Head collapses opposite from Muffin on the sofa in the tower's sitting room, "I fear that I am ill, my love."

Flipping a page in her textbook and biting off another chunk from the bamboo shoot in her hand, Muffin inquires, "What ails thee, darling?"

"Worry," Head replies, scooting closer to Muffin's side of the torturously long piece of furniture. Muffin munches on her bamboo and flips another page. Head scoots closer yet and spins himself around on the cushion. "My dearest, will you not help me to forget my troubles?" he begs, laying his head across her studies.

With a sigh, Muffin removes her book from beneath Head's head and sets it on the sidetable for later reading. Running her free hand through his unruly brown hair, her voice softens, "Of course I will help you, my little lovebug! What is causing you worry?"

"Oh, Snookums, Gold is the one who is truly ill. . ."

Muffin bites off another chunk of bamboo and waits for him to continue.

". . .do your texts contain any cure for zombie blood poisoning?"

"How did he contract it? Was he bitten?"

"No. . ."

Chewing thoughtfully for a moment, an idea finally comes to her and Head thumps unceremoniously onto the floor as she leaps from her seat to retrieve some items from her medical cupboard. Head is rubbing the sore elbow that he landed on when she returns and offers him a hand up from the floor. "Come on, cutie patootie! We have no time to waste!"

Johanna leans close to Lils' ear and speaks quietly from the corner of her mouth, "What is this gathering about?"

"How would I know," Lils responds with an arch of her brow, "I've been with you all day, dork."

Johanna narrows her eyes, "Who're you calling a 'dork', dork!"

"It was a term of endearment," Lils sighs.

"Like," Johanna bites her lip, "I'm adorkable?"

Lils tilts her head questioningly, "Is that even a word?"

Before Johanna can respond in the affirmative, Cooper trumpets the commencement of the meeting, rendering all in attendance temporarily deaf. April snatches the instrument from his pursed lips and hangs it on the unicorn's horn. Cooper starts to reach for it again, but Lucy spins him around and requests that he keep guard in the doorway. "Fellow Lurkers," she begins.

Gabbie raises her hand, "I'm not really a lurker, am I? I'm actually not on the forum much. . ."

Zero, Snail, Nona, Yuki, and Kitty just nod, but Jenn speaks up, "OMFG, gab you're a gamer thru and thru, yo. / /no seriously. we've got trouble with a capital A, BITCHES. it's bonding time for lurkers and gamers. TURTLE POWER! / /fist bump"

"Capital A?" Nona asks with a look of confusion.

April hops over to Jenn and bumps the closed fist she still has thrust into the air, before answering, "A for Angel."

"It's actually more of an A to Z problem," Lucy adds. "Zoey may also be involved, though that's unconfirmed at this point."

"Poema can take care of ZoZo, Prylla!" Kitty offers.

"That's not April's name," Lucy mutters through gritted teeth.

Kitty hears her, but can't help digging her hole deeper yet, "What was that, Esme?"

Shaking her head, April declines the assistance of Kitty's extraordinarily largeheaded anime cat-child, "Sorry, but Poema's head would surely be the largest target on the battlefield and-" she flips through the emails on her smartphone, "I've just been informed that mere moments ago she had a near fatal accident involving a pit of sharpened bamboo sticks. You should probably remain at her bedside, Kitty." April continues bestowing her most apologetic look on the demented queen as Cooper noisily escorts her from the meeting. "Aight, Esme, what now?"

Lucy smacks April in the arm and resumes speaking to the gathering, "We need intel. Everyone meet in the front hall at nine o'clock and be sure to dress for the occasion."

"Stop wriggling, Angie!"

"Then hurry up," Angel's voice yells back from between Irma's thighs. "I can't hold this position forever! Pound faster!"

"Don't you dare yell at me! If you had paid more attention to the habits of your ward, we wouldn't be having this awkward conversation!"

Angel sputters in indignation - or perhaps she is just choking on loose cat hair. Zoey's voice, muffled by the solid wooden door and the haphazardly attached boards that Irmangel are still trying to secure into place, breaks through the cussing, "Are you two having sexytimez? There seems to be a lot of heavy breathing going on. . ."

Irma lets out a gasp - which is far from pleasurable - and colorfully chastises Zoey for her unnecessary insinuation that Irmangel is anything but platonic.

"Uh-huh, whatever," Zoey responds nonchalantly. "I'm just going to go climb out the window and visit Yew now. . .see you later!"

"Damn it! The window!" Angel spins on her heel to head Zoey off, forgetting that Irma is still astride her shoulders affixing boards with nail and hammer - until she finds herself sprawled out on the hall floor with a pair of beady little eyes staring her down. She angrily shoves Irma's silly-sock clad feet away and leaps up to continue her sprint for Zoey.

Lilanna are practicing their ninja moves in the front hall while waiting for the rest of the group to arrive for the evening's mission. Johanna lets out a roar and jumps off an ornately carved benchseat, trying to form her limbs into a proper flying front kick aimed at Lils' head, but gravity defies her, dropping her black slippered feet onto the floor a yard from her intended target.

