>> "Yes, brother... I shall!"

Akshay cringed PULSATE[/b] MARVELLED at the sight of the slugs children being placed onto the bare skin of the two guards that he just dazed with his dazzling display of words in the heat of battle. He stood over them, grinning wide at his own prowess as he waiting for the enlightenment of the slime to open their eyes to the world. Hands on his hips, he grinned as he looked up between the large slugs and his two sisters.

Soon, their family would indeed grow even bigger.

>> "Join the good fight, brothers..."

The guards blinked their eyes as they slowly began to rise onto their feet. As they did, the slugs on the backs of their necks pulsating and fed them information on who to trust, who was their master, and what the cause was that they had just joined. But most of all, the message was to be happy and proud to be in the situation that they were in. Akshay grinned as he saw the familiar looks in their eyes.

“Yeeesss! Yesssssssssh!” one of the slugs said as it slithered forward.

“Masters!” One of the guards said enthusiastically as he bowed to him.

“It is an honor!” replied the other.

Both of their faces were slathered with slime and they beamed absolutely proudly about it! Even though it may have tasted like complete and utter shi—PULSATE rainbows wrapped in unicorns and dipped in chocolate gold!

Akshay smirked as he stepped forward and slapped them both on the shoulders.

“Come, brothers!” he said with a nod. “You have just joined the army! Let us prepare others for induction!” With that, Akshay once again took the lead as he and both guards checked for more people in the building, and therefore, others that could be added to the army.

Allison didn’t know either of the two guards that well, but as little as she did know them, she didn’t particularly like them. It wasn’t that they couldn’t get along, or weren’t nice; in fact, they were too nice, and Allison had learned a while ago to expect the resentment that kind of niceness frequently turned into when she refused to agree that she owed them something for being nice to her. So she wasn’t particularly inclined to pity them as her brother fought.

Once they joined the slime family, though, of course she grinned at them both. Welcome to the family! She bounced on her toes slightly, humming as her first brother led the newest two off. Of course, now they’d be nice and they wouldn’t end up resenting her, and they were all family, and the slime family just solved everything!

...Except sense of direction, it seemed. Her first brother had no reason to know how the factory worked, but her newest pair of brothers should have. Well, it was certainly easy to become overwhelmed with the glory of joining the family; that was probably it. Allison took a second to open the door to the actual factory part of the building, wincing a bit at the noise. “Over here! There shouldn’t be anyone else in the offices. Maybe storage, but they’ll just be back in the factory in a few minutes anyway.” She continued bouncing on her toes, smiling as she held the door, before wandering back to the computers. Her desk was conveniently nearby; she was pretty sure the computers all had the same password, but no need to risk anything. She turned the computer on and sat down, absently kicking her feet and humming to herself. It’d only take a few minutes for the computer to turn on, and then a few more minutes to find the map and... print it out, she guessed? Anyway it wouldn’t take long, and then she could go rejoin the rest of her family....

Aura had been in the shower when her phone had rang and so she had not heard it. Out of the Shower and prepared for some training Aura glanced over at her phone which was glowing to tell her she had a message. Hearing it Aura quickly asked a Sanctuary staff member to drive her to the location. It was a much slower ride then Aura would have preferred and the message had been a bit confusing to her anyway. Something about slugs and a factory but since skydancer was a friend, Aura went.

Aura cut her way through a poorly taken care of chain link fence and entered the property. The door said employee only and Aura tried it, it was locked. Her Aura reformed a hammer around her fist from the blade she had used to cut through the fence and with a not so subtle move, struck the lock and metal door hard, the noise reverberating, the door was fine, but the door handle fell out onto the floor and Aura entered, unaware that everyone else had enterd from the opposite side.

Aura realized she was In the storage area and the one worker she did encounter, she quickly knocked out before he could so much as scream. Keeping her Aura up she looked around, she knew what slug's looked like but could not imagine how they might be dangerous. Aura entered the factory Area and looked around, keeping her hammer on one hand and forming a sword with the others. Slugs were not very tasty but if one cooked them right they could be a bit tastier then the average blue jay. She wa shidden only by a large machine whose purpose was lost on Aura.

(If people would like me to move Sara to a different location or edit this post, please PM me.)

At first it was easy for Sara to follow the pair. Kidnapper, and victim. Every moment she was getting angrier and angrier. Between her keen sense of smell and her strong eye sight, there were few moments that she lost track of the two.

