L's room, January 31st, 2011:
On his screen, he saw how the woman named Keiko was taping the woman from their basement to a chair. Knowing what this woman can do, one could never be too careful. Meanwhile, Caine was connecting her to some kind of an I.V., which had some kind of sedative in it, so to keep her relaxed. Not enough to have her unconscious, but enough to keep her docile, or at least as docile as one can be kept. While they were still busy, the window's curtain moved, in such a manner that one would think someone walked in, but no one saw anything moving.
L turned on his microphone: "Nice trick, Potter, but I think we got enough with one onvisible person."
Hearing this startled both Caine and Keiko. This is when they saw a man appearing out of nowhere. They didn't know how, but somehow, this man had some kind of robe that would render its wearer invisible.
"Wow." Caine said, "Why didn't I think of trying to make fabrics invisible?"
"Who..." Keiko tried to ask the more obvious question, "... what are you?"
"First of all..." Potter decided to ignore those two, "... who are you, why aren't you here and how did you know it was me?"
"Hm..." Caine was surprised, "... he didn't even notice we got a woman in restraints here."
L switched off his microphone: "It took me a while to get the last task-force to fully trust me. I really hate having to start from scratch."
"Maybe you should've kept Matsuda there after all." Mello suggested.
"No." Near disagreed, "He would only make things worse."
L switched his microphone back on: "I am sure you have a lot of questions, but unfortunately, neither you or I have the time to answer all of them."
This is when the taped woman started to moan, which meant she was regaining consciousness.
"Good." L said, "You're awake."
The woman looked at what position she was in, then sighed: "Oh, you must have a fetish for this."
Everyone in the room was surprised to hear her talk, but Keiko was the first to actually speak: "Did her voice just echo?"
"Is she possessed?" Potter asked.
"I can see why you'd want her like this, but..." Caine couldn't understand.
"Everybody, meet Katherine Featherston." L said.
"Katie will suffice." the woman, Katie, spoke.
"Although it's indeed not actually Katherine speaking, but the demon inside her claimed that name anyway." L continued.
Potter didn't seem to care much about that: "Well, I should tell the Ministry and..."
"If I could find your little community, I would surely have found means to try and help her myself, Potter." L told him.
"You know, my late husband was more open than this." Keiko suddenly said, "If you keep being so mysterious about everything..."
"If you people will let me talk in the first place, you wouldn't need to ask all these questions." L reminded her, "But I'm sure before we get to that, we would all like to know each other a little better."
"Yes..." Katie hissed, "That over there is L. Agoraphobic, xenophobic, fetishist, and schizophrenic."
L, again, turned off his microphone: "Either she really thinks I'm schizophrenic, or she realizes I'm not the only person here."
"Either way, if these people would even start to think there's more than one of us, they might start having their reasons to not take any of us seriously." Mello thought out loud.
"Even when we have something to offer her, she'd still try to fight us." Near said.
L turned back to his screen, where people looked more surprised that Katie was saying what she was saying, but weren't exactly taking heed of what she was saying.
L switched on the microphone: "That's enough, Katherine."
"That took you a while." Katie snickered.
"And you are?" Caine addressed Potter.
"I'm sorry." Potter stuck out his hand to shake Caine's "I'm Harry Potter, auror for the Ministry of..."
"Auror?" Caine sounded surprised as he interrupted, all the while taking off one of his gloves, "There's a new word."
Once Caine removed his glove, he revealed... nothing. That is, where one would expect to see a hand, there was nothing. Somehow, that nothing managed to grab Potter's hand and shook it.
"Sebastian Caine. Bio-engineer, and often called the Hollow Man." Caine said.
Although Potter himself had used a cloak that rendered him invisible, he had never seen anyone whose entire body in and of itself was invisible.
Keiko, meanwhile looked at Potter up and down. She didn't know what it was exactly, maybe it was that lightning-shaped scar on his forehead, maybe it was something else, but there was something familiar about him.
"Haven't I seen you somewhere before?" Keiko asked him.
Potter himself seemed surprised: "I don't know."
"There are some similarities between him, and the character that Kathleen Murray described in her fantasy novels." L explained.
"Kathleen?" the name seemed to sound familiar.
"I don't read much." Keiko said, "In my bussiness, I don't have time to read."
"And what exactly is your bussiness?" Potter asked.
"I'm an assassin." Keiko answered.
This raised Potter's eyebrows: "What is all this? I thought you were going to help me find that stolen formula, and you're asking me to work with somebody who kills for money, a man who can't be seen at all times and a possessed woman?"
This started a bit of a discussion among the four. This caused L to turn off his microphone again, so to talk to his companions.
"This is worse than I anticipated." L said.
"We could always try to bring Winch's team together." Mello suggested.
"Unfortunately, that would waste too much time." Near reminded him.
"I wish my old gang were still alive." Mello whined.
"Let me try something." Near spoke.
He pressed a few buttons. It didn't affect any of the equipment in L's room, but the speakers in the other room started to screech.
With this, L turned back to his microphone: "So... Mr. Potter, Mr. Caine, Mrs. Smiley, Miss Featherston..."
"Smiley?" Potter seemed amused as he turned to Keiko, "Is that your name?"
"It was my husband's name." Keiko sounded indignant.
"Now that I have your attention..." L spoke, "Can we finally get to bussiness?"
"If it means me getting out of here, gladly." Katie spoke.
"Okay with me." Caine said.
"I was almost thinking you're looking for an excuse to not pay me." Keiko whined.
"So, what brings us all here?" Potter asked.
If L would ever express any real emotions, he'd sigh of relief. This is when he finally started to tell them what this is all about.