(Disclaimer: don't own vhd; b...sigh)
Fear the Fans To all of those who reviewed. I really appreciate everything! Your reviews keep me writing don't stop! I shall thank you all by name as soon as possible! Thank You!!!
Josh staggered down the outside hallway on his trying path to the hospital section of the building. He nearly tripped and heard his companion give a pain filled groan. Borgoff whimpered in agony as he leaned on the tech, desperately trying to walk correctly. D had said that at least four ribs must be broken...he had then smirked and given some smart-assed remark about his horse being an exceptional animal but Josh hadn't caught that part. Josh grumbled and heartily wished that his boss would've allowed Nolt to come and help them, but sadly, his boss was one of those dipwads that thought techs could do anything if they just "put their minds to it".
After about half an hour, Josh had finally managed to get the oldest Markus brother safely to the correct wing and had left him with the doctor. After being reassured that Borgoff would be fine by the next day, his ribs were bruised not broken, he left. He was wracking his brains trying to figure out what he was going to tell D. As he had been walking away from the wing, his boss had called him over the walkie-talkie to tell him that the horse was a danger and would have to go. "Why me?" Josh asked no one in particular as he once again entered the hall leading back to his room full of characters, he had not expected anyone to answer. "It's not just you, you know..." a female voice said reproachfully. "Oh, hey Colleen..." Josh muttered feeling a bit ticked that his angsty feelings had to be shared, after all, if one is going to angst, it always feels better to know that no one knows your pain...just ask Kamui.
Josh stopped to look up (she was two inches taller) at the other tech, Colleen had short red-brown hair, and shinning hazel eyes, she was currently wearing her black and red Kenshin t-shirt... which was appropriate seeing as she worked in the next building with the cast of Kenshin himself. She glanced up too, and glared at him. "What're you complaining about anyway?" Josh sighed heavily. "That stupid horse that D's got nearly punched a hole through Borgoff's chest...and you?" He asked, looking curiously over to Colleen's left. He hadn't noticed until now but the other tech was dragging a very bored looking man behind her. Being unfamiliar with most forms of animation in general, Josh had no clue who the weirdo could possibly be. He was very tall and lanky, with a hand-me-down blue suit and tie, a crème colored shirt, a green fluffy style of hair, and a lopsided cigarette hanging carelessly out of his mouth. Colleen noticed Josh's stare.
"Oh, this is Spike." She muttered tugging at his arm to get him moving. Spike yanked it back irritably and then looked casually uninterested, chewing his cigarette. "I thought he wasn't in your sho-" Josh began when Colleen cut him off. "He's not." She growled, shooting the green haired man an extremely angry glare. He raised his eyebrows in response, as though to ask, "What did I do?" Colleen looked horribly exasperated with her new responsibility and grabbed a fistful of his hair, resulting in his looking shocked. "He escaped somehow," The female tech explained. "He's supposed to be under the charge of that new girl, y'know, Jen? The crazy one who took two groups?" Josh did know, he remembered her signing in next to him one day, happily telling him about her charges from Cowboy Bebop and Magic Knight Rayearth...she seemed blissfully unaware of the horror that would await her from running back and forth, chasing escapees. "So he got out? How?" Josh asked, all of the doors were so securely locked...how had the weirdo gotten loose? "Oh, Spike just seems to have his ways..." Colleen muttered, looking resentfully up at Spike's smug grin. "He broke into my ward when I was getting water and tried to sell my cast packs of cigarettes that had SUPPOSEDLY been confiscated earlier." Spike flicked open a lighter and lit his cigarette. "I hid 'em." He murmured smugly. "WHERE?!?" Colleen yelled. Spike replied with a nonchalant shrug and a remote "Someplace..." Fed up, Colleen yanked at his hair and walked on. "OW! Goddamit! Leggo!" Spike cried but to no avail, Colleen had him. "No way, I'm taking you up front to have you strip searched you dork!" She cried, Josh watched as they receded down the opposite corridor, strong relentless tech, and loudly protesting cowboy.