"Way to stick the landing," Lils sniggers. "Let me show you how it's done - kung fu panda-style." As the other Lurkers begin to drift through the door and watch, Lils throws a punch at Johanna's face - easily deflected by the redhead, who scoffs at the lameness of her friend's attack - but then proceeds to swing her leg up and towards Johanna's midsection, sending the other girl careening towards the vase of freshcut flowers. "Oh!" Lils realizes her mistake in the knick of time and captures a fistful of fabric on the back of Johanna's shirt. "Phew! I thought we were screwed for a moment-"

"Oh, you most surely are," Lucy says as she appears between the two girls. "Lils, how often must I remind you to be careful around April's flowers?"

"Why do you always call them April's flowers?" Lils counters.

Lucy scrunches up her brow. "Because-"

"Yeah, April always says they're yours," Johanna chimes in.

"Well-"

"April doesn't even like roses," Lils says matter of factly. Johanna nods in agreement.

"But Lucy likes roses," Cooper slides stealthily into the midst of their conversation, "and April likes Lucy." He flashes his biggest smile and slaps his sister on the back with an open palm. "Simple!"

The three women stare at his outfit, but Johanna is the first of them able to form a sentence while keeping a straight face, "When Lucy told us to 'dress for the occasion', your first thought was. . ."

"Utter confusion!" Cooper declares. "I'm unaccustomed to wearing garments not made of steel. But April was kind enough-"

"Uh-oh, here it comes. . ." Lils interjects under her breath.

"-to suggest some Australian pieces of fashion for my comfort!" He takes a moment to perform a little wriggling maneuver in his lower extremeties. "I'm liking the floppy hat and sunnies, but the thong-"

"Thongs," Lils cuts in. "Plural. You have two feet don't you?"

Once again, three pairs of eyes work their way over his outfit, ending on the scuffed leather boots shielding his feet. Johanna lets out a squeal and backpedals away from the group. Lils snorts and covers her mouth quickly. Lucy places a hand on Cooper's shoulder and leads him out of the room. "Son, sometimes it's best to not ask April for help. . ."

"Door-to-door cookie sales is a dangerous occupation." Kay folds the wickedly sharp blade back into the knife's handle and places the weapon into her purse for safekeeping, "And working with you isn't much better."

Zoey continues to rub the rope burns around her wrists, "I can't believe they tied me up with something other than licorice. I was expecting licorice. I was prepared for licorice."

"Just because Angel chose her army for their cuteness, doesn't mean she's totally crazy. . ."

"Oh, but she is!" Zoey picks herself up off of the floor and and crosses to her computer desk, "Guess how many horcruxes she's up to now?"

"Three!"

Shuffling through papers in a side drawer, Zoey responds over her shoulder, "Higher."

"Two thousand seven hundred and ninety-three!"

Zoey pauses, and slowly turns around to face Kay, "Really?"

Shrugging her shoulders apologetically, Kay offers, "I was never very good at guessing games, sorry. . ."

"Twenty-four is the current count. Two dozen little bits of murderous Mary Sue hidden around FanFictionNet-" Zoey straightens up and blows dust off the cover of the book she was looking for, "-and according to a licorice bat I intercepted, one of those bits currently resides inside a member of the Little family, though they may not yet be aware of the infiltration."

"That's hilarious!"

"Well, I'm not sure about hilarious, but I guess it is a bit ironic," Zoey concedes as she pages through 'Training Your Panda for Dummies', bookmarking a page with her hand as she reaches for a highlighter. "Kind of reminds me of a story I read once. . ."

"Charlie Bone?"

"Not worth the time to read," Zoey says absently, highlighting a sentence in the Training chapter of the book she stole from Angel.

"Billy Owens?"

"That's not even a book, silly. You really aren't very good at guessing things, are you?" With a sigh, Zoey grabs the pail of rodent brains that Yew and Rachel have been collecting for her, and shoves the wooden chest at the end of her bed to the side, revealing a trap door. "C'mon! Angel has surely taken her sleeping pill by now, and we have zombies to train!"

Lucy army crawls beside April, speaking low, "Did you discover who the horcrux is? Is that why you were late?"

"No," April admits, "I was having a bit of a personal crisis."

"Oh. . ." Lucy stops and reaches through the darkness to place a hand on April's arm, "Anything that I can help with?"

April is about to shoot her down, but quickly reconsiders, "Yes. Perhaps you can!" She reaches up and flips on Lucy's headlamp, leans in close, and uses the fingers of her right hand to part the hair above her left brow, "Does this patch of hair look like it's turning grey to you?"

Lucy immediately snaps off her light, whispering angrily, "That's your crisis? You were willing to compromise our mission so I could confirm that your hair is going white?"

"White?! Shit, that's even worse!"

"Do you even care if Gold turns into a walking corpse?" Lucy hisses.

"Of course I do!"

"Then you've got a damn funny way of showing it!" Lucy starts crawling faster to catch up with the rest of the Lurkers making their way towards the sweet scent of the Licorice Palace, but momentarily stops a few feet ahead to add, "Maybe The Angel was right about you. . .you're only good at Photoshopping and breaking my heart."

Irma crashes through Angel's bedroom door, leaps onto the canopied bed and slaps Angie across the face, "Wake up! There are zombie pandas roaming the Palace lawns and a bunch of Littles crawling this way through the grass! WAKE THE ** UP!"