Head lights lit up the street, and Sara found herself ducking around the corner of a building. She pressed herself against the wall peered around the corner. Sara's eyes were reflecting the light and giving off the cheep effect that they were glowing but the people in the car didn't seem to notice. wide and wild, Sara shifted to try and find the kidnapper that she had been following, but he had disappeared off of the street as quickly as she had.

Growling quietly at herself for loosing track of them even for a moment, Sara immediately kicked herself for not taking care ofthe kidnapper right away. Ok. So she would have to catch up. snoop around the building, and check for the smells that she had been following. Mean while she couldn't help but over here some of what was being said by the CEOs.

Carefully Sara crept around the corner of the building. Ears twitching here and there, and her nostrils flared. Sara dashed on silent feet. The businessmen never looked in Sara's direction and she quickly found the shadow of a building to creep closer while hiding. The CEO and the men that he had been meeting with him disapeered into the building, and Sara made her way around the building to the front. She'd have to cross under the light of the street lamps there, but so be it then.

Should she remain at the door to see if help would arrive? Should she enter and see if she could stop whatever the heck was going on herself? If she didn't go in herself and something bad happened, would it then be her fault? These were the questions that ran through Skydancer's mind as she tried to figure out her next move. That and a constant string of questioning how she had gotten involved in this whole mess to begin with and why hadn't she just stayed on her happy little rooftop and pretended not to notice the evil slug people and their weird looking minions. Or something. At the very least, that would have meant less slime to deal with and right at that moment, she was pretty convinced that the slime was the worst part of the whole nightmare.

Deciding that no, there was absolutely no way she could justify not going further into the building now that she had all ready involved herself, the first thing Skydancer thought odd was the lack of guards at the door. Well, perhaps not the first thing she thought odd as the whole situation was odd and not to mention more than a little bit disurbing, but it was strange that there were no guards. Shouldn't there be guards? Or at least someone to greet people? There were no bodies either, which was probably good because it meant that, if there were guards to begin with, they were probably still alive. And maybe brainwashed. Or maybe she was just being paranoid.

As it turned out, it wasn't difficult to figure out where the slug people had gone. There was a nice convenient trail of slime to follow and it wasn't even a challenge. Not that Skydancer particularly wanted a challenge, but if it was hard to find them then she might have had a valid excuse to leave or simply wait for backup. Unfortunately for her that wasn't an option. The strange thing was that the slime trail seemed to take her on a meandering tangent, as if whoever was leading them didn't have the slightest idea where they were actually going. Which made sense if the invaders hadn't properly researched the facility and reinforced the idea that, maybe, there actually hadn't been any guards and her enslavement thought actually had just been paranoia. Hopefully.

“Over here! There shouldn’t be anyone else in the offices. Maybe storage, but they’ll just be back in the factory in a few minutes anyway.”

Just as Skydancer was about to turn another corner, she heard a voice speak. Well, that meant she had found them. So, now what was she supposed to do? Formidable though her tubes were, she couldn't' take them all on all at once, could she?

Andrea watched as she brother walked on, then as her sister called out to them and they were directed toward the offices.

The Slug Twins shared a glance, before nodding to each other. "Brothers, sisters! We will be splitting up now- You and you-" One twin pointed at Akshay and Andrea, "You two shall come with me to find more initiates." The other Slug looked to Allison and the two awaiting guard brothers. He reached out one sticky hand and snatched up one of the radio's from the guards."You shall stay with us, we must be here to protect our sister while she works. If we find any trouble, we shall call you."

"Yessir!" Andrea cried, shooting them a slime covered salute. She turned and followed their commanding Slug leader as he slithered out the door, cooing to the remaining little slug-letts in her arms as she shuffled along.

Behind them, the female Slug mutant returned to trailing around behind where Allison sat, watching as she tapped away at the keyboard. "Now... sister, find us anything valuable... Charts, graphs... expense grids... Anything. If we can take it with us as proof of their evil, it will only help our cause."

~~

Just inside the building, the CEO stood motionless. There were large goopy slime trails on the floor... like someone had dragged around a mop full of green jelly. "What the hell is this sh*t?" One of his lackeys knelt and prodded it with a hesitant finger.

"I don't know, sir... but whatever it is, it's nasty." The CEO didn't look very happy. "Someone's in here, who's not supposed to be. Radio the other workers here, I want this figured out ASAP." His assistant nodded.

"You two, head down to the offices and make sure everything's locked up tight. I also want you to get into the security cameras and see who it was who left this nasty mess here." The two men nodded, and hurried off down the hallway. Once they were out of ear shot, the CEO turned to his assistant.