Josh re-entered the large double doors ten minutes later, only to be tackled by Grove, who tearfully begged him to say that his older brother wasn't going to die again. After re-assuring the youngest Markus brother Josh hurriedly took the vote cards so that he could get the movie started as fast as possible, while Grove wandered off and attached himself to the closest person possible for comfort...Mashira. The wolf-ish barboroi glanced questioningly down at Grove, who was tightly hugging him around the waist and looking mentally anguished. Mashira rolled his eyes and patted Grove's silver hair gently. This, however, became old after twenty minutes. Mashira, now bored, picked Grove up, walked him over to Kyle and Nolt, and dumped him, before returning to his favorite spot by the soda machine. After making a few tallies (and yelling at Kyle for filling in the whole card) Josh put on The Ring, and stepped back as the cast gathered around the large television to watch. The tech took this time to pull D to one side. "Yes?" D asked, anxious to get back to the movie, which actually looked rather interesting. "Um...its your horse..." Josh muttered looking apprehensively up at the Dunpeal, afraid of the possible reactions. "What about him?" D asked glancing over at the cyber horse who had, upon finishing the vanilla ice cream, fallen asleep on the air conditioning vent again. "My boss said he's not gonna be able to stay around...you know, since he's hurting people..." D cut him off with a swift movement of his hand, walked over to the horse, and tied his reins to a post by the wall. "There." D said simply, before returning to the movie. This was good enough for Josh, donning his jacket, he left for the night.
Borgoff walked briskly down the hallway on his way back to the room the next morning at around eight, he felt refreshed and not in any pain thanks to that cool doctor. (Still felt a bit annoyed that his cigars had been confiscated though.) He hummed happily anyway as the random tech next to him glanced up, disturbed, and let him in through the large steel doors, locking them again behind him. At first the room looked completely empty, not a sound greeted him. "Um...guys?" Borgoff asked nervously, wondering if they had gotten to go somewhere without him. He was just beginning to feel lonely and abandoned when the cloth covering the table on the far right side of the room lifted, and Leila's face poked out from under it. Borgoff's panic was replaced with confusion. "Um...can I ask why-" Borgoff began, when Leila cut him off. "Get under the table or be live bait!" She cried before her face vanished back beneath the tablecloth. The oldest Markus brother's feelings quickly switched from confusion to annoyance, he had at least expected someone to have missed him... Looking peeved, Borgoff walked over to the table and snatched off the cloth in irritation...and was shocked to find the entire cast crammed under the table. After observing the fact that they were obviously terrified (the bug eyes and tense eye twitches) he took the liberty of gently prodding the table so that it tipped slowly before collapsing backwards. There was an instantaneous mad scramble to right the table, and within five seconds everyone was crouched under the re-set makeshift shield, shivering.
"What the hell is wrong with you people??" Borgoff asked. "Meier, Nolt! You should be ashamed of yourselves! Come on somebody say something!" There was a long, awkward silence... Finally Borgoff noticed that they weren't even staring at him...they were staring behind him. Instantly on edge, he spun around to encounter...a wide screen television playing static. The oldest Markus brother raised an eyebrow at the group. "Was the movie that scary?" He asked, sounding concerned. He reached down under the table and tugged Grove out and then picked him up. Grove, who was shaking so hard he looked as though he was freezing to death, let out an ear splitting shriek when he was out from under the table, and clung to Borgoff like a leech. The steel doors took this opportune time to open and allow Josh entry. "Oh, good!" He said cheerily. "Glad you're back Borgoff, I've got pancakes on order and-" Borgoff turned around to display his suction cup style Grove, looking peeved. "Is this your fault?" He asked, pointing first to his youngest sibling, then to the remainder of the crew stuffed under the table. Josh looked shocked.
"Wha?" He asked, tilting his head to one side and looking utterly lost. "They became frightened like small children." A soft voice stated simply. Josh and Borgoff turned to see D rise, he had been sleeping behind his horse. Meier was up in an instant, horribly offended. A verbal battle began between vampire and Dunpeal, it basically consisted of Meier's enraged screaming threats and D's one word replies every once and a while. Josh sagged. "Someone explain please..." He asked rubbing his temples to ward off a headache. Mashira slunk obediently over and huddled next to Josh's leg. "The evil little girl..." He whimpered looking petrified. "She crawls out of the fuzzy stuff on the screen!" Josh looked bemusedly down at the quaking werewolf. "She-she scared you guys?" Josh asked incredulously. "She actually scared you?" He looked surprised for another moment before doubling over in laughter. Leila flipped the table over as she stood in anger. (Not noticing that behind her there was another mad scramble to right it again.) "HEY! For all we know she could come out right now and kill us all!" She cried in passionate outrage, as Charlotte burst into tears behind her. Why? Josh asked himself...why me?
