Since the government's experimenting was over, Serah felt much more comfortable returning to the city. Though passers-by stared at her, she vastly ignored it as she walked the streets and browsed shops. She even found new clothes every now and then that she loved. The shopkeepers generally didn't care what she looked like so long as she made a purchase.
A few times a week, Serah left for the city to get a few bags of groceries. Since Hercule died, his daughter Videl let Buu take the profits of everything that Hercule was still making money on. Until recently, money wasn't much of an issue. In the last couple years, Buu and Serah had been learning how to grow a fairly large garden of vegetables. Mack had even helped out with a concoction that made the vegetables grow huge.

On her next trip to the city, Serah flew in and landed a fair distance away before she entered the city limits. She preferred nobody notice her ability to fly and she concluded it would only bring unwanted attention. Buu wanted more sweets and his large, unusual form would attract a lot of attention. No telling how long it would take to truly be rid of prying, curious people that want to know more than they really need to know.
As Serah passed more and more people, the more she realized how uneasy they seemed. They stared at her with anxiety and fear. Though some occasionally gave her a fearful glance, the stares today were far from a stranger's uncertainty. Everyone seemed to genuinely fear her.

Eventually, sirens blared and closed in on Serah. She stopped as the streets cleared of civilians and officers surrounded her. They opened their doors, clamored out and steadied their guns on her. Serah swallowed, looked around nervously and raised her hands. An officer yelled, "Down on your knees!"
Serah obliged. Finding out if she was bullet-proof was not on her to-do list. Once both of her knees were on the ground, an officer approached slowly, "Stay there! You're under arrest!" He grabbed her wrists, one at a time, and cuffed her. Serah knew she could have easily thrown him off, but she let him think he was stronger than her. He helped her up and took her to his car.

"Why was I arrested, sir?" The officer glanced back at her. Fear shown clearly in his eyes.
"You're accused of destroying Stout Town and murdering its citizens." He drove us away and most of the officers must've been escorting us.
Serah shook her head, "That can't be right." A few minutes later, helicopters could be heard overhead. Serah sensed three clusters of people in the sky above the streets.
The officer stared at her in the rear view mirror for a few seconds. He seemed in disbelief.

Serah pressed the side of her head against the window and looked up, hoping to get a good look at the helicopters. One of them had the local news channel logo on it. The other two, Serah couldn't see. If she was accused of such a terrible crime, she assumed the other two could be the military, with military grade guns. Where they were taking her, Serah thought, would surely be a very secure place where they wouldn't want her to leave and cause more damage and death. Making an escape now would mean fewer people between her and freedom. It would be a good opportunity to make them think she was fleeing in a direction other than home.
"I apologize in advance for your car, sir." Before he could react, Serah smashed through the back window, head first. She flew as hard and fast as she could, darting between the buildings in hopes of losing the helicopters. Once she reached the city limit, she flew on for several minutes before looking back. The city was a small dot on the horizon and there couldn't have been any way for those helicopters to have kept up with her.

For several more minutes, Serah stared in the direction of the city, bewildered by what had transpired. Somebody murdered a whole town not too far from the city. Not many could perform such a feat and still be on the loose. Of those few, there were none that could be mistaken for a pink woman with tentacles on her head.
Serah wanted to see this town for herself. It took her a little over an hour with frequent pauses to sense for possible confrontations, but she finally found the ruins of Stout Town. She kept her distance, preferring to first observe. Not a single building was undamaged, nor any roof seemed to remain where it should. All the buildings had at least one fallen wall and most were large piles of rubble.
About half a dozen people had gathered a couple blocks from the center of the town, near a ruined fountain. Serah was too far to hear what they said, but when their panicked faces began to look up at her, she decided it was time to leave. No reason to give them belief that whoever did this had returned to cause more suffering.

Serah flew away far enough that she wouldn't be seen veering towards home. Buu and Mack needed to know, and the others as well. The terror on their faces was very real, and whomever it was had no regard for the lives of others.
Buu met her outside, a few yards from the entrance. When he noticed Serah didn't have any bags, he began to pout, but the look on her face quickly worried him. "What wrong, Serah?"
"Where is Mack right now?" Serah didn't like to keep a constant watch on the where and when people were at and didn't immediately think to sense for him when she returned. A quick scan of the area revealed him to be in the garden.
"Mack in the garden," Buu replied while Serah had searched for his presence.
"Come with me," Serah told Buu. "You'll both want to hear this."

Mack was watering the carrots when Serah and Buu made it to the garden. He smiled and waved as their boots touched the soil. Mack joined them, adjusting his glasses and setting the watering can down. "The carrots will be tastier this year after my last adjustment to the carrot feed," Mack beamed proudly. When Serah's face came into better view, he frowned, "Oh, my. What happened?"
"I was arrested in the city," Serah began. Buu and Mack looked shocked as she continued, "I was accused of destroying Stout Town and slaughtering the citizens. I checked the place out, it was pretty thoroughly destroyed."

Heavy silence hung around them for a while. Mack frowned deeply as Buu stared off into the distance as if sensing for someone. "We should let the others know," Mack finally broke the silence. "We should move again, too..."
Serah nodded in understanding. Something was wrong and she had a bad feeling that something terrible was going to happen. Mack hurried to his lab to gather what he needed, leaving Serah and Buu in the garden.
"Buu has bad feeling," Buu looked down at Serah.
She looked back up at him, "Me, too."

In Mack's lab, the scientist hastily corked several vials and gathered them into a suitcase. He filled a briefcase with papers, notes and a few journals. "Where is…? Here you are!" He walked over to a sphere cradled in a bowl and wrapped with a blanket. He tucked the baseball sized sphere into his pocket, turned and grabbed his cases on his way out of the room.
He met Buu and Serah outside. Serah already had her necessities in a backpack and since Buu could easily regenerate his clothes as needed, he didn't need anything. Serah took Mack's cases and rose a few meters into the air as Buu grabbed Mack for the trip.