"If that office has been tampered with, at all, I want this place torched." The man nodded, eying his boss warily, and lifted his radio to his mouth...

~~

The Leech wiped splotches of deep red from his mouth, standing up from the unconscious form of the worker. The man had lost a good amount of blood, and would have a hickey the size of a salad plate when he woke up. Thankfully, that would be well after Leech had departed from the scene. With his belly full, he turned and headed back to where he had stashed the child.

..who, upon finding him, was now awake. The man cursed inwardly, unsure if he should just leave him where he was tied up, or take him with.

His honor told him that he could not possibly leave the child alone with the foul Slug twins wandering around. "Child... be clam." He started, raising his hands in a lazy surrender. "I will not hurt you, but you must come with me."
The blood still clinging to his lips and chin probably didn't help his cause, as he approached the boy... but he had forgotten about the mess left over from hid feeding.

~~

Meanwhile.. back in the factory wing, two men stood side by side. It was break time, and they were content with chatting about daily like and the like. "Man... my wife just tore me a new one last night. Turns out I forgot pay the heating bill on time..."

"Man," The other replied, shaking his head sympathetically. "I bet Susan went straight for the throat, am I right?" Before the his companion could reply, a clank rattled out from within the machine strewn room behind them. Both men glanced at the other, tucked their phones away and moved off to investigate the strange sounds.

~~

In the hall, with her magnificent slug leader leading the charge, they inched along. Andrea had repositioned the baby slugs on her person so that her arms were free. She was busy giggling at the sensation their squirming caused, with her arms held straight out at her sides to make sure she stayed up on her feet.. and not on her but like the last time.

Out of nowhere, a crackling voice popped into existance, causing the lead slug to stop and raise the radio in his hand. Back in the offices, his sister turned as the other guards radio crackled to life as well...

"Bill? Steven?... Where are you guys? What's all this crap on the floor? I want you two up here NOW with an explanation as to what's doing on here. Mr. Boyle is NOT impressed!"

Andrea giggled again, mostly at the name boyle, and the Slug mutant turned back at Akshay and her. "....What was that? Who's Bo--... oh no! The boss! Quickly, we must hurry!" He sped up the pace, slithering faster than ever. Andrea attempted to hurry up, and ended up slipping in his slime trail. Little slugs flew everywhere, and as she set about collecting them the Slug mutant turned and hollered over his shoulder at her. "Leave them! Hurry! We must finish destroying the equipment!"

She blinked and gathered up the armful she already had, leaving the rest to slither around in the hallway behind them.

Above all else, Michael was scared. He could say there were a variety of emotions running through him, and that would certainly be the case, but fear was the number one enemy at the moment. Michael looked down at his own feet, almost panicking. He knew where he was, but he still didn’t know how he got there, or why he was still there. And another big thing was that it didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. It was wrong. If this was a book, it wouldn’t be a boy who was taken, it would be a girl. And then the girl was rescued by someone. So logically, he also couldn’t find any way to figure out what was going to happen next.

Of course, who needed logic when presented with facts? He took a glance up after another second…and there he was. This big, giant colossus of a man (He really thought everyone was a colossus during meetings anyways, so it wasn’t THAT different) with blood dripping from its mouth. Michael shivered and looked back down at his feet. He said absolutely nothing, ignoring the man completely. He reminded Michael of his father, and the boy couldn’t look at him at all. He was shivering, way to scared to even think of stealing a glance again. All he knew was that he was playing the part of the heroine.

Wait…that was it. That was what Michael was doing. He was the heroine, right? So he just had to be the heroine, and do what the heroine did. The boy did what he’d done when faced with his father beating down on him. He made himself a game…he made himself puzzles, he did everything he could to focus on a different side of the story. His father hit him, Michael would make up another leggo combination he had to do before bed. A man shows up with the obvious intent of hurting something, who probably would hurt Michael, he would make it into a book.

Michael took slow, short gasps of breaths as he tried to reason this out. A book had a savoir, right? So he probably…he might have a savior. Right now he was the kidnapped heroine though, and…maybe the evil villain (Mr. Dripping-with-blood as he shall be called) was in a tight spot. All Michael had to do was be the heroine who was getting…moved? He was having a hard time convincing himself, but Michael did what he had to do. However…there came the problem of him not liking the man.

Oftentimes, a child with the form of autism he had, would not even speak to the people he didn’t like. Michael was no different. He refused to actually vocalize anything, but he kind of crawled slightly to the side. Perhaps it was his way of showing that he was still stuck to the pipe, or maybe his want to get away. But he did know that the heroine got slapped in the face when she didn’t do something right…he’d probably be getting one of them soon.