Three hours later Josh had partially convinced the cast that what they had seen had not been real, though they had forced him to remove the television as a precaution. The pancakes had come in just in time and order (or a close resemblance) had been restored. Meier, who was drinking more medically supplied blood, this time laced with caramel coffee, was feeding Charlotte pancakes. Caroline and Leila were betting on who could eat the most hash browns, Leila soon won when Caroline began to turn an unnatural shade of turquoise green. Bengee and Mashira were pouring on whipped cream and strawberries with such abundance that their pancakes soon ceased to resemble pancakes. Kyle was drinking syrup straight from the bottle; he looked completely contented with the sticky, sugary, liquid and stated that he needed nothing else. Nolt, surprisingly, had proclaimed himself full after just two pancakes, though Josh personally thought he just didn't like any of it. Grove and Borgoff were stuffing themselves silly, eating everything they could get their hands on and fighting for what they couldn't. Grove's appetite had increased at monstrous rate ever since being given a functional form, and he seemed in desperate need of more food than was customary.
D sat in a corner, as per usual, and slowly devoured his pancakes and whipped cream. Everything felt perfectly exquisite at the moment, he had more sugar, left hand was too terrified from the movie to come out, and Kyle was staying away from him (thanks to that nicely put execution threat that he had suggested to the rest of the Markus family). Yes, everything was wonderful...so naturally, it happened. There were three loud bangs on the metal door. Everyone stopped eating and stared. More banging followed, persistent, loud, horrible! Then began the whining. A shrill, high-pitched, full-throated, little girl whine emitted from behind the door. "Joooooooosssh! I here NOW!! OPEN!" The cast turned their eyes upon Josh in horror. Looking embarrassed, Josh rushed to the door, ignoring the pleading of the cast behind him to leave it locked. The door creaked open...and in it came.
Josh's little cousin was a wiry, ragged, nasty looking child. Her dirty brown hair was in clumps and it looked as though she might have fought his aunt once or twice already since rising. She grinned, revealing lopsided braces that nearly resembled fangs, which brought no comfort to the group who stared in shock at the tiny monstrosity in front of them. "Hey, Nolt?" Caroline whispered. "What?" The larger man replied, not turning for fear of what the thing in front of him might do if he took his eyes off of it. "You like kids right? So go play with it or something...." Nolt shook his head. "I like kids not monsters." He murmured. The little girl looked around, her savage eyes viewing her prey, as though she was deciding whom she would make an example of...it appeared to be Mashira. "Fuzzy!" She cried, and leapt at the wolfish barboroi. Mashira recoiled in horror as she latched on to him and snuggled. "Fuzzy puppy man!" She cried gleefully, rubbing her face against his stomach with apparent joy. Mashira stopped struggling and looked down at the child...she wasn't doing anything particularly bad...ok, he wasn't exactly fond of hugs but seeing as he had expected to be mauled... Very gently he patted her hair. Soon almost everyone was crowded around the little girl, talking to her sweetly and offering her treats...they were under her control.
"Great!" Josh exclaimed happily. "Glad you guys are so attached...bye!" And with that the tech slid out the door and was gone. Kyle, Borgoff, and D were staying as far away from the kid as possible. D despised anything younger than at least twenty and devoid of rational sense, and was therefore disinclined to go anywhere near her...even if it meant hanging out with Borgoff and Kyle. Borgoff just didn't like being pulled on and seeing as that was what he anticipated happening, he stayed away. Kyle on the other hand had had bad experiences with children, most just seemed to absolutely hate him, while others...attempted to hurt him, this kid looked like a classic example of the second category, therefore he wisely avoided her so as to steer clear of another mauling. The child, Becca, was at the time; happily climbing all over Nolt (who just sat there and allowed it) while Charlotte cooed nonsense at her and patted her head. D looked disgusted.
"This is atrocious behavior." The Dunpeal muttered, glaring at the drooling gurgling, loud, horribly obnoxious abomination that was being encouraged by the shower of attention she was receiving. Borgoff snorted. "She should just be sent home, it's not like she's gonna enjoy the whole day here anyway.." The elder Markus brother grumbled. In truth Borgoff just wondered why the kid hadn't even come near them yet... Normally kids followed him around asking horrible questions like why, where, and are we there yet. This kid hadn't shown the slightest interest in them. Borgoff began to feel offended; the kid should like him just as much as Nolt, right? Deciding on this he stood and walked over to Becca, in order to become better acquainted. "Another one bites the dust..." Kyle sang under his breath while D nodded in agreement...then mentally slapped himself for agreeing with Kyle.
