him to protect her from the kitten? What did she know of him that Adder hadn't noticed yet?

He flicked an ear at her, casual but meant to be reassuring. He wouldn't let anything happen to her.

>>“Good eyes.”

Abby smiled a little in response. Then Miika was moving. Abby followed a pace behind him, letting him take the lead since he had the money. She wondered how they would explain the "mission" to the stranger.

>>“Hello. We are going to meeting and want adult to come with so other adults are not stare at us. If you will come with us, then this is payment-up-front. Same amount after. All you are need to do is pretend you are our Adult and not talk much.”

Well... Yeah, that worked. It was a little over simplified but yeah. Abbigail stiffened a little when he took the money. He hadn't actually agreed to help them.

"So you just want to not be bothered?"

She was kind of fascinated with his ears. The way they moved. She got memorized by cat and dog ears too. "Basically. We'd rather not just show up alone, so we'd like you to accompany us," Abby shrugged in a what-can-you-do way.  "If that's all? We should get going, correct Miika?"  They were on a time constraint after all.  Then she thought about what 'getting going' would involve.  Great.  They'd have to get past the guard-dog guy.  She shivered a little at the reminder.

Panu was not sure how much he had just paid the man, except that it was Enough. It was not that he was rich, only that cash machines were full of paper and he could make them spit it out like confetti.

“Not bothered, yes. But mostly just blend in. Sit and listen, not Cause Scene.”

Agent Tiger clarified mission some. It was really all the hobo needed to know.

Well, except one more thing.

“This is Abigail,” Panu introduced, being careful to use Fake Name. “I am Miika. Who are you?”

And then they were off to see the dog man.

Adder flicked his ears a few more times for salt softy, irrationally pleased that she wasn't running away from his less-wolf form. But something important was going on, so he couldn't get too distracted. Was Miika-kitten the threat or just the idiot bait who didn't even know he was attracting trouble?

The 'job' itself was almost laughably easy, at least with the current information. Doing his own thing while encouraging other people to Leave Him Alone was what he did most of the time anyway. This was just expanding it to Leave This Group Alone. That couldn't be too hard, could it?

Salt softy was salt softy. Other names were maybe her but mostly she was salt softy. But the kitten wanted a name for him. That was unpleasant. But salt softy was involved, so fine.

"Adder," he said shortly, and prowled after the children.

>>"This is Abigail. I am Miika. Who are you?"

>>"Adder."

With everyone knowing the others' names, the small group got moving. Looking at the three of them, Abby wasn't too sure they looked like friends. Or even really knew each other. They were almost back on the street with the guard-dog man. She scrunched up her face before moving. She moved to the middle of the group. Then she took Miika and Adder's hands in hers.
She swung her arms a little, like she used to with her parents. There. Now they looked more like friends. That's what friends did right? Hold hands. Plenty of older kids did at the school. They also talked to each other.

The little blonde thought for a moment. There wasn't much she knew they could all talk about. Something everyone liked, maybe?

Oh! They had passed an ice cream place hadn't they? Everyone liked ice cream.

"I think I want to try a new flavor. Bubblegum, maybe. It sounds fun. Don't you think? What kind of ice cream will you get, Miika?" she peered over at the lighter blond haired boy.  Hopefully they could do... whatever it was Miika needed.

The man's name was Adder. Adder was a kind of snake, not a canine, so it was definitely a name every bit as fake as Abigail or Miika. This was good: if things did not go well, fake names were first layer of protection.

Fake introductions complete, they went back towards the not-so-abandoned clinic. The door guard noticed their approach. Probably he had noticed their approach-retreat-reapproach-with-new-person as well. The dog-headed man's ears swiveled towards them.

Probably this was look suspicious. How could they make it less suspicious? Panu was trying to think on this very fast when Agent Tiger slipped her hand into his with practiced ease. She did it so naturally, it seemed almost like she was Actually Innocent Child.

Panu closed his own hand around hers. Where she had learned all of this how-to-be-a-child acting, he did not know. He would have never thought to start talking on and on about ice cream.

“I would like raspberry,” he said. “Maybe with caramels in it. Did you know there are shops where they will put things in your ice cream? Like gummi bears.” They were very chewy and not actually good and yet somehow now that he was thinking about them, he wanted them again.

The dog-headed man did what every good guard would do: he stood in their way and crossed his arms. Very intimidate.

“Couldn't find a babysitter, wolf?” The other canine drew back his lips, and there were very many teeth underneath. “No ice cream in here, kids.”

He said kids like some people said gum on my shoe.

If only Miika had dared voice his opinion on the falseness of Adder's name. It would have completely ruined the whole friendly appearance salt softy was trying to make, but !!!

Instead, Adder was extremely unsure of what to make of salt softy grabbing his hand and holding onto it. His skin and ears jumped and twitched, and he nearly let his teeth show. His immediate stress faded after a moment, though, and then it was just weird.

