Sundance was awed by the Burger King menu. An employee mopping around the soda machine gave them looks and a mid-aged woman with her three children laughed.

"Oh my God, look! Fries, teriyaki burgers, onion rings, chicken fingers!" Sundance cried, pointing at the large menu for emphasis and the pictures of falsely-advertised treats on the board.

Eve rolled her eyes and pronounced her order of a cheeseburger, fries, and bottled water. She turned to Sundance and tapped his shoulder, breaking him free of his fascination of fast food trance. "Sun, hey. You want anything?"

He nodded quite seriously. "Everything!"

"Well, I don't have enough for everything. How about a burger and fries like a normal person?" She grabbed his head and tilted it at the image of a hamburger with the sides of fries and soda.

Sundance was okay with his choice and she gave them to the cashier, paying without issue. They waited for their food and Eve gave the receipt over to verify the order, receiving their lunch in folded white bags. Sundance looked at her in betrayal when she didn't give him his food right away.

"We'll eat on the way. Meeting Phil and Resh, remember?"

They stepped outside and Sundance covered his eyes against the glower of sunlight. She handed Sundance his burger when he began complaining over the long walk. He tore apart the wrapper and held his burger up as if it were a gift from God, expression going from glee to disappointment.

Eve lifted an eyebrow. "What? Did she get your order wrong?"

"No!" He crossed his arms and huffed. "It looks nothing like the picture!"

From Phil's camera, Eve saw herself, terrified from Antsy's tongue on her wrist. She looked worse on-camera. Her clothe s were covered in sand and her baseball cap was tilted, freeing her hair all around her face. She screamed for Sundance and the camera focused on him, sneaking up behind Antsy's book-owner and jumping to grab his book. The man cursed at him and tried to run after him but Sundance was faster and younger, climbing high on the post.

He held the book above him and waved it, screaming for Eve and a spell. Phil hadn't filmed her scrambling with the book but he did get Sundance's eyes fading out as he engulfed the book in paint and fire.

The scene ended with Antsy consumed in light before his book burned, the patch of his book rooted into the ground before sand blew over it.

Sundance took Phil's camera and rewinded the shot of him enflaming Antsy's book. He watched himself proudly. "Wow, I'm so cool!"

Eve rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say, Sun," She turned to Phil. "Seriously though, where did you hide? I didn't see one person while we battled that anteater."

Phil did a couple of weird hand-motions. "I got mad ninja skills." They both laughed for a moment. "I was just across the street. My camera has a good focus and getting a tough battle like that on-tape was pretty cool."

Sundance nodded and gave Phil his camera back. "Yeah, it was tough."

"He means that in the figurative sense."

"Everything always is!"

"It's not my fault you don't have common-sense!"

"It's not my fault you use too many big words!"

Resh laughed at Sundance's attitude as he ran off to occupy the monkey bars. She smiled and followed after him as a protective sister would, skirt billowing like strewn autumn leaves. Eve took the seat next to Phil and watched them play around, laughing, balancing themselves like acrobats on the metal bars.

"How long have you had Sundance?"

Eve turned to Phil and saw him with a trustful smile, something that said friend. He was recording Sundance and Resh's lithe movements, glancing at her through the corner of his eye.

"A little over a week, we only have one spell." One spell that does pretty much nothing. "How about Resh? She's a real sweetheart."

The corners of his smile stretched. "Over three months. You're gonna gain spells soon. The thing with paint is pretty sick. You could graffiti walls with that type of stuff."

"Or paint a tribute to Jackson Pollock."

He laughed. "Exactly."

"EVE!"

"God, I can never rest…" Eve said to herself as Sundance pounced onto her with his full weight. She sputtered at the blow to her stomach. "That would've been cute if you were smaller. What do you want?"

He directed her head to the far side of the park. A boy around her age stood with a much-taller girl. From where they were sitting, she could only see the woman and the whiteness of her hair. Maybe she was a mirage from all the sun. She appeared to have horns peering out of her hair and a sword fastened to the belt of her white dress.

Then the boy said something from behind her. A glow came from the book in his hand. She slid the sword out of the sheath, and broke into a run with her weapon.

"Move!" Phil and Resh ducked out of the way. Eve scrambled to grab Sundance and the book before they were pulverized. They all managed in time as sand and dust clouded around their feet.