Leila looked highly irritated as she corrected the kid again. "No! My name is Leila! Say it right! Lei! La!" The kid looked up happily and grinned a lopsided, sharp grin. "I luff yew too miss Lala!" Leila looked enraged while Bengee burst into another fit of sniggering behind her as she turned as red as her outfit. "It's not Lala!!" She fumed, getting ready to yell at Becca again; when suddenly Becca stopped grinning...she looked horrified. "Augh!" Becca cried, before dashing behind Meier to hide...everyone glanced up at Borgoff. "What?!?" He asked, looking baffled. Becca poked a finger out at the oldest Markus brother and cried shrilly. "Get the big scary man away!!!" Meier looked askance at Borgoff. "Now look at what you've done!" He cried, in a kindly noble fashion, scooping Becca up. "You've upset her!" Borgoff looked lost. "Why? What'd I do wrong?" Leila glared at him. "You heard the kid! You're scary, just like I've always said, now beat it!" Desperately trying to argue his case, Borgoff gestured to Meier, "Why isn't he a big scary man? He's a freakin' monster!" Then he pointed at Nolt. "Why isn't he a big scary man? Damnit, he's scarier than me!" He then swung his arm around to gesture at Bengee, Mashira, and D in turn, finally he encountered Leila. "Why the hell isn't SHE a big scary man??!?" There was a long and extended, awkward silence. "What did you say....?" Leila hissed, her eyes glowing evilly. Borgoff backed away, holding his hands up in defense. "I-I didn't mean that Leila...I-" Kyle stood. "It's an easy mistake to make though isn't it!" He called to his adopted sister before sitting down and chuckling at his "joke"...he was conscious for about three more seconds before the table collided with his skull.
D stared at Kyle's prone form lying awkwardly on the floor with a sage contentment. At last the idiot was silent...all the idiots were mostly quiet as a matter of fact. Becca was napping and the rest of the crew were being extra quiet so as not to wake her, the kid might have her uses after all...
Fear the Fans To all of those who reviewed. I really appreciate everything! Your reviews keep me writing don't stop! I shall thank you all by name as soon as possible! Thank You!!!
Josh staggered down the outside hallway on his trying path to the hospital section of the building. He nearly tripped and heard his companion give a pain filled groan. Borgoff whimpered in agony as he leaned on the tech, desperately trying to walk correctly. D had said that at least four ribs must be broken...he had then smirked and given some smart-assed remark about his horse being an exceptional animal but Josh hadn't caught that part. Josh grumbled and heartily wished that his boss would've allowed Nolt to come and help them, but sadly, his boss was one of those dipwads that thought techs could do anything if they just "put their minds to it".
After about half an hour, Josh had finally managed to get the oldest Markus brother safely to the correct wing and had left him with the doctor. After being reassured that Borgoff would be fine by the next day, his ribs were bruised not broken, he left. He was wracking his brains trying to figure out what he was going to tell D. As he had been walking away from the wing, his boss had called him over the walkie-talkie to tell him that the horse was a danger and would have to go. "Why me?" Josh asked no one in particular as he once again entered the hall leading back to his room full of characters, he had not expected anyone to answer. "It's not just you, you know..." a female voice said reproachfully. "Oh, hey Colleen..." Josh muttered feeling a bit ticked that his angsty feelings had to be shared, after all, if one is going to angst, it always feels better to know that no one knows your pain...just ask Kamui.
Josh stopped to look up (she was two inches taller) at the other tech, Colleen had short red-brown hair, and shinning hazel eyes, she was currently wearing her black and red Kenshin t-shirt... which was appropriate seeing as she worked in the next building with the cast of Kenshin himself. She glanced up too, and glared at him. "What're you complaining about anyway?" Josh sighed heavily. "That stupid horse that D's got nearly punched a hole through Borgoff's chest...and you?" He asked, looking curiously over to Colleen's left. He hadn't noticed until now but the other tech was dragging a very bored looking man behind her. Being unfamiliar with most forms of animation in general, Josh had no clue who the weirdo could possibly be. He was very tall and lanky, with a hand-me-down blue suit and tie, a crème colored shirt, a green fluffy style of hair, and a lopsided cigarette hanging carelessly out of his mouth. Colleen noticed Josh's stare.