Akshay had been chosen for a special mission! He was so excited! It was as if all his wildest wishes had finally come true! He nodded boldly to his slug master as the creature took the lead and began to slither away, leading both himself and his new sister with him. Together they would single-handedly make the world a better place by introducing people to the teachings of their glorious slug masters! They would be ushering in a new, better, world order! And Akshay would get to stand at the forefront of it! He was so proud, so energized, so giggly!

…He blinked as he looked down to see that at least two slugs had attached themselves to his arms. He began to wonder how they got there in the first place but he suddenly found himself not caring! He would be their protector!

Boldly he walked on, staggering a little due to the sensations that suddenly flooded his body, but the he refused to waiver. He had a job to do and he was going to follow it to the T!

***

Later, after they found themselves in another part of the factory, Akshay had still not run into any more workers or guards. He was a little disappointed in this because he really wanted to get this show on the road and induct new people into their gooey family! There were still so many people in the world that didn’t know the benefits and wisdom of the Slug Twins! But they could not preach the word unless they found more than just two guards.

He sighed as he walked on, but suddenly came to a stop (bumping into his sister) as a voice rang out into the darkness.

>> "Bill? Steven?... Where are you guys? What's all this crap on the floor? I want you two up here NOW with an explanation as to what's doing on here. Mr. Boyle is NOT impressed!"

Akshay looked confused as he peered left and right. He saw no one who could have said that, which made sense since it seemed like that voice came from somewhere electronic.

>> "....What was that? Who's Bo--... oh no! The boss! Quickly, we must hurry! Leave them! Hurry! We must finish destroying the equipment!"

“Wha?” Akshay asked before he suddenly started to follow.

He helped his fallen, giggling sister to her feet and managed to pluck up a few of the more squirming slugs that were slinking around on the ground. Instantly they crawled over him, one attaching to his lower back and the other onto the back of his calf muscle. Instantly he was further flooded with euphoria and he giggled madly. The whole situation was just a little funny but he needed to keep a straight face. He jogged after his slug master, despite his slight lightheadedness and readied himself for whatever trials came next.

Allison saluted back as her sisters and brothers wandered off, before turning back to her own job. An important job! She didn’t quite see why, the slug parents hadn’t needed charts or graphs to convince anyone in the family yet… which something in the back of her mind was telling her was unusual, but that was probably just because the parents were so amazing. And right! Entirely right. Anyway, though, they wanted proof, so they’d get proof.

...Not that Allison was sure what proof they needed. It didn’t take a full minute to find and print the map of factories, but she was stuck on what else to add. Charts? Graphs? Expenses? Expenses she hadn’t had much to do with, so she wouldn’t be able to recognize them so easily, but she should be able to access them. Charts and graphs? Of what? Expenses? There weren’t any charts and graphs of expenses. She could make them. I was fairly simple once she found the expenses. She just had to… to… it was simple.

Her head felt like it was full of a whirlpool that didn’t quite fit; she knew the thoughts and knowledge were there, but she couldn’t find it, they were all drowning in the euphoria and triumph of finally having something to do, and a family that she could rely on, and… the whole situation, really. It would have been almost frustrating, if she wasn’t so busy being happy. The spinning dizzy-but-not feeling was a bit closer to being frustrating now. It was like her brain was dizzy but none of the rest of her was. The idea was just bizarre. And vaguely intimidating. She didn’t like not knowing what was going on with her own head. It would be okay, though. She had her family, and she was doing something right, so it would be okay.

"Bill? Steven? Where are you guys? What's all this crap on the floor? I want you two up here now with an explanation as to what's going on here. Mr. Boyle is not impressed!"

...That was more concerning. Not enough to actually make Allison feel concerned, but the rational part of her mind knew it was a warning that they didn’t have much time. And they still needed charts and graphs! Of what?

...Everything. Everything she could find. That would include everything useful, definitely. Allison began opening every file on the computer, clicking print on each one before moving to the next. A flood of paper began emerging from the printer, with no coherent organization but which certainly contained all the information that could be asked for about the factory. Including, somewhere in there, a mix of expenses and prices and incoming and outgoing and other information that would show more than a few discrepancies, should someone choose to look.

A few minutes of clicking got everything that Allison could find, though it would take several more minutes before the printer finished. She grinned up at the parent and her guarding brothers, letting her legs swing in the air. Everything was ready!