Chapter One

Changes

Poe's hacking cough caused the Baudelaire children to shy away and cling together in the back seat of the car. Sunny, the youngest, sat in between her two siblings, the oldest, Violet, and Klaus, babbling in toddler speak that nobody except the two understood, commanding the banker to cover his mouth.

He, of course, couldn't understand her and continued coughing.

"I imagine you must be nervous," Poe said, shifting the car into park and switching off the headlights, plunging the interior into darkness. The children shifted uncertainly, Violet moving Sunny onto her lap and Klaus moving closer to her for protection. She opened the door and stepped out. Dark Avenue really owed up to its name as she could barely see a few feet in front of her, courtesy of the dim lights glowing. "I was a little nervous myself trying to find you a new guardian, given your track record, but never fear. This is a very fashionable block. Much more fashionable than where you lived, even though it's only a few blocks away."

"We're not nervous," Violet answered, putting that last piece of information aside for now. They'd never known about any of their parents' friends and associates before, but to have them so close... "We're too anxious to be nervous."

"'Anxious' and 'nervous' mean the same thing," Poe replied, causing Violet and Klaus to share looks of exasperation. "And what do you have to be anxious about anyway?"

"Count Olaf, of course," Violet replied.

"Count Olaf?" Poe said dismissively. "Don't worry about him. He'll never find you here."

Klaus joined his sister, reaching out for a hand in the dark and finding one. He noted the enormous trees spaced evenly on the sidewalk where street-lamps should've been, casting the entire avenue into darkness. High above the thick and prickly trunks, the branches dropped down and spread wide, flat leaves out in every direction, blocking all the light from above.

"And don't worry about the Quagmires either," Poe crowed confidently. "At least, not for much longer. I don't know if you read the Mulctuary Money Management newsletter, but I've been promoted to Vice President in Charge of Orphan Affairs and am not only in charge of your situation, but of the Quagmire situation as well. I promise to concentrate a great deal of my energy in finding them and returning them to safety or my name isn't-" Another set of disgusting coughs erupted from him but this time he retrieved a handkerchief. All three of the Baudelaires rolled their eyes at his condition and ineptitude, not bothering to place any hope in him finding anything. "Poe. Now, as soon as I drop you off here I am taking a three-week helicopter ride to a mountain peak where the Quagmires may have been spotted. It will be very difficult to reach me during that time, as the helicopter has no phone, but I will call you as soon as I get back with your young pals. Now, can you see the number on this building? It's hard for me to tell if we're at the right place."

"I think it says 666," Klaus said, squinting in the dim light.

"Then we're here," Poe said. "Your new guardians live in the penthouse apartment of 666 Dark Avenue. I think the door is here." He fumbled around the sandstone wall, Klaus not bothering to correct him and pulled Violet along to the door. Sunny took pity on the banker and chimed out a sound, grabbing his attention as they disappeared into the lobby.

Contrary to the outside, the lobby interior nearly blinded them. White, tan, beige, and black splashed across the walls, interior, and floor. Where they expected carpets and wood, they found instead marble and leather. They gazed around in wonder, spotting a few odd glass half-orbs attached to the ceiling and couldn't shake the sensation of being watched.

They bumped into a person in the middle of the lobby they could swear wasn't there when they walked in. She stared down at them behind a half-mask obscuring her lower face, her piercing golden eyes burrowing into theirs. Her dark hair tucked into cowl around her neck and a piece of flexible cord reached from the cowl and tucked into her ear.

Her attire walled them more than the interior decoration. She made for an imposing figure, towering over Poe and bedecked in black. Tight clothing wrapped around her arms and legs with pieces of armor on her forearms and shins. A bulkier piece of armor stretched over her chest, some contraption of thick fabric that looked comfier than any metal equivalent. A pair of pouches covered her upper legs, a dull metal contraption tucked into one.

"Yes, hello. I'm from Mulctuary Money Management here to drop off the Baudelaire children to their new guardians." The woman didn't answer, switching her gaze to Poe who crumbled under the weight and devolved into another coughing fit. She didn't answer him, pointing a tag on her chest with her name on it and reached for a clipboard on her desk, scanning over it until she found their names. A set of images matched the three, but Poe didn't show up, the woman pointing for him to leave.

"Well, children, I'll leave you in your new guardians' care. I'll miss my helicopter. You'll have to go up by yourselves, it seems this Blake person won't let me pass." The security guard refused to rise to his insult despite his reference to her as less than a person as he claimed.

"We have to go up by ourselves?" Violet said, moving closer to Klaus as Poe walked to the doors again, coughing all the while. "You're not going to come with us?"