Her chest rumbled against Sundance and her arms shook from the scare. "Why can't I ever have a normal day with you?"

Phil opened his book. "Mirar!"

Resh brought a mirror before them and it fired a shining beam of light. It jostled the woman but didn't stop her reign as she turned in the direction of them. Eve saw that she had gray eyes and was well-endowed like a dancer.

Eve threw back a couple of pages as Sundance kneeled into a battle stance. "Upra!"

He spit a stream of red paint and it caught across the girl's dress, burning the fabric but not doing any fierce damage.

Phil held a hand over his eyes to block the heat from his face. "Damn, this girl's a fighter!" He went through another few pages. "Mirudo!"

Resh raised her hands and a large mirror appeared. She directed it toward the mamodo and the woman hit it with her sword, an eruption of glass went everywhere, catching her skin with fallen shards.

Sundance's book in her hand glowed fiercer. The brightness grabbed her eyes and burned them. Eve turned a page to see the inscription of another spell as the woman's sword raged with orange fire.

"Lebashi!" Eve shouted, closing her eyes in desperation.

An elliptical shield of dripping purple paint emerged. Sundance held his ground as she poured more emotion into the shield.

The sword and shield cancelled out each other. All three mamodo were panting.

The woman's partner appeared through the smoke and dust. He was in close age to them with the frame of an athlete, black hair pulled into a mid-back ponytail, and light green eyes. He wore tan shorts, an open black T-shirt, black shoes and a black fedora. He looked like a typical school guy to them.

He raised an eyebrow at the pools of purple paint and glass shards among them. Phil tried to wipe the paint that blew toward him off. Sundance lay tiredly on the wrecked ground.

The guy closed his book with a tiny smile. "Anyone want to call it a draw?"

Phil, Resh, Eve, and Sundance all raised their hands in agreement.

As the night came to a close and clouds colored the sky blue and black, Sundance sunk into Eve's bed for sleep once they were back home. She had took a nice warm shower to wash all the sand and paint off her. Sindri gave her a simple wave and finished his homework before turning into the television room for some local news. That was what he did every night. When they were kids, she had to sit through hours of Breaking News updates and other junkets until he surrendered the remote.

She dug a hand through Sundance's paint-encrusted hair. It was smooth and soft like a newborn's. He'd have to wash it out another day.

Her fingers grazed over two small bumps in his hairline. Parting his hair, she saw actual horns like ones that belong to an animal. They were obviously unnoticeable but were there. Guess there was something to separate him from normal children. But he or Resh or Amera - the demon woman they met today - weren't even remotely similiar to regular children. It wasn't a problem to her but it still made her wonder...

"Eve."

Eve looked up. Sindri stood at the door, pajama-clad and bare of his nose rings. His eyes were earnestly serious and narrow from where she sat. He gestured her with his hand, careful with his voice. Despite the level of it, she was still able to catch a tremor. "I think you might wanna see this."

She crawled over Sundance and out of bed, tiptoeing after him and into the television room. All lights were off, the only light came from the TV and it blared blue across the carpet. A woman reporter with bad hair and freckles read a report from her in-studio desk. Something about oil pollution.

"This is torture, Sin. What do you want me to see?"

"Wait for it."

The reporter finished the report and the camera snapped away from her and onto the face of a missing man.

Her heart raced frantically and she bit at her nails, shaking her head.

MISSING
- Caleb Borriello
Age: 19
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Black
Height: 5'11''
Weight: 163 lbs.

Caleb Borriello, a nineteen-year old East Tokyo High-graduate, was last seen yesterday entering his apartment after returning from a family vacation trip.

Borriello was last seen wearing a black T-shirt, jogging shorts, blue Vans, and aviators. He has blue eyes and a large amount of tattoos all across his arms.

The camera turned to his mother, hounded by reporters and microphones, begging for her son to be returned home safe. She'd only met her about once or twice but it was known that she wasn't a crying woman. Police and canines were on the lookout. A phone number was left at the bottom of the screen for possible leads. Sindri gave a rude comment about Caleb but she didn't listen.

Nothing felt worse than losing someone.

So ends the third chapter. I finished this a bit in a rush and since I have school and will be exhausted from it for the rest of the week, I wanted to upload this fast and watch a few video cassettes of my old favorite movies. YES. Video cassettes. I still have a few. 90's kids will understand.

R&R!