"Oh, this is Spike." She muttered tugging at his arm to get him moving. Spike yanked it back irritably and then looked casually uninterested, chewing his cigarette. "I thought he wasn't in your sho-" Josh began when Colleen cut him off. "He's not." She growled, shooting the green haired man an extremely angry glare. He raised his eyebrows in response, as though to ask, "What did I do?" Colleen looked horribly exasperated with her new responsibility and grabbed a fistful of his hair, resulting in his looking shocked. "He escaped somehow," The female tech explained. "He's supposed to be under the charge of that new girl, y'know, Jen? The crazy one who took two groups?" Josh did know, he remembered her signing in next to him one day, happily telling him about her charges from Cowboy Bebop and Magic Knight Rayearth...she seemed blissfully unaware of the horror that would await her from running back and forth, chasing escapees. "So he got out? How?" Josh asked, all of the doors were so securely locked...how had the weirdo gotten loose? "Oh, Spike just seems to have his ways..." Colleen muttered, looking resentfully up at Spike's smug grin. "He broke into my ward when I was getting water and tried to sell my cast packs of cigarettes that had SUPPOSEDLY been confiscated earlier." Spike flicked open a lighter and lit his cigarette. "I hid 'em." He murmured smugly. "WHERE?!?" Colleen yelled. Spike replied with a nonchalant shrug and a remote "Someplace..." Fed up, Colleen yanked at his hair and walked on. "OW! Goddamit! Leggo!" Spike cried but to no avail, Colleen had him. "No way, I'm taking you up front to have you strip searched you dork!" She cried, Josh watched as they receded down the opposite corridor, strong relentless tech, and loudly protesting cowboy.
Josh re-entered the large double doors ten minutes later, only to be tackled by Grove, who tearfully begged him to say that his older brother wasn't going to die again. After re-assuring the youngest Markus brother Josh hurriedly took the vote cards so that he could get the movie started as fast as possible, while Grove wandered off and attached himself to the closest person possible for comfort...Mashira. The wolf-ish barboroi glanced questioningly down at Grove, who was tightly hugging him around the waist and looking mentally anguished. Mashira rolled his eyes and patted Grove's silver hair gently. This, however, became old after twenty minutes. Mashira, now bored, picked Grove up, walked him over to Kyle and Nolt, and dumped him, before returning to his favorite spot by the soda machine. After making a few tallies (and yelling at Kyle for filling in the whole card) Josh put on The Ring, and stepped back as the cast gathered around the large television to watch. The tech took this time to pull D to one side. "Yes?" D asked, anxious to get back to the movie, which actually looked rather interesting. "Um...its your horse..." Josh muttered looking apprehensively up at the Dunpeal, afraid of the possible reactions. "What about him?" D asked glancing over at the cyber horse who had, upon finishing the vanilla ice cream, fallen asleep on the air conditioning vent again. "My boss said he's not gonna be able to stay around...you know, since he's hurting people..." D cut him off with a swift movement of his hand, walked over to the horse, and tied his reins to a post by the wall. "There." D said simply, before returning to the movie. This was good enough for Josh, donning his jacket, he left for the night.
Borgoff walked briskly down the hallway on his way back to the room the next morning at around eight, he felt refreshed and not in any pain thanks to that cool doctor. (Still felt a bit annoyed that his cigars had been confiscated though.) He hummed happily anyway as the random tech next to him glanced up, disturbed, and let him in through the large steel doors, locking them again behind him. At first the room looked completely empty, not a sound greeted him. "Um...guys?" Borgoff asked nervously, wondering if they had gotten to go somewhere without him. He was just beginning to feel lonely and abandoned when the cloth covering the table on the far right side of the room lifted, and Leila's face poked out from under it. Borgoff's panic was replaced with confusion. "Um...can I ask why-" Borgoff began, when Leila cut him off. "Get under the table or be live bait!" She cried before her face vanished back beneath the tablecloth. The oldest Markus brother's feelings quickly switched from confusion to annoyance, he had at least expected someone to have missed him... Looking peeved, Borgoff walked over to the table and snatched off the cloth in irritation...and was shocked to find the entire cast crammed under the table. After observing the fact that they were obviously terrified (the bug eyes and tense eye twitches) he took the liberty of gently prodding the table so that it tipped slowly before collapsing backwards. There was an instantaneous mad scramble to right the table, and within five seconds everyone was crouched under the re-set makeshift shield, shivering.