And then the two kids started about ice cream, and the weirdness level scrambled even higher. He stayed silent, so very aware that he wasn't part of that world even if he'd moved a little bit closer, and also aware that he had absolutely nothing to contribute to the conversation. He remembered ice cream from Way Before, but treat-things weren't really food-things and he couldn't even remember what it looked or tasted like. It didn't smell like much either.

Raspberries, though. He knew berries, especially ones that rich people grew in their laughably secured back yards in the summer. He'd remembered the name-berry pairings too, for the most part. He didn't like grapes; sometimes they made his stomach unhappy. Raspberries, though. They were good, and the seeds were small enough that they didn't get caught between his teeth.

Somewhat more relaxed, Adder straightened under the dog-headed mutant's dismissive gaze, ears as up as his side-mounted ones could, compared to the furrier version he faced. He stood with more vague amusement that this guy was telling him off already, but it wasn't exactly amusement in his voice. City-dog-not-even-good-enough-for-the-real-security-inside was trying to stop salt softy from whatever it was she and Miika-kitten wanted to do.

"Couldn't earn a real job?" he retorted. People with jobs tended to be very touchy about them, especially the insinuation that they weren't good enough for 'better' jobs. He kept walking towards the door, silly crossed arms or not. On a slowly-becoming-chronically-filled stomach like he had now, he was more than confident enough in his ability to tear into the bouncer. "The ice cream is for after, but I guess you wouldn't have figured that out."

And as for teeth? Hah. Even in his little human mouth his own teeth were more impressive, and his wolf jaw was infinitely more intimidating than a squished little half-dog face.

>>“I would like raspberry. Maybe with caramels in it. Did you know there are shops where they will put things in your ice cream? Like gummi bears.”

Abby nodded. "I think there are. We could look it up, though I don't have a phone." She knew Google would probably help them find an ice cream place like Miika talked about.

>>“Couldn't find a babysitter, wolf? No ice cream in here, kids.”

"Why would there me ice cream here?" Abby shot back. The guard-dog man growled back.

>>"Couldn't earn a real job? The ice cream is for after, but I guess you wouldn't have figured that out."

Abby smiled sweetly at the guard-dog man as she pulled the others to go past him. Though it probably didn't look very sweet with her sharp and pointy teeth. She didn't want any fighting. Not when they needed in. Guard-dog man put an arm out to stop her.

"Hold it, little girl," he growled. "You know where you are? What's in there?"

No, Abby didn't know where she was or what was in there.  Uh-oh.

The dog-headed man was curling back his lips at the insult to his maybe-not-real-job status. This was important thing to pay attention to, but more important thing as Agent Tiger did not have phone.

Not having good phone was okay, people like her could go through many disposable phones in a month, it did not make sense to waste money on good phone each time. This was forgive. But no phone. What was no phone? No phone was being bird living in clouds with no wings, was fish in deep water with no gills, was child in electronic age with no phone.

No phone was travesty and possible sign of demon possession because why would she not have phone.

The nine year old took Deep Calming Breath because now was time for Focus. After this they would go for ice cream and basic technology necessities. Right now, mission.

Panu replayed the footage of the last few stunned moments in his head. Then he looked dog man in the eye (or tried to look like he did).

“We are at the first temple.”

Inside was a meeting of Sebastian's Witnesses, believers in the immortal unicorn who had so briefly given hope to the neighborhood before disappearing in a wash of blood and federal investigations.

“We are witnesses too, so you are let us in now. Belief is only invitation we need.”

Getting inside zealot meetings was easy. Just take the things an RPG character would say and run them through a filter for Even More Dramatic. This made you best zealot. The dog man let them in, though he was maybe still growly at Adder about it.

Ha hah, silly city dog was getting mad. Adder kept most of the jeering inside his head, just letting teasing wisps out through the corners of his mouth and the implication of angle in his eyebrows. This was fun. And he was getting paid for it.

Miika-kitten was having trouble with something or other, but he was probably just feeling intimidated by the big bag fang-dance. He was a silly little kitten kid who didn't grasp the things that drew bad attention, like a fuzzball kitten walking on the skinny edge of a fence or picking a fight with a wolf.

That was also fun. And weird. Teensy balls of fluff all poofed up and screeching at him, when their heads were like the size of his nose and nothing else. Oh oh! There was that one super runty one that had tried to swat him, but its claws were too runty to even get through the fur on his muzzle.

Kittens were so silly. And stupid.

And apparently immune to getting eaten, because like the super runty kitten of memory, Miika-kitten was able to stalk onwards without getting ripped to shreds. Well, Miika-kitten didn't stalk nearly as much as super-runt had. Definitely no swagger. But they went inside, and Adder was still totally smirking at city-dog.

