When Terry learned what the M drug could let him do, he already knew what he'd do with it.

He hated his job at the DMV more than anything. The hours sucked. The pay sucked. His coworkers sucked. The people who went to the DMV knew that it all sucked, too, and they hated it, too, and they were sure to let Terry know about it every day he went to work.

Today would be different, though. Today, Terry was using M. Today, Terry had brought a camcorder. Today, anyone who came near the DMV that afternoon would be acting very unusual. M gave Terry had the ability to make people hallucinate. He had very little control over what the other people saw, but he knew that they looked hilarious when he did it to them.

* *

Kaitlyn was walking to the subway station, having spent most of the afternoon with people from Sebastian's church. This time, they'd been packing a bunch of stuff for the food bank. The others were going to drive her back to the Church itself, but by now, Kaitlyn just wanted to go home. She knew how to get to the Sanctuary from here.

Except...

This part of the street didn't look familiar. It also didn't look like it belonged on this planet. Kaitlyn had never seen a car with legs before. Most of the cars she'd seen used wheels instead of legs, and they didn't make funny faces at her.

Soon, the little redhead was pointing at a parked car and laughing uncontrollably.

She was standing in front of the DMV.

Rhythm yawned loudly and stretched, garnering a few stares as she smacked her lips and then slumped back in her chair.

Yeah, the DMV. No one could ever find nice things to say about it. Like, ever. She only knew this because while Syn was sleeping (and Rhy couldn't) she'd gone on the internet and looked. Like, LOOKED. Google couldn't find jack crap and when Google was shaking it's head at you...well, you know you were boned. Like the library at Hogwarts. If it wasn't there, it didn't exist. Or Dumbledore banned it.

She was even halfway through The Goblet of Fire, a book she had started that morning when she'd come in 'early' to the DMV to get her motorcycle registered. She didn't want to, but she had been coerced by a illegal maneuver from Syn in the form of a Puppy Dog Pout so adorable it actually hurt to look at. Rhy attempted to huff for only a few moments before she'd snatched her leather jacket from a chair (and the Goblet of Fire from the desk) and stomped out. She wasn't really angry, but there were so many other things she could be doing!!

Like Syn!!

But no, no. No. No. She was stuck at the DMV and halfway through one of the largest books in the Harry Potter series, all because Syn thought getting her bike registered was a good idea. What did registering it even entail? Rhy wasn't good with any real 'legal' aspects of...well, anything. Considering her profession she probably should, but if the time ever came the thief was pretty sure her comrades in The Cat's Paw would bail her out. Or Syn and her Amazing Sexiness, which Rhy was positive was actually her mutant power.

Breathe, in, breathe out. The brunette took a moment to look outside of the DMV window wall to see a redhead laughing manically. She blinked slowly, her mind trying to catch up with what she was seeing before the image transformed. In fact, the entire scenery did, and suddenly she wasn't at the DMV anymore. She was back in New Orleans, and the redhead that was laughing was...well, still laughing, but now her eyes were locked onto Rhythm's own.

“Come, little birdie!!” The redhead purred. “Lesse just how much pain ya can handle, eh?!”

Rhy took no notice of the rest of her surroundings and instead launched herself at the redhead, recognizing her as one of the many trainers she had while training with The Cat's Paw. She was an expert in pain and how to manage, deal and most of all, inflict it. The sessions she had with Rhy were memorable only because of just how unique they were, and just how much that bitch enjoyed her work.

“Neva again, Melony.” Rhythm growled, not even for a second realizing that at the moment, she was nothing but a normal human being with no power coursing through her veins. “Ya will neva touch meh again!!”

Terry chuckled. He pointed the camera at the dark-haired woman who was currently yelling at the window. Or, at least, he assumed it was a young woman. It could have been a really girly-looking boy. But whatever the gender, she seemed to be acting out a lot more than anyone else. And as far as he knew, it was only going to get weirder – and more hilarious – from here on in.

**

Kaitlyn heard muffled, incomprehensible shouting. She stopped laughing turned to face the source of the noise, and realized that, this whole time, the building next to her had been full of policemen. Or, at least, people who were wearing police uniforms, but they were actually people from rival gangs! They were using police disguises, and they were trying to get revenge on the Order for keeping them out of the M trade!

In retrospect, that muffled shout sounded a lot like "It's Kaitlyn! Arrest her!"

They even knew her name! How did they learn her name? This was bad. This was very, very, very bad. Her face contorted with terror. She backed up against Geoffrey, which was the four-legged car's name. "Geoffrey," she muttered urgently, "We need to get out of here. Now."

"I can't," complained the car, "One of my legs is broken!"

