"Wake up."

"I ain't feeling it."

"Suck it up and be a man."

I opened my eyes and turned to the side to see Valkyrie Cain lookin' less than pleased. She held open the back door, her foot tappin' impatiently. Slowly, I eased myself out of the car and stretched. We were parked and surrounded by some gray buildings with gray pavement with gray skies overhead. Overall, it was pretty dang gray.

"Well, shouldn't we be gettin' in there and goin' crazy and arrestin' all them?" I asked, nodding towards Warehouse #62. "Or should we wait till the 'time is right'?"

"They're not in there," Funny Bones said tiredly. "We checked already. So, because this whole program was designed to utilize our already-caught criminals to help find need-to-be-caught criminals, where would this Colonel Red guy be, Mr. Sanguine?"

"Hell if I know," I replied shortly, smiling.

"Well, if you weren't an idiot who got himself captured," Valkyrie jumped in, "and you were still free and knew that the evil guys were about to close in on you, where would you relocate your illegal gun selling shop?"

"Man, someone's cranky this morning," I muttered. I noticed her evil super ultra mega death glare and sighed, "But I don't know. I'd go…home."

"Really? Do you think this guy is as stupid as you?"

Okay, so I changed my mind: I ain't gonna kill Bespoke first. Valkyrie Cain'll be the first person I kill once I'm free.

"Funny Bones, make her stop beatin' up on me!"

He paused, and I definitely thought he was gonna side with me for a minute, but he shook his head and said, "I think she's justified. Now, think. Where is Colonel Red?"

"I'm not a psychic! I don't know where he is!"

"Well, he's a villain, you're a villain: where do villains hide?"

I sighed and shrugged, saying, "We sometimes have…multiple hideouts. Or we go to a really obvious public place, like a hotel or club or something. Or we could take the cliché route and hide out in a castle."

"There," Valkyrie smiled, "that's all we wanted."

I grumbled and was actually really tempted to just start screaming swear words these guys were so annoyingly pushy and witty and holier-than-thou. Gah, maybe I'm whinin' like a twelve-year-old girl, I dunno, but these guys really do that to ya. They use Jedi mind tricks and morph ya into some mutant creature that's nothing like your original self.

It's kinda neat actually.

NO. Billy-Ray, you pull yourself together RIGHT NOW and you never think anything good about them EVER AGAIN.

"He seems to be having a psychotic episode," Valkyrie muttered suddenly. I guess they were watching my face contort at the mere mention of being nice to these jerks.

"Ah, if only I was insane, pretty Valkyrie," I replied, "then maybe I'd get outta doin' this stupid thing."

Again, she whipped out the, "Hey, you volunteered for it," thing.

"Yeah, but I figured I wouldn't be stuck with you two," I shot back. "And, ya know, I thought maybe you'd have the decency to at least be semi polite to me, because, well, you did lock me up in that jail cell with all those morons."

"And I'd thought you'd have the decency to realize that you've killed many innocent souls," Valkyrie retaliated, her eyes sharpening again, "and that you helped to almost destroy the world."

"Yeah, keyword being 'almost.' The world is fine. It's still here. Funny Bones back me up, don't yo-"

"Why do you keep thinking I'll side with you?" he asked. He sighed and shook his head and kinda laughed a little and said, "Valkyrie, let's start narrowing down places of interest; we need to find this guy." He walked on a bit for no real reason. Maybe he needs space to pose thoughtfully? I dunno, I've always considered Funny Bones to be overly dramatic.

She nodded and then suddenly stopped. "How should we even go about doing that?"

"Look at maps and find the creepiest and grossest hotels imaginable?"

"Sounds awesome." Valkyrie turned to me quickly and said, "You, Sanguine, stand there and don't cause too much trouble."

"Yes, cap'n."

She sighed and turned and popped open the front passenger door and bent down to the glove compartment. She emerged again holdin' a few rectangles of paper that I guessed were maps. I think I'll have some fun watchin' her try and fold 'em up again.

I leaned back against the car and watched the two of them. Funny Bones had whipped out a cell phone and, I guess, was talkin' to Bespoke on the other side. Valkyrie spread the maps out on the hood and studied them. Her fingers traced over the little lines carefully, like they would jump out at her or somethin'. I noticed one finger had a black ring on it.

"Hey there, pretty Valkyrie?" I asked, takin' the risk of her beatin' me up for speakin'. (I thought the point of me bein' there was so they could use me to help find these criminals. Will this whole thing just consist of me standin' around while they go all crazy and detective the heck out of everything?)

"What?" she replied, her voice all monotonous and what not.

"You still an Elemental? Or did ya jump the Necromancy wagon fully?"

She held up her hand wordlessly and black shadows poured from the black ring and pooled to the ground, where they shot across the cracked pavement and suddenly curled up around me, freakin' me out like crazy, causin' me to jump back and act like a general nutcase.

"Necromancy," she answered, though I dunno if that was really necessary.

"Thanks, Miss Show Off," I muttered quietly, but I guess she heard my remark because she started gigglin' like a little girl.

"Are you still acting like a sneaky little mole?" she asked, her eyes actually glancin' up at me. "Did that gaping hole I made in you fix up?"

I snarled and folded my arms. "Yeah, thanks." I would have showed off like she did, but these stupid handcuffs were still on me, and they were those awful ones where they take away your powers and all that.

"You deserved it."

"Everyone's new favorite phrase!"

She kinda laughed again. "A rather fitting phrase, though."

"Hey, with all the pain and misery you caused me," I pointed out, "you deserve some type of jail time. Assault and thievery, definitely."

"What have I stolen from you?"

"How could you forget the first time we met?" I asked, astonished she couldn't remember such a pivotal moment in our lives. "You thought that I was blind when I popped up from the ground in front of you, on account of the no eye thing, and then somebody said something, and then you took my razor."

"Oh really?" She looked up. "Sorry."

Wait. Was she apologizing?

"Haha, just kidding. I probably shouldn't have given it back to you anyway," she suddenly responded, her eyes glinting again. "I probably could have cut you like I cut Dusk."

"You are delightfully violent, pretty Valkyrie," I noticed. "You should join my side."

"Hey, Valkyrie?" Funny Bones said as he came up to us quickly. "Ghastly said to check the 6th floor on that huge building off in the distance over there." Funny Bones pointed across a while off to a rather tall building. "This guy apparently hides there, too."

Valkyrie nodded and gripped the map and stared at it a few minutes. "You can figure out where it is?"

"Please," Funny Bones said, "it's me, Valkyrie."

"Oh, yes, how could I forget?"

They have a weird relationship.

Funny Bones chuckled and turned to slip into the car. Valkyrie surprisingly managed to fold the maps up in, like, two seconds. She herself jumped into the car, and I just kinda stood there a minute, wonderin' if I needed a command.

"Well hurry up, Sanguine!" she sang.

"Oh, I'm workin' on it, I'm workin' on it." I opened the back door and flopped into the seat.

"Seat belts," Funny Bones commanded.

Valkyrie sighed tiredly and laughed, still. She reached for her belt as I clicked mine securely. Funny Bones sped off, and we raced over to this building where the green or red or whatever-color-he-is guy hid out.

This is fun :3 Yeah, this chapter is boring as heck, but I don't caaaare~ I realize I've never really WRITTEN about Sanguine before. He's appeared, but only as a villain. Maybe that's why I'm having so much fun with this...

Thanks for reading! Sorry for any mistakes! :DD