A/N: Lalalala.
Disclaimer: Tres: Help is required we have been kidn…. Me: hiding wrench behind back hi peoples.
"They are evolving."
"What?" Cardinal Kate moved to snatch up the papers, and then remembering she was a hologram, turned to Stella.
Stella pointed to different charts. "Look. Nail length, fang length and width, height, night vision abilities…. They all spike to differentiating values dramatically over the past year." Stella sighed. "In Darwin's theory of evolution, species evolve to adapt to their surroundings. Perhaps, the Methuselah are evolving to adapt to their surroundings."
"What does this mean?" asked the Cardinal gravely.
Stella shook her head and sighed. "It means that they are evolving too fast to find an alternate source of food. They are given no choice except to use Terrans for food."
Virgil cleared his throat. "What do you suppose we do?" It was obvious he was afraid for his people.
Stella looked sharply at him. "I think that this change is chemical-induced. It takes thousands of years at the least to change one feature. There has to be an outside source."
Demetry figured it out before the rest of them. "Stella…" he said warningly.
Stella bowed her head. "Tomorrow starts the full moon phase. I volunteer to go on a standard get captured and find out what's going on mission."
"No!" Demetry nearly shouted. His hands clenched. "Stella, I woke up this morning to find you hurt and now you are going to put yourself in danger. If it were up to me I'd chain you to your bed."
Stella glared at her brother. "It wasn't that bad." She muttered.
"Bad enough to make you keep a bandage on it."
That's enough." Stella said sharply. She approached the Cardinal's desk and pressed a button. Demetry's mouth moved, but no sound came out. Stella addressed the others. "I think that one of us should do this; seeing with our own eyes will be extremely helpful. Tres or myself would be the best choice for this mission as I can kill anyone in my path the most affectively." Stella ceased being her normal self as she thought about the mission. She could practically feel her senses heightened to predator mode as she prepared herself mentally.
The Cardinal thought for a moment. "How do you know that you will be the one abducted?"
"All of the people missing had all gone out at night alone. They were not in any large group and no one had heard from them in an hour." Stella finished, her face blanking into a mask as her brother continued to rant and rave noiselessly.
The Cardinal thought for a moment. "Fine. You, Father Tres and Father Abel will each walk around town in different directions until you are captured."
Stella held her mask. "Cardinal Kate, I must protest. Father Nightroad is still injured from last night and I fear he will not perform as well as he could have if he were not wounded."
Demetry silenced himself. Though he could not speak, he could still hear and his sister was acting more mature than he had ever seen her. Stella, seeing her brother's silence pressed the button again and allowed his audio to come back on.
"Father Nightroad is a quick healer, his Crusnick nanomachines will have already taken care of the wound." Cardinal Kate said stiffly. "All three of you will depart as planned tomorrow night."
Stella looked at if she was going to protest, indeed a storm passed in her eyes, but she bowed her head again. "As you say." She marched stiffly out of the office.
Demetry looked at the Cardinal. "I'm going to be making a personal trip there in one week. If Stella is anything but absolutely fine, I'm going to kidnap her and take her back with me." Before the others could protest, his image flickered out.
Cardinal Kate heaved a heavy sigh. "He really does care about his sister."
Virgil nodded. "No doubt. He told me about what appended to them. It would be heart-breaking if something were to happen to her."
"It'll be bad when he gets here. I doubt very much that Stella will be able to successfully go through this mission without hurting herself."
"How did they take it?" Abel asked as Stella marched out of the building.
Stella glanced at Leon and gave Abel a look that clearly said 'later'. "Fine. Let's get going."
They walked silently to the shopping side of town. Stella slipped into a store, with her male companions not far behind. She picked up a fancy black bag and observed it with a critical eye. She eventually picked out a plain suede bag that would go from her right shoulder to her left hip. After paying for the bag, she let the men pick out the diner.
Scooting into the booth, Stella turned to Leon. "Hey Leon, go wash your hands, they look filthy." When he started to protest, she looked at him and he walked away, muttering mutinously. Abel leaned forward. He was finally going to find out what was going on. "You and me and Father Tres are all going to depart tomorrow night and see if we can get ourselves kidnapped to find out what is going on with the murders." She looked at him wordily. "Are you going to be all right, Father Nightroad?"
Abel smiled goofily. "Of course." He saw Stella was unconvinced, so he made his hand slip on some imaginary water. His arm shot the length of the table. "I'm fine."
Stella laughed lightly and cheered up considerably. Leon came back, slid into the seat next to Stella and they ordered. Abel and Leon, of course ordered the biggest dish in the diner and Stella only ordered some grilled potato wedges.
"So how come you decided to get a bag all of the sudden?" Leon asked between mouthfuls.
"Please don't talk with food in your mouth, Leon. And to tell you the truth, it's kind of embarrassing. But you know how I go home with a lot of papers every night?" They both nodded, still sticking food into their mouths. "Well, I have this neighbor, Mr. Onigoma, and well every night he is going out the same time I get in. I don't know why, but I get a bad feeling about this guy. I don't want to give him any reason to help me, even if it is just helping picking up a huge stack of papers."
"Onigoma… Onigoma…" Abel tapped his chin. "Hey leon, didn't your father once share a cell with a man named Onigoma?"
Father Leon thought for a moment. "Yeah, that guy was in the joint for a few months with Dad, creeped dad out to no end. But Stella's Onigoma couldn't be this one; he was put to death a few months after he was incarcerated."
"What was he in for?" Stella suddenly became very interested.
"Um… Oh yeah. Illegal chemical transplants and experimentation in Methuselah genetics."
A/N: Dun. Dun. Dun. Any guesses? No? You guys are as dill as dishwater. Review!