>>“We are at the first temple. We are witnesses too, so you are let us in now. Belief is only invitation we need.”

Abby's smile was a little cheeky. Just a little. Once Miika had gotten them past the guard-dog man, she skipped a little as she dragged the other two into the meeting area. The room was pretty bare. There were a few chairs in a semi-circle in the main area of the room. There were a lot of other adults in the room. Getting Adder had been the right move. The few other non-adults were older than she was. Adder allowed them to blend better.

"Come on," she urged, pulling the two males towards one of the chairs. She left Adder in front of the chair and sat down in front of it. Her hands stayed linked with Miika's.

She had realized that he couldn't see when he had responded to the guard-dog man. He hadn't been able to look the guard-dog in the eyes. Now that she knew, she decided not to release her new friend. Colleague? Acquaintance? It didn't really matter. She wasn't going to leave Miika alone here when he was blind. Though she did figure he could see in some way, probably his mutation.

((ooc: In Panu's timeline, this takes place before Cafas' recruitment to Ragnarok as Best Brother Thor.))

Agent Tiger was still holding his hand. This was warm and tug-toward-chair-y and he did not know quite what to do about it. It felt nice, like warm hand-knitted scarf that was a little too tight but that-was-okay.

He was sitting before he quite knew he was sitting. She was Very Efficient agent. This gave him time to catch breath and look around and hope that his hand was not sweaty he did not think it was but that would be gross.

The old clinic turned abandoned building turned temple was decorated somewhere between a church's basement youth group rec room and an anime director's idea of a shadowy cult meeting hall. There was a very large picture of their unicorn god on the wall, wearing a black coat and brandishing his sword. He looked kind of cool. If he had been god when Panu was in town, probably Panu would have joined him. He had enough dignity to keep shirt on while cameras where around, at least.

The people waiting were a very mixed group. Mostly a little scruffy, but some wore suit and tie and slumped in chairs like they had snuck out from their jobs to come to meeting over lunch.

“Welcome, brothers and sisters.” The man who spoke was not visibly a mutant, but his voice had no trouble reaching everyone in the clinic as if he were having a friendly conversation right next to your ear. “Today, we gather to Witness the Heir to our Lord's kingdom. Sister Penumbra brings us an update on the Interloper.”

A woman stepped from the speaker's shadow. This was Very Literal. Panu jumped in his seat maybe a little. The drama of this was maybe lessened when it took them an equally literal minute to get the woman's phone hooked up to their projector. Panu could have helped, but he did not really care.

“As you can see, the Interloper continues to insinuate himself with our Lord's family,” the woman began, as pictures appeared on the wall behind her. To anyone who knew Cafas, Ghost, or her increasingly more dog-like son, the pictures of the three going for walks around the Mansion or playing in local parks would probably be 11 out of 10 on the stalker scale of red flags. “On the one hand, the extra security this provides the Heir is desirable, but his moral influence is… questionable. We must decide whether to intervene.”

As the assembly began to discuss the clearly hot-button topic of whether Cafas should be allowed the privilege of play dates with Ghost's son, Panu leaned over to whisper to Abigail. (If she had a phone like a proper person, he could simply text her, and not the risk of someone with super hearing eavesdropping.)

“I will search network now. Please protect.”

That was what he had hired her for, after all. Panu took a deep breath, and slumped a little in his seat. He did not bother to warn her that now he could not see or hear her, and would not respond to being shaken. Also that his hand was now getting colder and colder. All this was in mission briefing he had sent her days ago; she already knew.

Adder let the culty gibberish float past his head rather than listen to any of it. He didn't know what they meant and he didn't especially care, as long as this didn't turn into a trap-people-and-murder-them thing, because then he'd have to do stupid drastic tiring stuff. And also get salt softy out.

That would be very tiring. How about it not be necessary.

Maybe he'd just sort of half-snooze while the people chattered on about their weird culty religious stuff. Blah blah blah Lord, blah blah blah family. He stifled a yawn and glanced around the room again. Nothing in particular going on, no people raising personal danger flags, just crazy culty flags, just a picture of someone who looked like Cafas up on the big screen -

...

Adder's instinctive attempt to scent for the metal manipulating x-man probably came across more as a different sort of subtle alarm, but he was definitely paying attention again. It was just pictures of Cafas, and of sharp-air lady who spent lots of time with Cafas, and some kid.

Lady who spent lots of time with Cafas? Pictures of them together with a kid? Cafas-family, then. And these people had pictures of them. And he recognized the angles of some of the shots. They were taken on mansion property, and from bush-shrouded areas he himself frequented.

Had he been near these people before, and just thought they were residents? Were they residents? That would make it easier to bring Cafas to them. He did not think that Cafas would like people taking pictures of his family and talking about them in secret groups.