Darien continued to run after now clothes-less Arnaud, bat in hand, determined to seriously maim, if not kill, the man. Finally, he got DeFohn cornered at the end of a hallway. In his fervor, he took a swing at Arnaud with the bat.

The other man quickly ducked, narrowly escaping intense pain. "Why did you just swing at my head with a *bat*?"

"Well," Darien started, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "It's a FEAR BAT, and I have a fear of spiders, but since there aren't any here, I thought I'd take it out on you!" With that, he took another swipe at Arnaud, but again he missed.

Arnaud ripped the mask from his face, allowing himself to be completely invisible and possibly evade Fawkes for a few seconds longer. He pushed past Darien and attempted to slam though the crowd that was standing behind them, watching the conflict. However, it was like trying to walk through molasses, and he feared that he would not be able to get free before Darien would get to him.

Darien quicksilvered his eyes in order to follow the path that his enemy was taking, and just as he was about to take after him, a familiar pain ripped through his brain. He fell to his knees and noticed that Arnaud was taking this opportunity to escape completely through the mass and probably out the front door. He quickly glanced at his tattoo and noticed the eight red segments. All of this hiding from devoted fans had taken its toll on his sanity. Then he looked up at the crowd around him. His bloodshot eyes opened wide as he saw everyone in the mob pull a syringe full of blue liquid from behind their backs. They all had slightly sadistic smiles on their faces, and something told him that this was not counteragent that they were carrying. In fact, he could smell it: blue kool-aid.

Lori stood near the front of the group, and her smile was larger than everyone else's. "Okay Darien, open wide. This won't hurt me a bit."

The group laughed as Darien screamed, "Aw CRAP!"

*************

Back upstairs, Eberts had just won another game of Goldeneye when someone demanded a rematch. In the middle of the game, his opponent got a little overconfident. As she set a trap with proximity mines, Devilbird turned to Eberts. "Game over--I win." But just as she said that, her hand accidentally slipped over her controls, and she watched in horror as her game character took one misplaced step backwards, setting off the trap and killing herself.

They all just sat there in shock. It had seemed like no one was going to win this round, and then this happened. Eberts slowly put down his controller, then suddenly threw his arms in the air. "I am the man!" He jumped up and did a happy dance, but paused mid-booty shake as he realized that everyone was staring at him, especially his challenger. He calmed down and extended his hand to her. "Ma'am, good game." Devilbird smiled, shook his hand, and then reset the TV so that they could hook up some Tekken action.

From the computers, Will Vesham also excitedly leapt out of his seat, yelling, "Now....ha! See, it's a...a..." He repeatedly pointed to a banana graphic that filled the screen of the comp he was working at. "...problem, but not an info-tech problem!" He paused and looked at everyone around him. He was one of two men in the entire room. Then, it suddenly dawned on him that he was probably the only male I-Maniac at the party. "What am I doing here?"

Eberts watched as Will left the room. This was an odd place.

*************

Darien was running through the house once again, but this time he was not chasing after Arnaud. He was practically running for his life. He had an entire horde of women chasing after him, ready to inject him needles full of blue kool-aid.

He rocketed up to the bar and forcefully grabbed his partner's arm. "Hobbes! Keeper! WHERE?"

Bobby looked at Fawkes and noticed that his eyes were nearly completely red. "Damn it Fawkes, I don't know where she is, but you better find her fast."

"You know it's bad when he's the voice of reason," Erin said from her seat, referring to Hobbes and staring at the nearly insane man before her.

Suddenly, Darien's mob appeared around the corner, eager to catch him. Darien saw them, screamed, and took off running once again. Erin jumped off her barstool, anxious to help save the invisible man. Hobbes watched as she left him. "How come Fawkes can steal my women even when he's on the verge of madness?"

"Wow, it seems like someone forgot to take their anti-jealousy pill!" FawkesFox exclaimed as she too left the bar to join the chase.

Hobbes slammed his drink down and also took off after Darien, hoping to save his partner before they tore him apart. One thing was for sure: this was an odd place.

*************

Darien ducked into the music room, and slammed the sliding doors behind him and clicking latches shut. Hopefully, this would buy him some time to find Claire and get a shot before all of these people caught him and turned him into The Invisible Giant Kool-Aid Man. As he turned around, he found that he had walked in on a serious debate, one of such intensity that they failed to noticed he had entered the room. A brief tidbit of what they were talking about clued Darien in that they were talking about simple philosophy.

"It's simple," IMANRULES said. "I am an invisible man... I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids--and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me."

Sammie added her own little argument. "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream."

"That's not entirely fact," Darien said without thinking.

"Facts are the enemy of truth," Samus said, not realizing that he was the one who said something. Then, the women stopped mid-conversation, turned and saw Darien standing at the doors. One look at his eyes, and they each reached for their own personal syringes of blue kool-aid.

Darien ran straight though them and escaped through the other door just as everyone on the other side of the door managed to get the latch undone.

