"Thanks to you, my most treasured Sundance, I had to buy that huge carton of cookie dough because a certain someone was caught eating out of it by the store manager." Eve said, wobbling down the walkway with four bags from the supermarket and Sundance's book shut away in her purse. He dove into a dumpster prior to their market visit and ate through burned pizza slices and frozen waffles. "Next time, ask me first, please. This is Sindri's debit card not mine."

Sundance nodded understandingly, eating fistfuls of cookie dough assorted with chocolate chips and raisins. "You can have some if you want."

Eve smiled, crossing the street while he gripped her ankle in substitute for her hand. "I appreciate the offer but I'll pass. Just don't let Sindri see you eating all of that, he'll blame me for corrupting you with junk food."

He frowned, stretching his neck like a giraffe to identify their apartment complex from where they were. A speck of a child sat on the cracked stoop, he knew her face but he couldn't quite place it with a name. Her skin was cut with scars caused by different trauma but not all were apparent features on her face, her red-brown hair–the color of lava rocks–was wildly laced across her shoulders, under her brown eyes were blue stripes that didn't appear to be painted on. Her blue tunic and black pants were an impossibly neat fixture for a child.

Sundance sniffed the air. That definitely wasn't just any child.

"I'll be right back!" he assured Eve, running at his fastest to reach the apartment front. Eve shouted after him, demanding that he wait and not try to break a window again to get inside. Sindri threatened to place him in foster-care if he ever thought to retry it.

The girl didn't react when she saw his face. She had the stone-face of a mass-murderer. "Sundance, a pleasure to see you again, I'm surprised that your book is still here, safe and sound."

Sundance laughed, not catching on to the irony in her tone. "It wasn't an easy feat! My partner and I just got into this intense battle a few days ago with a scorpion, no joke. I lost a tooth, her leg was burned! You have no idea how bad i…hold up, just how do you know my name?"

"I didn't see you deny it," she said, kicking the ground. "You need to come with me. We need to talk about something of great importance."

Sundance blinked, lost on her concept. "W-What are you talking about?"

"What the hell is your problem, Sundance!?"

Eve materialized at his side, huffing, releasing the bags from her arms and poking Sundance hard in the forehead. "I…tell…you…all the time not to run ahead of me and look what you do! Quit it already, you're wearing my patience thin and I swear if you ever do that aga–sorry, little girl. I'm not normally like this, are you okay?"

"N-No…"

Sundance nodded. "I'm okay."

"I wasn't talking to you."

The unidentified girl raised a hand as if she were in a classroom and trying to get the teacher's attention. "Are you Sundance's book-keeper?"

Eve frowned, her emotions back in line. She really wasn't looking to face-off with another mamodo today. The second-degree burn on her leg hadn't disappeared like magic yet and she jogged herself to the pharmacy to grab an overpriced bottle of burn-treating ointment that stings her leg to the touch. It could be worse. "I am."

"Oh yes. I figured as much."

"I thought you were saying something before her rude interruption," Sundance ended with a whimper when Eve kicked him in the tailbone, acting like it never happened.

She nodded. She was a little shorter than Sundance but her dominance level rose much higher. "Please, I'd rather not discuss it here. I'd appreciate it if you both come with me."

"What a beautiful day," Phil said, turning his camera lens to focus on a bird's nest cradling a circle of freckled blue eggs, perfect like porcelain. "The sun is singing, the birds are shining…today couldn't be better."

Resh climbed out of the playground swing, confused and baffled. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing," he reassured, amusement in his voice. "I was just reminiscing to myself about the nice morning. No storm clouds, no tantrum-throwing children, it's all real. Something you can only imagine in a storybook novel."

She nodded. Although so young, her intelligence was astounding. "Oh, I see." Resh took a gaze around and admired the scenery, Phil doing the same but instead through the eye of his camera. Trees with chipped bark and branches sagging with amber leaves, small children playing in the sandbox, birds tweaking their nests with their pointy beaks. "The day's been quiet, lucky for us. I haven't sensed a mamodo all day."

"Good for us." Phil said, rotating the camera around the scene. "But it's almost too good to be true, you know."

Resh gave out a smile and wound her fingers through her hair, catching in a few knots. "I understand but it shouldn't be this easy. I don't know. Someone must be planning something or that something must be coming because this makes absolutely no sense. Never has a mamodo battle been this easy."

"A mamodo's intuition, I see." Phil murmured, turning his video screen so he could watch what he was filming. A cluster of crunched leaves and trash, squirrels and other wildlife tearing across the terrain, and something unimaginable, something only a twisted dream could invoke. A mechanical thing with the body and width of a satellite had twitching antennas and spindly legs. Buttons swelling out of its back blinked and sputtered a rainbow light.

Phil rubbed his sleeve across the lens, thinking he was in a mirage. Resh performed a fighter's stand, a guarded cloud in her gaze.

Soon after she did that, the satellite thing started shooting white lasers like bullets, scaring parents and children. The park became an explosion of shrieking, deserted belongings, and begging of the people lost in the dirt and wind.

Phil placed away his camera, held open Resh's book instead. "You got what you wanted, Resh. The game isn't easy anymore."

The mamodo child steered them into a restaurant Eve never knew existed. Fuzzy red velvet wallpaper covered the walls, gray plastic beads replaced doors and curtains. There was no maître d' to hand them menus when they arrived or any other waiter behind the bar to serve them. Diners ate their meals with no disruption.

"Sundance, I'm not feeling this. I think we should just run." Eve whispered to him, crouching at his shoulder. "On three. I promise, I won't tell anyone we chickened out."

Sundance turned to her, pouting, definitely loathing her idea. "I'm not a chicken. There's one of her and one of us. Even if we came to blows, we could so take her."

"How do you know there's only one of her? There could be more, you just had to open your stupid mouth–"

The little mamodo girl tapped Eve on the elbow. Her hand was cold as she lifted it and pointed out someone unseen behind a menu. "We are finally here. I would like you meet someone." She went ahead and executed a joyous salute, beaming.

The person–a girl–set down her menu, smiling like the room was made of glass and she knew who would destroy it. Her brown hair was stuck in a ponytail, her green eyes twinkly. She was bedecked in a ruffly pink dress, straw sandals, and had rings of white makeup under her eyes with black lining. A chartreuse book under her hand that was meant to be recognized.

"You don't look like a strong bunch, I'll say," she said with an accent thicker than mud. "A teeny-tiny mamodo boy and a girl that looks like a prostitute but uses her intelligence for nothing. Could you not find a better duo, Viola?"

Sundance exploded. "Teeny-tiny!? I'll show you! Don't underestimate me! I'm better than you! I can fight! I'll show both of you! Let me at 'em, let me at 'em!"

Eve held him back by his shirt collar as he ran in place, screaming like a maniac. But her expression was less than thrilled by her comments. "Sundance, don't get so worked-up over a chick that's dressed like circus freak."

"Circus freak? Oh, that's a new one."

"Let go, Eve!"

"Shut up, Sundance."

Viola tilted her face away. "Lilja?"

Lilja smirked. "I guess you don't want to know about that missing man, no? Oh, how I was thinking of telling you two about his whereabouts but your rudeness makes me rethink–"

Eve glared at her. "Start talking."

"You'll have to work for it this time. You win, I'll tell you. I win, his book is mine."

Sundance gasped. He was suddenly calm and a hint of fear tolled in his voice. "Eve, we can't! Our last fight, remember?"

Eve didn't hesitate.

"Bring it."

Sorry for the short chapter and the terrible procrastination. Deadlines are my weak point. R&R! 2013 resolution? Fight procrastination!