'Snow?! I'm reading massive spikes in your adrenal levels...and, like, everything else. What the crap's goin' on?!'

The voice brought a swimming sensation to fill her vision, and it seemed as if everything suddenly stopped before moving in slow motion, then sped up to normal speed. Rhythm found herself on the street, her eyes blinking rapidly as she took in the scene of mass chaos before her. People were fighting, looting, screaming and crying. And while the jokes she found on the internet usually involved such things when it came to the DMV, she just figured that most of it was just people exaggerating they're terrible experience in the dreaded building. Now...Rhythm wondered how true most of it was.

'Snow!! Your earpiece!! Touch it, it'll help--'

Everything went black for Rhythm and she clutched her head as searing pain shot through it. Swallowing hard, the thief closed her eyes and sunk to the ground to her knees, wondering just what in the bloody frack was going on to induce such pain, not to mention why. Was it just another random attack from a mutant looking to get famous? The brunette opened her eyes, the scene still the same but this time Melony was there, her shrill laughter filling Rhythm's ears.

“Oh, it still doesn't take much does it?” The blonde licked her lips sensually. “To...get you on your knees?”

“BITCH!!”

The suddenly blast of music in her ear made Rhythm stop for only a moment before she shot forward. Her strength augmented by the power of the music that seemed to burn in her veins, Rhythm didn't aim for Melony. Something told her that doing that would be bad, though she didn't know what. But Melony's personality was something she knew, and any sort of intimidation usually sent her backpedaling so she could hide behind someone that could protect her.

Instead, Rhythm's foot slammed into the car door, her foot just barely missing Melony stomach. The door indented in and the car pushed back a bit before stopping suddenly. Rhythm frowned, her face contorted into a snarl as she balled her fists and took a step forward towards Melony.

“Whatcha be doin' here, Melony?” Rhythm asked, voice dangerously low. “Me an' you...we ain't got no bidness no mo. Ya lookin' ta get busted up some mo den? Cause ah got plenty o' bad feelins left fer ya, savvy? So start talkin', an' make it good.”

Rhythm stood straight up at her considerable five foot eleven and cracked her knuckles, head tilted sideways as she stared down at Melony, who seemed much...shorter than she remembered. And wasn't she blond...not a redhead?

Kaitlyn turned towards Geoffrey's side-view mirror, so that she could look into one of the car's eyes. "You have three other legs!" she cried at it. "Dogs can walk with three legs! Why can't you?" But it was already too late for anyone to do anything about it.

Crash! One of the disguised gangsters burst through the window and approached her. He didn't even bother to use the door! "Didja think you could run away forever, Kaitlyn?" That voice sounded familiar. She squinted at the figure's face for several moments before she managed to recognize it. "Didja think I wouldn't find you and make you come back?"

The orderling was too scared to speak. She was looking at her father. Not Mars, who loved her, but her real, biological father. He'd finally found her! And now he was going to use some kind of ingenious disguised-gangsters-plan to destroy the Order! He took a knee and looked her in the eyes. She flattened herself against Geoffrey's side as much as she could, wanting to stay as far away from him as possible. His mouth was twisted into an evil grin.

Without warning, that grin transformed into a grimace, and his neck jerked to the side unnaturally.

"BITCH!!"[/i]

He lunged towards Kaitlyn and kicked Geoffrey in the side. From the loud, metallic crunch that resulted from the kick, Kaitlyn could tell that Geoffrey was mortally wounded. She knew that, if a car was unlucky enough to survive a hit like that, they wouldn't be alive for much longer.

"That red moron isn't your real father," he said, "I am! Lori isn't your mother, because your real mother is dead, and that's your fault. You don't deserve either of them. You can't just run off and live with them. It doesn't work that way, Kaitlyn McCarthy!"

"Shut up!" She screamed, "That's not my name!" The girl threw her arms forward, pointing her open palms directly at her 'father' and lunging towards him.

CRACKOOM[/b]

The shockwave ripped through the air, destroying nearly everything in its path, and knocking it into the air if it wasn't too busy getting destroyed. Kaitlyn's own feet left the ground for a moment. She soon collided with the side of Geoffrey's corpse, making her neck jerk backwards unpleasantly. She managed to land on her feet, then stumble forwards, her eyes too blurred and her ears ringing too much for her to tell what kind of damage she'd managed against her father's ingenious schemes.

Ever since that table had landed on him, Terry stopped thinking that this experience was very fun. In fact, right after that table landed on him, he wasn't doing very much thinking at all. Concussions tend to have that kind of effect on people. Soon, the hallucinations should be wearing off, and people should start coming to their senses.

