Streak listened to Neena explain what needed doing. He looked over at Raina as she spoke and noticed Ted had showed up with a girl, who called Natalie, he didn't know. As Raina took off to go look for some food he went a separate way into the mansion to start uprooting the carpet so that everything could air out. As he walked into the mansion he saw Nika and some other mutants taking out the furniture and other things.

After Streak helped them move all the furniture, he formed a silver knife and began tearing up the carpet. It was actually easier than Streak thought because there were lots of weeds trying to poke through and parts of the carpet were softer than others from having rain and weather on them. Eventually he got most of the carpet up in a large room. It was hard to tell what room it was because every once in a while he had to stop and make a trip outside to clear some of the rubble and carpet that he was currently tearing up.

One trip outside he was carrying a role of carpet outside on his shoulders with his face covered by a solid silver mask, except where his eyes were, so that he wouldn't breath in mold of dirt or whatever else laid under the carpet. Streak imagined that he looked pretty weird with the silver covering his face. He followed where he'd last seen Nika go to drop off some trash and threw the carpet on top of the pile. This would definitely take an army of dump trucks to take all the this stuff. Streak thought as he headed back inside to do more cleanup.

Ruby began listeneing to all the conversations around her, trying to pick up bits and pieces from them. The main thing she noted was the fact that they needed supplies and most likely tools to start repairs as soon as possible. The little fox smiled running off from the others, long fluffy tail following behind her. After about a minute’s journey she managed to get to the garage which was already open from her reactivating the robots. She turned into her human form and then started looking for what she came in for. The fox girl let out a happy yip when she found what she was looking for, a whole box of tools.

The young girl scurried back outside and over to Neena, holding out the box infront of her. She had gotten the tools right before the camps because she needed new screwdrivers for her robots. There was enough tools in the box for at least 3 people. Despite this being hardly enough, at least it was something to start on.

“Miss Neena I have some tools we could use if that’s alright. I could try to reactivate more robots if you want…but I may need a good amount of food to do it Im starting to run out of energy which means if I run out of energy I can’t produce any Electricity,” Ruby told her, ears slightly flat as if feeling guilty that she couldn’t help more. “Sorry about that.”

(ooc: I don't know if Ruby needs to eat anything specific but I thought this would work, at least a little.)

Streak was walking past Neena and Ruby when he heard that Ruby was saying that she needed food or she couldn't do much good. He stopped off at the trash piles and dumped what he was carrying over there. He headed back to let Neena know what the status was and how everything was going inside. "Here Ruby." Streak tossed her a protein bar. "I found this and more things like it in the kitchen. You do not want to go into the firdge. Everything is bad in there, but all the non-perishables are still good." He said to both of them and then began went back inside to get more things cleaned up.

Ted grinned at Raina. "Like I could ever refuse food. Though buying it may be the only option; Don't know about you, but without a microwave all I could whip up would be some a burnt husk."

"I know some cooking, but from the looks of this place, I doubt we could find a grill, let alone anything to cook on it." Natalie dropped neatly onto the floor, so now she was over a foot shorter than Ted. "I say we go find a store that hasn't been eaten by angry robots."

Neena smiled at everyone's enthusiasm, and eagerness as they began working. She saw Ted and Natalie walk past the gates and waved at them. The hand-holding didn't escape her notice, but the only clue she gave was a slightly wider grin.

As she started to walk away, Ruby reappeared with a box in tow.

“Miss Neena I have some tools we could use if that’s alright. I could try to reactivate more robots if you want…but I may need a good amount of food to do it Im starting to run out of energy which means if I run out of energy I can’t produce any Electricity. Sorry about that.”

Neena scratched the fox pup's drooping ears. "No worries, kiddo. We're good for now. I think we all need a good meal, is all. Conserve your energy until we can fix that, 'kay? And these will come in handy, all right." She indicated the tools. The more they could salvage, and the less they needed to buy, the better.

"Here Ruby." Streak tossed a protein bar their way. "I found this and more things like it in the kitchen. You do not want to go into the firdge. Everything is bad in there, but all the non-perishables are still good."

Even better. Canned stuff was better than nothing. <"I think we need to consider growing some of our own food.... Later,"> she told herself.

She got back to her feet, smiling at Ruby. "Why don't you take a break for a bit, then help out the others when you feel up to it? I'm going to take care of some phone stuff."

With that she continued on inside, and disappeared for a bit.

(OOC: I'm going to take Neena out of the picture for a short time, just to do some 'off-camera' phone stuff and take a walkabout around the Mansion. If you need her, she's in the office. Just shoot me a PM if you go looking for her. Otherwise, I'll be back after a few more posts. Have fun!)

(OOC2: Continued in Taking a Walkabout.)

Iesland was partially stunned by everyone's entusiasm, and had to take a seat on one of the rubble piles. As he wondered how long it would take to fix up the mansion, he began to fiddle with the pile near him. He was surprised to find a half-crushed toolbox in the pile. He grabbed it and brought it back to Ruby. Tapping her on the shoulder, he wrote "Miss, I found this is one of the rubble piles, do you think we could use it?"

For the umpteenth time that hour, Iris talked herself into returning to the Mansion, out of it, and back in to it again. This time at least ended with her at the gates, or where they used to be. But that's where she paused.

This time there were considerably more people on the property. They all seemed to be working. She wanted to help, but hesitated. She couldn't tell from this distance if any of her friends were there. Nor could she anticipate how they would react to her arrival.

And, to be honest, she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

ooc: So ted, we can dissappear for a few posts and reappear with food if you're good with that?

ic:

Raina beamed. "Awesome!" she pulled out her phone and made a call to Flloyd to let him know what she was up to. "There's a store a few blocks away, we can stock up on some things... Flloyd's going to get us a bbq!" she grinned.

