A girl laughed, her hair whipping back in the wind, as she raced to her friends side, as they stood lined up in front of a brick house in a suburban neighborhood.

The group of two boys and three girls stood, looking into a camera sitting on a tripod at the edge of the green lawn on which they posed.

A slight whirring filled the air, as the timer counted down. A bright flash blinded Drake, the dark-haired boy, as Copper pushed him towards the camera, laughingly, "Hey. Take a picture of just us girls, now, will you?"

Yelping, Dan jumps out of the camera shot, "HEY! I'm not a girl..."

Zooming in on the three laughing girls, Drake laughed his reply, "Hey, man, if Chem says you're a girl, then you're a girl."

Another flash.
"Dude, you're whipped, and she's not even your girlfriend!"

A picture slid out of the camera.
Copper raced up next to Drake, and grabbed it, "Aw, it came out looking blue. Stupid lighting."
Bet smacked Copper's arm lightly, "Chill. I think it makes it look cool."

Dan leaned over Bet's shoulder, "Yeah. We should submit it to the yearbook. Ben Franklin High's own personal Charlie's Angels."

Nikki bopped him over the head, "Puh-lease. We will NOT be the school's signature sex symbols."
This caused the others to burst out laughing.

Copper looked around at her friends, smiling. But a cloud settled over the moment, as a shudder went through her at the thought of returning to the school where...

Mads pursed her lips, "What do you mean, Reaper said no?"

Sagome stood impatiently, "I mean, she said no. In fact, her exact word were, 'Deal with your own crap yourselves you pathetic--' And then I hung up."

Yusuke stopped pacing, an amazed look on his face "Wait, Reaper uses the telephone?"

Mads spun around to face him, exasperated, "Well, how the hell did you expect her to reach us? A pigeon?"
"Well, a hawk trained to eat human flesh would have been more suiting..."

Botan leaned over, silencing the detective by shoving a jelly doughnut in his mouth. Hovering on her oar, Botan's pink eyes narrowed, "Yusuke Urameshi! Koenma is allowing Copper to get involved, but you and the others have more important things to do!"

The prince of Spirit World stalked in, "Yes, Yusuke. This concerns all of you." He glances over as the spirit detectives focus on him, "Except Mads, of course. We've received a tip that there's a hit out on families and friends of the spirit detectives. That's a direct quote."

Mads looked around, "Ah, man, that can't be good."
Yusuke frowns, "Who'd this hit come from?"
Mads rolls her eyes, "It's obvious, isn't it? The only person that we know that has access to information like that is--"

Koenma shook his head, "No, it's not her. Reaper's... gone."
Mads clenched her jaw, "What do you mean 'gone'?"
"We don't know where she is."

"But she's the only one with that kind of---"

"No."
Mads's eyes settle on Sagome as he steps forward, "Grimm does. She has access to almost everything that Reaper would. Demons can't touch her."

Kuwabara's face twisted in confusion, "Why?"

Sagome's eyes narrowed, "Reaper doesn't really trust anyone. But Grimm's one of the two that come close."

Botan floated over to the psychic on her oar, "And why would that be?"
"Grimm was the princess of the Eastern Omoi kingdom. Her father became a target a year and a half ago. Reaper was still considerably new to the field, but she got the hit. No one really knows what happened that day, but the king died, Grimm resigned her status to her cousin, and Reaper forbid anyone ever touch the neko."

The room was silent.
Mads crosses her arms, "You said there was two."
"There are." "So who?"

Sagome turned away, "Koenma, Copper and I need to go to North Carolina. Botan has some information on it, so we'll need to borrow her too."

Koenma nodded, and Mads and Botan followed Sagome from the room. "You didn't answer the question."
"And I'm not going to."
"Humph. Fine."

They walked (or in Botan's case, floated) into a giant library. Sagome grabbed a laser pointer, and sat in a chair facing a large screen. Mads and Botan followed suit.

The screen flickered to life, "Okay. I went and tracked down your necklace. As much as I could. And interviewed some people in the process, which you'll need to see before we visit the old site of Ben Franklin High."

A picture of a high school flits across the screen, and switches to a front desk receptionist. Mads rolls her eyes, as she listens to a spiel of Sagome being some student reporter.

The lady looked at Tier, "We're not at liberty to discuss what happened two years ago." Tier made a note in his notebook, "So, something did happen her two years ago?"
The lady looked startled, "Well, yes, but the surviving student--" Tier's head jerked up quickly, "There was only one surviving student?"

The secretary stepped back, "Sir, I'm sorry, but I cannot discuss this with you."

"But I need to know what happened, so we can make sure it doesn't happen again."
The lady turned, gesturing for him to follow her.
They end in a small conference room, and sit down, "You're some sort of cop, aren't you?" Sagome nods solemnly, "Yes, ma'am, I am. And I need this information."

The lady leans in close, and begins.
"Two years ago, we had a film club. It was a student group, and its founders were the only active members. There were five of them, promising students. One looked very much like you did."
Sagome's eyes narrowed.

The lady continued, "Their leader was a spunky girl. Always up in the office for something or the other, but never really in trouble. Her name was Copper Mendel. Beautiful black hair, brown eyes. Always wore this strange copper necklace, said her best friend had given it to her. His name was Drake Mays. Dark brown hair, warm green eyes. Much like you, you see which is why you can't speak to any of the students. The only survivor... he's... not as stable as he used to be. His name is Dan Grelys. Strawberry blonde, he used to be. His hair went white after the incident.