She hurt.

A lot.

Though she didn't know why. In fact, her own situation was coming back to her at a snail's pace. It was different from how it happened in the movies, she knew that much, where after you wake up and the hero is all badly hurt and the scene on how it all happened came back in a rush. Nope, Rhythm couldn't remember a damn thing. Instead, Rhy could only pick herself up from what she assumed was once a wooden bench and winced terribly at the large splinter of wood that had penetrated her side.

“Great...”

It wasn't too long ago that a small stint at a bar with Kitra had led to some minor head injuries. Now she was stabbed with wood and probably a few broken bones. Among a plethora of other cuts and bruises and holy frak did she just want a month, a single, solitary month where she didn't have to spend an extended period of time in bed, resting up after being injured!! The moan that escaped a split lip was painful, and every breath she took was like being stabbed over and over again with a dull knife. Even so, Rhythm sat up (almost passing out in the process) and took a look around her.

It was like a bomb had gone off.

Though, really, if terrorist had to choose a site to bomb Rhythm had no idea why they'd chose the DMV. From what she'd read and experienced at the dreaded place, there were plenty of people that would be willing to do that right here in the States alone. Another wince appeared on Rhythm's normally jovial face as she head slight cracking and felt the grind of bone to bone, but that didn't stop her from turning her head as she spied a sight that truly baffled her.

A lone girl, kneeling on the ground, crying. The area immediately around her was oddly clean, though beyond maybe a foot everything was ash and devastation. Chaos. Burnt cars and mangled light posts and such. Real post-apocalyptic feel to the place. And while her normal thought process would have been 'Get home to Syn, get healed, get laid', her only thought was that somehow, in some way, this little girl was the cause of whatever the frak just happened that Rhy needed to help her.

Using what she would later describe to Syn as 'Herculean strength', Rhythm pushed herself to a knee then then stood, gritting her teeth as the world seemed to sway. She only took a single moment to vomit, ignoring the fact that most of it looked like blood, before she stumbled over to the small redhead. Rhy knew in the back of her mind that she probably looked like a zombie right now, what with a chunk of wood poking form her side and the blood she knew she had splattered on her clothes, but that didn't stop her from putting on the most charming smile she could, as well as using the gentlest voice she could muster.

“Hey dere Firecracka...” Rhythm keeled with much effort, holding out a hand. “Ya look scared. How's about Rhythm takes ya ta a place where ya dun hafta be scared, huh? Ah stay dere at times with mah girlfriend, Syn. Ah'm sure she'll help us both, savvy? Take Rhythm's hand, an' les go 'fore people show up and we has ourselves a...misunderstandin', dig?”

The first blast wasn't enough. Those gangsters, those conspirators, were still up and about. Some of them were yelling at her. Some of them were laughing at her. More than one of them was wearing her father's face. Kaitlyn gritted her teeth. Her eyes welled up with tears. She walked into the DMV through a broken window.

BOOM[/b]

People screamed. Bones broke.

BOOM[/b]

She needed to do this. The Order was counting on her.

BOOM[/b]

The entire building shook. Its walls cracked.

BOOM[/b]

Quickly and violently, reality reasserted itself.

**

Kaitlyn's ears were ringing. The room was spinning faster than a top. Her vision was so blurred that she might as well have been blind. She felt like she had just awakened from a vivid dream, but instead of being in her bed, she was in the middle of an unfamiliar building. She had no idea how she got there, and no idea why she was crying, except for the impression that she'd just gone through a nightmare.

"Hey dere Firecracka..."

This voice was the first thing she could hear over her ringing ears. The girl wiped her eyes and turned towards its source. A pair of red irises was the first thing to come into focus. As her vision continued to clear up, she could tell that they belonged to an older girl, and a tall one at that.

Rhythm was her name. She was Syn's girlfriend. She looked seriously injured, and so did everyone else in the room. Slowly, cautiously, Kaitlyn accepted Rhythm's hand.

"Did... did I do this?" Her voice shook.

>>[/b] "Did... did I do this?"[/i]

She was scared. Shaking like a leaf and Rhythm couldn't blame her. It hit her hard, really, right in the heart. To wake up amidst chaos, to not know what was going on. Rhythm felt her resolve strengthen, her eyes, though gentle, grew determined. She didn't want to assume anything about this girl or her situation but...but it felt too much like her own. Her question made it more apparent that some form of memory loss was there and that...that made Rhythm's heart feel like it was in a vice. She barely blinked back the tears that were forming at her own memories of this very situation. The most she could do, however, was be there for this girl and hope to whatever cosmic being was out there that she wasn't too late to help this girl in some way.