"What the hell is wrong with you people??" Borgoff asked. "Meier, Nolt! You should be ashamed of yourselves! Come on somebody say something!" There was a long, awkward silence... Finally Borgoff noticed that they weren't even staring at him...they were staring behind him. Instantly on edge, he spun around to encounter...a wide screen television playing static. The oldest Markus brother raised an eyebrow at the group. "Was the movie that scary?" He asked, sounding concerned. He reached down under the table and tugged Grove out and then picked him up. Grove, who was shaking so hard he looked as though he was freezing to death, let out an ear splitting shriek when he was out from under the table, and clung to Borgoff like a leech. The steel doors took this opportune time to open and allow Josh entry. "Oh, good!" He said cheerily. "Glad you're back Borgoff, I've got pancakes on order and-" Borgoff turned around to display his suction cup style Grove, looking peeved. "Is this your fault?" He asked, pointing first to his youngest sibling, then to the remainder of the crew stuffed under the table. Josh looked shocked.
"Wha?" He asked, tilting his head to one side and looking utterly lost. "They became frightened like small children." A soft voice stated simply. Josh and Borgoff turned to see D rise, he had been sleeping behind his horse. Meier was up in an instant, horribly offended. A verbal battle began between vampire and Dunpeal, it basically consisted of Meier's enraged screaming threats and D's one word replies every once and a while. Josh sagged. "Someone explain please..." He asked rubbing his temples to ward off a headache. Mashira slunk obediently over and huddled next to Josh's leg. "The evil little girl..." He whimpered looking petrified. "She crawls out of the fuzzy stuff on the screen!" Josh looked bemusedly down at the quaking werewolf. "She-she scared you guys?" Josh asked incredulously. "She actually scared you?" He looked surprised for another moment before doubling over in laughter. Leila flipped the table over as she stood in anger. (Not noticing that behind her there was another mad scramble to right it again.) "HEY! For all we know she could come out right now and kill us all!" She cried in passionate outrage, as Charlotte burst into tears behind her. Why? Josh asked himself...why me?
Three hours later Josh had partially convinced the cast that what they had seen had not been real, though they had forced him to remove the television as a precaution. The pancakes had come in just in time and order (or a close resemblance) had been restored. Meier, who was drinking more medically supplied blood, this time laced with caramel coffee, was feeding Charlotte pancakes. Caroline and Leila were betting on who could eat the most hash browns, Leila soon won when Caroline began to turn an unnatural shade of turquoise green. Bengee and Mashira were pouring on whipped cream and strawberries with such abundance that their pancakes soon ceased to resemble pancakes. Kyle was drinking syrup straight from the bottle; he looked completely contented with the sticky, sugary, liquid and stated that he needed nothing else. Nolt, surprisingly, had proclaimed himself full after just two pancakes, though Josh personally thought he just didn't like any of it. Grove and Borgoff were stuffing themselves silly, eating everything they could get their hands on and fighting for what they couldn't. Grove's appetite had increased at monstrous rate ever since being given a functional form, and he seemed in desperate need of more food than was customary.
D sat in a corner, as per usual, and slowly devoured his pancakes and whipped cream. Everything felt perfectly exquisite at the moment, he had more sugar, left hand was too terrified from the movie to come out, and Kyle was staying away from him (thanks to that nicely put execution threat that he had suggested to the rest of the Markus family). Yes, everything was wonderful...so naturally, it happened. There were three loud bangs on the metal door. Everyone stopped eating and stared. More banging followed, persistent, loud, horrible! Then began the whining. A shrill, high-pitched, full-throated, little girl whine emitted from behind the door. "Joooooooosssh! I here NOW!! OPEN!" The cast turned their eyes upon Josh in horror. Looking embarrassed, Josh rushed to the door, ignoring the pleading of the cast behind him to leave it locked. The door creaked open...and in it came.
