Aya chewed on the straw in her drink thoughtfully. She watched as the seat across from her came to be occupied by a very familiar pale skinned woman.
"Took you long enough," Aya hissed, placing the now empty glass down on the table.
"You know full well that I had other things to take care of if we're to stay here safely," the woman retorted, kicking her feet up onto the table.
"Must you do that?" Aya demanded, glaring at the black boots before her.
"I think you already know the answer to that one," the woman snorted, letting her head drop back against her folded arms.
"So, what'd you find out?" Aya finally asked after ordering another drink from the waitress, "And please let it be something helpful this time!"
"Just what are you implying?" the woman asked, having requested a mixed drink for herself.
"That your sources aren't always the most reliable around," Aya snapped back, baring her teeth at her so-called friend.
"It's not as though I know when a person is pulling the info out of their ass, I can spot fear easy," the woman retorted, righting herself.
"Need I remind you that we can't afford any screw-ups this time!" Aya hissed, gripping at the tablecloth, "I'm not willing to loose here again!"
"You think that I wanted this to happen," the woman demanded, starting to slip her hand into her coat.
"Don't even think about it, Ckat," Aya snarled, eyeing the waitress headed their way, "You don't have enough ammo in that thing to handle everyone here," she pointed out.
"So it would seem," Ckat agreed, resting her hands on the table, "But if you'd have just warned me about 'awakening' I might have been able to contain her until she came down from it."
"I've never seen it happen that strongly before. With me, it moved slowly, evolving if you will from what it started as. The first 'Eve' that I encountered gained her powers in bursts, and I'm sure that you've already read up on that incident," Aya explained, sipping again at her drink, "But this is just beyond anything that I've ever had to deal with,"
"You and me both, sister," Ckat agreed, downing almost half of her glass in a single gulp, "just wish that I'd known more about this stuff before that happened," she then grumbled, thunking her glass down.
"I'm not sure if there was anything that we could have done even if we did know before hand," Aya said sadly.
"Then I suppose that we're just going to have to hope that my information pans out and we can find her without anymore explosions,"
"We should be so lucky…" Aya grumbled, taking another sip from her drink.
Eve stood before the old, condemned building that housed her very first target and shivered. Somehow she found herself far more nervous then she'd thought she'd be as she gulped down the lump in her throat. She wanted more then anything to make a good impression with Integral as far as what she could do to make herself useful.
"I don't know why you're so set on gaining this woman's approval, but if you're going to do so it would be advisable for you to get going sometime, say, like now?" Lilith prodded her real-world counterpart.
Eve took off running into the building as fast as her legs would carry her.
She stopped inside the building's front foyer to catch her breath and figure out where she should start her search.
"Hey, this door's been opened recently!" Lilith called, waving her see-through arms around in the air.
Eve gave her other half a cert nod before dashing up the stairs after her.
Unbeknownst to her, Alucard was watching her every movement thanks to Sir Integral's orders. He would've rather been sleeping through the day so that he could deal with something that was actually worth his time later. He himself figured that even his little fledgling could handle this without much trouble, not that anyone ever listened to what he had to say.
Eve looked up at the shadow that Alucard was using for cover at that point.
"Well, looks like you heard me over all of the spirits in this place," he said directly into Eve's mind.
'It's not very difficult to pick out someone yelling over a thousand whispers,' Eve thought directly into his head as she continued on her trek through the building in her search for her assigned target, 'So, she doesn't think that I can handle this assignment?'
"She'd rather play this safe until we've seen you in action," he answered, crawling around the ceiling as one of the many shadows there.
Eve stopped cold in front of one door that was barely on its hinges as it was. She ghosted her fingers over the knob and nearly jumped out of her skin when it collapsed altogether.
"Well, your presence is certainly known now. Might I advise you to hurry up and find it before it finds you," Alucard chuckled, slithering into the room without any further sound from him.
Eve followed the black smear that was the great vampire lord. She looked around curiously, wanting to make sure that she was able to memorize everything for the trek back out. She tried her best to shake the feeling that she had a pair of eyes following her own movements.
"Something wrong?" Alucard asked, slipping down around the small girl's feet.
Eve remained silent and continued carefully down the hallway. Every inch of her skin was crawling around more and more the further in that they went. The vampire's presence offered little comfort to her at this point. She wanted to get this over with as soon as possible and clean herself off in the shower and sleep.
She felt something moving through the room with them, something that shouldn't have been there to begin with. No doubt this was her target that she'd been sent after. She was starting to regret her earlier enthusiasm about making herself useful and wanting to run out of this place and find the fastest way back to what was left of her home.
Eve nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard a door slam shut some ways away. She pushed herself forward again, fear making every joint in her body shake to the point where she could barely stand under her own power.
"Best not loose yourself just yet," Alucard chuckled, sinking into a far corner to watch what was to unfold.
A high pitched squeak escaped her throat when something brushed against her leg. Breathing heavily, she started focusing her spare strength into her hands. Using the light from the fire to look around, she thought she saw something slither through a hole in the wall. Following after, she pressed her ear against the wall and listened…
That'll be all this time around. We'll be back again soon enough, promise. Until then, ja for nyo everybody!