“Ah dun know, ta be honest.” Rhythm answered, curling her bigger, calloused hand over the girl's smaller, softer one. “But it dun matter, Firecracka, cause even if ya did, ya dun gotta no mo. Rhy's here ta help ya, dig? She'll protect ya. So relax, yeah? I'll take ya home.”

Was she just talking out of her ass? Honestly, the thief didn't know. And while she didn't exactly run, she knew that all she had to do was get to a phone of some sort and the cavalry would arrive in minutes. She just hoped that she could stay off the radar of the police and other such nosy people until she could fulfill her promise to this girl, and make sure she was safe and protected.

Kaitlyn still didn't know why she was crying, but she knew that she wanted to stop. The girl grit her teeth and wiped her tears with her free arm, doing her best to suppress the convulsions that usually came with crying. She needed to pull herself together. Even if Rhythm didn't seem to know what had happened, and even though she'd said it didn't matter, Kaitlyn knew: "It's prolly my fault," she managed to add through her tears.

Rhythm probably knew too, on some level. 'Firecracka' was too perfect of a nickname for her to have given without knowing what Kaitlyn could do. Or at least guessing at it, which wouldn't have been hard. Kaitlyn was the only un-injured person in the building at the moment, and it looked like a bomb had gone off where she was kneeling.

Incidentally, 'Firecracka' was a pretty cool nickname. She was starting to like Rhythm, which made her feel even worse about hurting her. "Are you okay?" Kaitlyn gave her a worried look; she didn't seem fit to do much protecting or taking-Kaitlyn-home. They'd probably need to find a doctor or someone to deal with that huge piece of wood sticking in her side.

The concern was sweet, but Rhythm didn't really know how to respond to that. The girl was young, yeah, but she certainly wasn't stupid. The redhead could plainly see the wood sticking out from Rhythm's side, and since generally that was a bad place for pieces of wood to be...well, she obviously wasn't okay. But the stronger part of Rhythm could only continue to give the small girl a reassuring smile, followed by a small pat on the head. She didn't respond because she didn't like the idea of lying to the girl. While her previous answer to if the girl had been the one to cause all this was an honest 'I don't know', this question was something she simply avoided by trying to appear as comforting and charming as possible.

There were multiple phones in the DMV, and Rhythm searched until she could find one that hadn't been broken in The Sundering that had happened earlier. She eventually did, and dialed up Syn's number, cursing as it went straight to voicemail. Great. The one time she was actually calling her with a need for something and not just to hear her voice and it was turned off. Or...something. She would have rather called Syn and had her take care of the whatever procedure it was that made Sanctuary go wheels down and send out the rescue, but talking directly to them would have to do. And quick, because the sirens in the distance didn't bode well for them.

“Names Rhythm...” The thief spoke as soon as someone answered the phone. “Incident at da DMV. Kinda injured here, have a lil girl. Mutant, ah tink. She beh needin' protection. An' beh quick...unwanted guests beh arrivin' soon...whatcha mean ya need mah ID numbah? I dun know dat shit, go get Syn!! She's mah girlfriend ya twit!!”

Rhythm left the phone off the hook as she waddled back to the redhead and once again laid a hand on top of her head. “We gotta move, Firecracka,” she said, smiling at the little girl. “Think ya can help Rhythm along? Gotta get ta a place where da Sanctuary can pick us up an' da cops can't.”

Kaitlyn interpreted Rhythm's silence as a 'no.' Thankfully, Rhythm didn't need to be very well off to call her friends for help. Kaitlyn didn't know who Rhythm's friends were, but they probably wouldn't be in the Order. After the number of 'terrorist attacks' they'd already had to clean up after, they would not be happy to get involved in this.

Trying her best to suppress her crying, she stood up, brushed some dust off, and took a look outside. Outside, she found another good reason for the Order to keep out: this was definitely not their territory. The graffiti here showed that the Killfingers ran these streets. Killfingers had a bad history with the gangs that did some of the Order's dirty work.

Then, she began to overhear Rhythm's phone conversation. She stared at Rhythm, then at some killfinger graffiti: a black square with five 'fingers,' all of which were red except the middle finger and the thumb, which were black. "You too," she murmured.

By the time she felt Rhythm's hand on her head, Kaitlyn's sobbing has subsided. Her tears had streaked the dust that had gotten on her face during the earlier explosions, and one could tell that those tears were still fresh. "Are the Sanctuary guys really coming?" Her voice cracked. She doubted it.

Either way, they had to move. The little redhead wasn't sure how she'd be able to help Rhythm along; she had a foot and a half on Kaitlyn, height-wise. But she would try.