So, I apologize for such a delay. I plan on putting all of the A's up today, as well as DivineJudgement's request chapter, as he was the only one to guess Eon, who was indeed my fourth. Thank you very much for your review and correct guess! As for the review, I just got a new laptop that decided to erase everything I typed up. Not fun. Anyway, the others should be up in half-hour increments or so. Hope you enjoy them!

Bad Thing Gone Good
Rated - K
Friendship

It was a very different part of town, out by Vareth. Everything had a toned, surreal feeling to it. Even the people were unique. Really, it had been far too long since he'd come out this way. Perhaps he'd have to have bad days more often, if that were the case!

And it had been a bad day. One of the worst, in fact. It had all started before he'd even had a chance to open his eyes. Waking late was not something he did often, if ever, and today was definitely not a good day to do so. Most people probably took sleeping in as a mixed blessing. Yes, they were late, but it was nice to get a little extra shut-eye. For Aldo, self-proclaimed strategist of Quarto, the less sleep he had, the less time there was for work. And if there was less time for work, there was more potential for mistakes. All in all, not a good start.

Next, Gareth had been late. Even at five after seven, there was no sign of the man. It was a routine of theirs, to chat before the official meeting. So when Sergeant Caesar walked in at seven-thirty, Aldo realized that Gareth had gone from late to MIA. So, Aldo had sat alone, debating what to do for the rest of the day. Without Gareth, going to lunch wouldn't be the same. And he really couldn't just stand outside of the Begin Eatery talking to himself... In the end, he'd stayed with the sergeant, helping tie up little loose ends and such. Now, he respected the sergeant with all of his heart, but he really did make a poor substitute to Gareth. And skipping lunch to work in the meeting room until after the sixteenth hour had not been his idea of a good time. Although, he strangely hadn't been ill that day...

However, all of those little mishaps paled in comparison to the ultimate insult. Yes, the 'coup de grace' of his lovely day. The book store had been closed. Now, you must understand that he went there every day. Except today, of course. Instead, he'd found a cute little note saying 'the store will be closed today'. No explanation, no apologies... Nada.

Either way, it really had been quite a long time since he'd been to the Vareth Institute library. He really didn't know why he hadn't come out. It was a nice area, the library wasn't much farther, and it was free!

He'd barely taken more than a few paces up the library stairwell when, with a scream, a body collided heavily with his. Thanks to the armour, he barely felt a thing, but because of the armour, he was in a bit of a predicament. It wasn't very easy to manuver his body in all of the get-up, but add the weight and struggling of another person and it was damn-near impossible.

After a good ten minutes, the two managed to seperate, the young girl scrambling up and bowing profusely. He may have been able to scrounge up some anger with her for her clumsiness, had she hadn't been bowing to the desk. Seeing as to how she was, he just sighed and walked over to her, gently pushing her glasses down off her head. She gasped, looking up at him with giant doe-brown eyes. He found himslef looking away rather quickly, his cheeks burning slightly.

"Ah, you dropped this..." He bent over, grabbing a strangely familiar book. When he turned it over, he realized why. "The Voynich manuscript? Are you trying to decode it? I've had a bit of a try at it myself. Perhaps... Maybe you'd like to compare notes...?"

The girl was still staring at him, and he found himself blushing even more. Did she really have to stare so much? He fidgeted, and the simple movement seemed to snap her out of shock. Suddenly, almost too quick for him, she grabbed the book, mumbled something rapidly, and darted away. He blinked, watching her sprint, trip, fall over, then bolt away again. He found himself smiling a bit. A girl like that would probably need someone to watch over her...

"So, Vareth Magic Institute, huh?"