Josh's little cousin was a wiry, ragged, nasty looking child. Her dirty brown hair was in clumps and it looked as though she might have fought his aunt once or twice already since rising. She grinned, revealing lopsided braces that nearly resembled fangs, which brought no comfort to the group who stared in shock at the tiny monstrosity in front of them. "Hey, Nolt?" Caroline whispered. "What?" The larger man replied, not turning for fear of what the thing in front of him might do if he took his eyes off of it. "You like kids right? So go play with it or something...." Nolt shook his head. "I like kids not monsters." He murmured. The little girl looked around, her savage eyes viewing her prey, as though she was deciding whom she would make an example of...it appeared to be Mashira. "Fuzzy!" She cried, and leapt at the wolfish barboroi. Mashira recoiled in horror as she latched on to him and snuggled. "Fuzzy puppy man!" She cried gleefully, rubbing her face against his stomach with apparent joy. Mashira stopped struggling and looked down at the child...she wasn't doing anything particularly bad...ok, he wasn't exactly fond of hugs but seeing as he had expected to be mauled... Very gently he patted her hair. Soon almost everyone was crowded around the little girl, talking to her sweetly and offering her treats...they were under her control.
"Great!" Josh exclaimed happily. "Glad you guys are so attached...bye!" And with that the tech slid out the door and was gone. Kyle, Borgoff, and D were staying as far away from the kid as possible. D despised anything younger than at least twenty and devoid of rational sense, and was therefore disinclined to go anywhere near her...even if it meant hanging out with Borgoff and Kyle. Borgoff just didn't like being pulled on and seeing as that was what he anticipated happening, he stayed away. Kyle on the other hand had had bad experiences with children, most just seemed to absolutely hate him, while others...attempted to hurt him, this kid looked like a classic example of the second category, therefore he wisely avoided her so as to steer clear of another mauling. The child, Becca, was at the time; happily climbing all over Nolt (who just sat there and allowed it) while Charlotte cooed nonsense at her and patted her head. D looked disgusted.
"This is atrocious behavior." The Dunpeal muttered, glaring at the drooling gurgling, loud, horribly obnoxious abomination that was being encouraged by the shower of attention she was receiving. Borgoff snorted. "She should just be sent home, it's not like she's gonna enjoy the whole day here anyway.." The elder Markus brother grumbled. In truth Borgoff just wondered why the kid hadn't even come near them yet... Normally kids followed him around asking horrible questions like why, where, and are we there yet. This kid hadn't shown the slightest interest in them. Borgoff began to feel offended; the kid should like him just as much as Nolt, right? Deciding on this he stood and walked over to Becca, in order to become better acquainted. "Another one bites the dust..." Kyle sang under his breath while D nodded in agreement...then mentally slapped himself for agreeing with Kyle.
Leila looked highly irritated as she corrected the kid again. "No! My name is Leila! Say it right! Lei! La!" The kid looked up happily and grinned a lopsided, sharp grin. "I luff yew too miss Lala!" Leila looked enraged while Bengee burst into another fit of sniggering behind her as she turned as red as her outfit. "It's not Lala!!" She fumed, getting ready to yell at Becca again; when suddenly Becca stopped grinning...she looked horrified. "Augh!" Becca cried, before dashing behind Meier to hide...everyone glanced up at Borgoff. "What?!?" He asked, looking baffled. Becca poked a finger out at the oldest Markus brother and cried shrilly. "Get the big scary man away!!!" Meier looked askance at Borgoff. "Now look at what you've done!" He cried, in a kindly noble fashion, scooping Becca up. "You've upset her!" Borgoff looked lost. "Why? What'd I do wrong?" Leila glared at him. "You heard the kid! You're scary, just like I've always said, now beat it!" Desperately trying to argue his case, Borgoff gestured to Meier, "Why isn't he a big scary man? He's a freakin' monster!" Then he pointed at Nolt. "Why isn't he a big scary man? Damnit, he's scarier than me!" He then swung his arm around to gesture at Bengee, Mashira, and D in turn, finally he encountered Leila. "Why the hell isn't SHE a big scary man??!?" There was a long and extended, awkward silence. "What did you say....?" Leila hissed, her eyes glowing evilly. Borgoff backed away, holding his hands up in defense. "I-I didn't mean that Leila...I-" Kyle stood. "It's an easy mistake to make though isn't it!" He called to his adopted sister before sitting down and chuckling at his "joke"...he was conscious for about three more seconds before the table collided with his skull.
D stared at Kyle's prone form lying awkwardly on the floor with a sage contentment. At last the idiot was silent...all the idiots were mostly quiet as a matter of fact. Becca was napping and the rest of the crew were being extra quiet so as not to wake her, the kid might have her uses after all...