"I simply don't have the time to accompany you," Mr. Poe said, "and that is that." He left them in the care of a complete stranger without looking back, fiddling with a pair of binoculars in his coat pocket. They turned in unison to look back at Blake, suddenly feeling very alone with a stranger they knew nothing about. Shame they couldn't see the soft smile behind the mask.

She beckoned them to follow, leading them to the elevator. They shared looks of uncertainty, again thrust into the unknown to a set of guardians they knew nothing about and could only hope Olaf didn't find them again. He found them at Monty's, at Josephine's, at the Mill, and at Academy, all in various disguises none of the adults seemed to see through, so they held little hope their new guardians would do any better.

Blake swiped open the elevator with a card they failed to notice where from, ushering them in. A different card, also pulled from somewhere, activated the control panel where she pressed the topmost button. She waved them off before stepping out back into the lobby to resume her security duties.

"Lyka." Sunny said, which meant something like 'She was quiet'.

"She didn't say a word Sunny. She was more than quiet." Violet replied, taking in the elevator car. Surrounded by mirrors on all sides, she took in her bedraggled appearance, still clothed in the uniform of Prufrock Preparatory School. Dirt caked her sleeves and she rubbed as much as she could off, unsure of where it even came from. She couldn't do anything about the ripped stockings or tears in the burgundy jacket, but maybe her guardians would look past that.

She certainly could manipulate the odds to her favor if needed, so maybe they'd buy their sob story when they explained their history and maybe help out when Olaf tracked them down. He always managed to somehow, no matter where they went or how fast they fled. At least the security downstairs looked solid, three separate measures preventing a random or disguised person from simply walking into their new home.

She didn't know of the six other security measures installed in the cab.

But again they knew nothing about them so maybe they were already in cahoots with Olaf, a word meaning to work or conspire with secretly.

"I wonder what they're like." Klaus voiced her thoughts exactly, staring up at a black triangle stuck in the corner of the ceiling, again feeling the terrible sensation of looking up at a predator. "I hope they have some interesting books to read."

"I hope they have some tools to they'll let me use for my inventing," Violet said.

"Crife!" Sunny exclaimed, toddling up to the metal control panel and pressing the couple buttons in her reach. Like Violet suspected, nothing Sunny pressed activated the light behind them, their journey uninterrupted.

Violet looked down at her and smiled. "I don't think that will be a problem, Sunny," she said. "You usually find something or other to bite, and even if you don't, I'm sure they'll have carrots." Sunny beamed at her with her four sharp teeth.

"They must be wealthy to live on Dark Avenue," Klaus concluded, answering part of his musing.

"Akrofil," Sunny said, which meant "And they're not afraid of heights, that's for sure."

Just when they ran out of things to muse on, the elevator opened up directly onto an apartment with impossibly tall ceilings and an entire wall of windows. They saw the city stretched out below them, a gray ruin in the corner marking where their mansion once stood. An open kitchen sat to the left just outside the foyer area and a large living room sat positioned in front of them, a head of blonde hair with an earmuff-like contraption bobbing on a couch.

"Oh c'mon, that was a headshot!" The blonde's loud voice echoed around the high ceiling, startling the trio and the suddenness of it. They proceeded with caution, nervousness written plainly on their faces. Not even Sunny brokered a word of wisdom or caution, feeling much like a mouse walking into a lion's den. They approached the couch, but just before they could announce their presence, the woman leaned back and stared at them upside-down.

Now, the shock they felt didn't stem from the fact they'd been noticed but from her startling crimson eyes. They positively churned with fire, reminding them too much of the fire that started all their troubles, but also not as it held a characteristic warmth they hadn't seen in months. It chased away the queasiness and made them feel at home.

"Hello. I'm Violet Baudelaire, and this is my brother, Klaus, and my sister, Sunny." She presented each of them in turn, all the while enduring the stare and hoping she also wasn't a complete mute like the guard downstairs, but she couldn't stop a smile from appearing when she showed her pearly whites.

She impressed them with a backflip over the couch she had no business making with the leverage she had and landing in front of them. They instantly noted she was as tall or even taller than the woman in the lobby and certainly had no qualms about dressing comfortably and far too immodestly for their society. Women wore skirts and dresses, or pants at least, but she wore boy's shorts that exposed too much leg and a shirt that did nothing to hide her muscular form.

"Hi children. I'm Yang Xiao-Long, one of your new guardians. Welcome to your new home."

AN: I've definitely not been binge-watching the series on Netflix.