"Shall we go?" she didn't wait for an answer. She was too excited and headed off.

Lots of stuff had been trashed or broken. The clean up was going rather well though. More people showed up and contributed to the effort.

On one of her trips outside to drop off some more garbage Nika spotted a figure by the gate area. A familiar scent was in the air. She wasn't positive about it but it reminded her of Iris. This surely required a closer look.

Nika approached the figure in an easy going manner. The closer she got the stronger the scent. It had to be Iris. In fact, the closer she got the more it looked like Iris too.

"IRIS!"

Nika refrained herself from wanting to run up and hug the other girl. She wasn't sure if Iris was fully over their little scuffle several months ago. Nika sure hadn't forgotten.

Iris saw someone approaching her, and nearly turned and ran away. But her feet stayed put. Finally they came close enough that she recognized the white cat ears. She couldn't see much else, but Nika appeared to be in decent health.

Iris scratched at her shoulder in a nervous tic. The last time she'd seen Nika was just after she'd gone Haywire, and ripped up the Mansion on her own. The girl had felt guilty about fighting with her, and tried to convince her to stay. Something had happened between that night and the next day, when she had met Hunter and realized she was in a fake Mansion. It was all very confusing, and still cloudy to Iris. But she wondered if Nika thought she'd just decided to leave instead.

"IRIS!"

The shout startled Iris out of her confused musings. She startled back a step or two.

"Uh, Nika. Hi. Um.... nice to see you. Again." She attempted a sheepish smile, unsure of what that shouted greeting meant.

Mettaliar took another huff of his cigar and looked out once more into the city. He turned around the corner and slowly blew the smoke out of his mouth. He looked around and saw most people still cleaning up the area. He took another puff before hearing a few people people cry out a certain name.

"Iris!"

Mettaliar lifted an eyebrow and turned to look at the crowd of people running towards that one girl. Iris. Mettaliar sighed and blew out the smoke and began walking towards here, waving his hand towards her.

"Excellent stuff; let's go!" But Raina had already started running. He and Natalie ran after her, and Natalie flitted across to cling to Ted's back. Even if she weighed the same as a normal person, Ted wouldn't have been hindered all that much. Due to the camps, she was even thinner than usual, and Ted barely noticed. But there was someone that he did notice as they went closer to the gates. Well, what used to be gates.

"Iris!" Ted grinned as he ran past, waving over his shoulder. "Nice to see you back!" "And who was that?" Ted looked up in surprise, then realised that from Natalie's point of view it seemed that Ted was good friends with the mansion girls. He started to panic and try to explain that they were just friends, but Natalie just punched him on the arm playfully as they caught up with Raina.

Nika could see and heaar the hesitation in Iris' voice. Maybe she shouldn't have approached Iris. Maybe Iris really is still feeling defensive after they both destroyed a good portion of the mansion. Though on the plus side of things Iris did respond back in a friendly manner.

"Nice to see you too Iris. Where have you been? Were you in a different camp? Oh I hope you managed to stay out of the camps."

The facial expression on Nika's face showed worry and sorrow at the same time. She wanted to give her friend a hug, but she stood her ground.

"Iris! Nice to see you back!" A big guy and a very slight girl ran past on their way out.

"Um.... thanks?" Iris felt a bit bewildered. The boy looked familiar, but she couldn't place him in that brief an instant.

She also saw Mett approaching from behind Nika. She'd already had a chance to get over her uneasiness with him, so she didn't feel quite so worried about what he thought of her. In fact, she guessed he might be in the same boat, having also avoided the Camps.

"Nice to see you too Iris. Where have you been? Were you in a different camp? Oh I hope you managed to stay out of the camps."

Iris bit her lip, looked down, and became very interested in the hem of her T-shirt. "No, I.... I didn't get sent to a camp."

She hadn't even registered, but didn't want to say that. And she felt awful that she hadn't even helped get her friends out.

"Um.... are you.... you know. Okay?" She felt, and probably sounded, like a little girl right at that moment.

Streak had just walked back outside from tearing up another section of carpet and taking some debris that was useless outside. He walked back to the debris pile that he had put the last carpet roll on. He had just dropped the pile he was carrying and stopped for a second to catch his breath. This was his second or third or even fourth trip carrying things outside. He didn't know for sure and it didn't matter anyways, the work was getting done and he was helping out. That's all Streak cared about.

While he was resting he heard someone, a girl, shout someones name. He went over to see what was going on when he saw Nika hurrying towards one person. He calmly walked over to where Nika and Met were heading. It was Iris. He also saw Ted and the girl he was with run past Iris and said something really quickly as they went to catch up with Raina. The last time Streak had seen her she was out of control and destroying the mansion. She seemed better now than when she was back then. Streak seemed to have just arrived in a crucial time. Nika had asked the big million dollar question as far as he was concerned.

Where have you been? Were you in a different camp? Oh I hope you managed to stay out of the camps."

He also heard Iris' answer. No, I.... I didn't get sent to a camp."
There was something different in her answer. she seemed like she didn't want to answer it or she was ashamed of her answer. He thought back and remembered that he didn't see her at the breakout. Just because I didn't see her doesn't mean she wasn't there. He put an hand on his chin thinking. Judging by the way she answered it she wasn't at the breakout and she feels like she let everyone down because of that.

Streak figured that Iris either didn't know him or she might not remember him. He calmly and quietly walked away to try and find some water or something to drink. He searched for a while but since the water to the mansion hadn't been restored yet he just decided to sit down under a tree and cool off for a little bit.

Sitting under the tree, he watched people working on the cleanup effort. So far it they were unable to actually rebuild because they needed supplies and they needed plenty of things before they could even start the rebuilding.