"Language, Omi," Aya said with a scowl.
"Sorry," Omi said, turning innocent chibi eyes on the older assassin, making use of the age-old trick for getting out of a lecture. "I just poked myself with the stupid dart." Yohji raised an eyebrow from his position on the couch.
"One of those 'stupid darts' you were putting those chemicals onto a minute ago?"
"No, this one's clean," Omi replied, waving a dismissive hand. "My hand is bleeding, though, so I'd better go clean up."
With Weiss's line of work, a few scratches were inevitable, and something as minor as a dart poke was relatively small beans in comparison to some of the wounds they had suffered over the years, so no one gave it much thought as Omi headed to the bathroom for the first aid kit.
That is, no one gave it much thought until a blood-curdling scream was heard echoing from down the hallway.
As they rushed out of their chairs to see what was wrong, Ken was completely bowled over by the fleeing teenager, and Aya just barely missed a similar fate by flattening himself up against the wall. Yohji stood his ground and caught Omi as he tried to keep running, then held him at arms length to protect himself from the flailing arms and legs.
"Omi, what is wrong?" Yohji asked, near panic at the teenager's frightened state. The usually imperturbable assassin was wide-eyed and struggling to get away from his friend, obviously scared to death of whatever he had seen.
"Let me go! Please!" he gasped. "It's a stampede. . . The purple elephants!" All of the currently sane members of Weiss blinked at each other for a moment.
"The. . . what?" Aya asked, obviously thinking he had heard wrong.
"Purple elephants!" Omi all but sobbed. "They're going to overrun us!"
"Um, Ken" Yohji said while trying to keep a grip on his armful of wriggling Omi, "What exactly were those chemicals Omi was trying out on his darts?"
"He said it was. . ." he paused to think, then had to fight a grin as he remembered. "He was trying out some new hallucinogens!"
"How exactly will our targets seeing purple elephants help us out any on a mission?" Aya asked with his characteristic scowl.
"I don't know," Ken said as he doubled over in laughter, "But it sure as hell provides for some good entertainment here at home!" Even Aya had to fight a smile as Omi started trying to claw a nearby invisible elephant's eyes out.