He shot through to the pool room, and tried to hide under one of the curtains that blocked the windows. He listened as all of his pursuers dashed past him and waited a few seconds before deciding that the coast was clear. Slowly, he stepped out from behind the curtain, just as another shot of pain coursed through his skull. He clawed at the back of his head, even though he knew that never helped.

"I need to find Claire!" He yelled at himself. "What am I doing hiding and wasting time?"

"I don't know," another voice answered him. Darien looked up to see Qs9300agent standing there with a pool cue in her hand. "Maybe you're just trying to find answers to something, or maybe you've finally gone mad."

Darien growled in frustration and decided to run through the side door instead of the main door that his followers had used to leave. He found himself in front of a huge staircase with no other choice but to climb it. When he reached the top, he opened the door and discovered that he was on the third floor. The room he had entered seemed fairly quiet, so immediately he knew that something was wrong. Add to that the fact that all of the walls were covered with mirrors. Needless to say, Darien was slightly unnerved. Frantically, Darien spun his head around, but everywhere he looked, his own ruby eyes glared back at him. It was taking everything in his power to keep it all together. There were too many people here--too many people that could get hurt.

He crossed the room and turned the doorknob to get into the next area, and found two women in there, going through closets. Clothes were thrown everywhere. The two girls looked up as he stepped into their domain.

"Darien!" I_JOY exclaimed. "Can I have a hug?"

"Hey D," Invision interrupted. "Ya got any fashion tips for a less-than-fashionable chick like myself?"

It was getting hard for Darien to deal with all of this. He ran out of that room and out through yet another door. 'This place is like a maze for a lab rat,' he thought to himself, and nearly paused as the truth of that statement really sank in.

He encountered a large catwalk that stretched across a huge ballroom. Looking down, he scanned the crowd, wildly looking for his Keeper among the crowd. To his relief, he found her talking to Hobbes. They seemed to be discussing something important, because each of them kept looking around them, and Claire had her patented scowl on. In desperation, Darien called out to her. Amazingly, she heard him over the music and as she looked up at the catwalk, he jumped off, hoping to land gently. As he was airborn, nowUCme cried out, "Holy crap! That was the greatest thing I've never seen!"

Darien hit the ground and rolled, easing any injuries to merely a couple bumps and bruises. Claire rushed over to him, with Hobbes right behind her, and quickly knelt by his side. "Darien, are you ok?"

"Fix me," he pleaded with his eyes wide. "Before they get to me."

Hobbes rushed to retrieve Claire's coat, where she had a shot of counteragent stored away in case of emergency. He watched as she stuck the needle into Darien's arm and slowly pushed the plunger down. Darien shivered as the counteragent entered his system and then visible relaxed. Claire gently touched his cheek, happy to see he was ok.

Lizzy the Lizzar leaned over the witnessing group, and started down at Darien. "So... did you ever screw your Keeper?" Hobbes shot her a look that nearly screamed death.

Claire looked around her. This was an odd place.

*************

Finally, all of the chaos died down. All of the crazy women put away their syringes for another day, and the agents carefully led Darien back to the main entrance. When Claire, Bobby and Fawkes reached the bar, Alex appeared from the kitchen, a little jelly left on her lips, Eberts strolled down the stairs, a look of accomplishment on his face, and The Official found his way out of the side room.

"I think it's about time that we headed on out," Hobbes stated. "This had been a rough time on poor little inviso-boy here." He then turned to Eberts and whispered, "Plus, I think some of the ladies here are trying to get in my pants."

MsBoyd overheard and replied, "No, Hobbes... I'm not trying to jump your bones!" Then she giggled. "At least, not *yet* anyway."

Dark Ravenette moved to stand before them. "I'll have the driver bring the limo around. I must say, it was incredible having you all here."

"Okay crew, let's saddle up," Alex announced to her group.

Iwomans_sister scoffed. "'Saddle up,' yeah, that's about as real as her hair color." All of the I-Maniacs laughed at that, and even Claire gave a little chuckle.

The six exited the mansion the same way that they had entered, through the front door, and noticed that the limo was waiting for them already. They all got in the car, and when they glanced back at the house, they saw everyone standing there, waving good-bye to them. Then, the smoke began to fill the car once again, and all of them nodded out.

*************

Darien shot awake with a start. Quickly looking at his pet's cage, he found little Darien running around in his exercise wheel, having a great time. Fawkes thought to himself, 'I thought I left him there on accident. Was there a "there?" I was dreaming, wasn't I?'

He fell back on his pillow, and realized that if something like that had actually occurred, he would probably be sore and exhausted at that moment, but he felt fine. "It *was* all a dream! Man, that was an odd place!" He said aloud to no one in particular.

Darien rolled over, all set to fall back asleep and enjoy his day off. He cracked his eyes open, just to glance at his clock, but screamed and propelled himself backwards when he saw what was sitting on his night stand. There, wiggling its ears at him, was a black and red bunny.