"His girlfriend was another of the founders. Bethany Hart. Smart girl."

There was a pause. "But there were five, right?"

"Why, yes. Her name was Nikki Goodwin. Redhead. Almost always fought with Copper."

"But they were out by the woods, where the old school used to be, filming. No one knows what happened, but the group went missing. The police were called, when Dan stumbled up to the school, raving about a tempest. They found three of the others in a cave, 5 miles into the forest. Two of the girls had been tortured to death. Cuts had been made across their stomachs, and wrists. One had a mark on the back of her neck.

"The only one alive was Copper. She was unconscious, and when she awoke, she wouldn't say a word, just kept staring. Her hair hadn't turned white from shock, though she had more reason that Dan. Where the other two had cuts and gouges, she now had bloody tattoos. The police figured it was marking the areas where the tormentor was going to cut. No one could guess why they hadn't gone through with it, but Copper was there, still alive.

"The poor girl was never the same after it. Even with everything being kept hushed, she isolated herself from others. A month after the accident... she disappeared."

Sagome looked up from his notes, "But what about the other boy?"

The woman pressed her finger to her cheek nervously, "Him? He was never found. But there was something else. Something Copper had said before she disappeared that had made them decide to move the school away from the woods. That she had known. That someone had stayed in the woods all that time, waiting. That she had had a run-in before."

"Did she say what kind of run-in?"

"No. It was almost as if... as if she was afraid to say too much. The only other thing she would say was that a tempest was coming. And then the strangest thing happened right before she disappeared."

Sagome's pencil stopped writing, "And what was that?"

"Her eyes... they were different somehow."

Mads sat on the couch, her brow furrowed as she tried making sense of the situation. Sagome turned towards them, and Mads looked up at him, "Sagome, why don't we know anything about your background before the past two years? And why are you taking such an interest in this? And why do you seem to know more than you let on?"

"I can answer this one."
A short blonde kitsune stood beside the couch. Sagome groaned, mumbling something about ex-girlfriends. The girl continued, "My Sagome over here (at this Sagome snorts), lost pieces of his memory. He came stumbling into my apartment two years ago, as Tier. Wonder why he looks so much like that missing boy? He probably is that Drake kid. My apartment at the time was only three miles from Ben Franklin High."

Mads turns towards Sagome, eyebrows raised, "Why do I suddenly feel like I'm in some effed up soap opera?"

They were standing outside of a brick house.
1215 Nelson Lane.

Mads sighed, and ran the doorbell. A woman in her mid-forties answered, holding the door partially closed as she gazed suspiciously at the three teenagers, "What do you want?"

Mads put on a we're-just-innocent-kids smile, and spoke up, "We're here to ask you some questions ma'am. About your daughter."

The woman's eyes swept over the group, fixing on Sagome, and her chin trembled, "No...No..." She stepped back, "I don't have a daughter."

Botan spoke, "But you used to right, Mrs. Mendel?" "NO."

Mads stepped back in shock, causing the woman to tear her eyes away from Sagome, "What?"

The woman looked around nervously, before gesturing them inside.

They sat at a dining room table. Miss Wrengly, as she explained she had gotten divorced began her story, "I don't have a daughter. Mark, my ex-husband, forced me to disown her after... an incident." Mads nodded slightly, "It's okay ma'am, we already know what happened."

The woman shook her head violently, "No. I don't mean the attack. My Copper, she... she was different afterwards. Never home, and when she was, she barricaded herself in her room."

Miss Wrengly's eyes lock on Sagome's, "Drake... you didn't come back... That's what killed her."

Sagome stood up suddenly, his chair falling to the ground. His response came out in a choked whisper, "What?"

Miss Wrengly shook her head frantically, "I know it's you! All these years, and I would still never forget your face! She loved you, and you disappeared... Like the others had disappeared. She changed. Her eyes changed with her, you know. They grew cold and distant... they slowly got lighter, and began going from brown... to green."

Sagome shook his head, and disappeared out the front door. Mads clenched her jaw, and turned back to the sobbing woman, promising herself she would question Sagome later, "Miss Wrengly, please, if you have anything left, a picture..."

The woman raised her head, reaching into her pocket, "Only one... I only have one..."

Looking down at the picture in the woman's outstretched hand, Mads and Botan's eyes both widened in recognition. Pulling the necklace out of her pocket, Mads placed it in Miss Wrengly's hand. "This was sent to me. I think it's yours now. Thank you for your help."

At this, Mads and Botan walked out. Climbing into the car, Mads turned to Sagome sitting in the driver's seat, "You knew didn't you? You were that guy, and you remembered. You had a hunch all along that it was her, didn't you?"

Botan's startled whimper from the back tore Mads away from her accusations. A girl with raven black hair, and dark sunglasses sat next to the pink-haired girl. Reaper leaned forward, "Sagome and I have to go now. But I warn you, elemental. If you insist upon digging further into this, that hit that's gotten Koenma all up in arms may just be filled by the end of the week."

And in a flash of two portals, both demons were gone, leaving Botan and Mads to stare at the now empty space.

"That's not going to stop me from finding out what made you go from Copper Mendel to Reaper..."