Recently, I've felt the urge to start writing other stories.

It's not like I've gotten tired of this one. But while I originally intended that I'd finish this story before moving on to any others, it's occurred to me that this fic swill be LONG, and instead of slaving away at it to the point where I might get tired of it, it'd be better to take a break every now and then.

That's why I decided to rotate between writing my stories for every two weeks or so.

The good news is, you get to see a bunch of different stories come from me! I have a bunch of different ideas, one Kuro, one Durarara, even a Yugioh one, that'd I'd love to push out into the world, but the bad news is, at that rate, updates will be every two months or so.

I'll be trying it, just to see what it's like. Fear not! You may see you're biweekly updates come yet!

There are short gasps outside, as a few reapers are taken aback by the sudden onset of darkness. Near the exterior of the building, where windows still let sunlight in or whatever it is that illuminates the reaper realm during the day, there is enough light to see by, but for those in rooms in the centre of the building, like where Eve and Alice are, no such windows are even close to doing such a thing, and as such, they and the people in the immediate area are plunged into a thick blackness as lights above them cut out with no warning. "The Hell's going on?" Alice, now distracted from Eve, lets the latter go as she tries to feel around the wall and find the door. Exclamations similar to hers punctuating the air, as more reapers attempt locating one another with their voices instead of their sight.

Eve takes a moment to collect herself, then puts her hands together and blows on her palms as if by instinct. A flame flickers to life, just enough to provide a way for her and Alice, who is just noticing the fire, to see their way out of the room. The other girl gives Eve a strange glance, but otherwise says and does nothing else towards the phoenix in lieu of going to the hallways and locating someone she knows, or perhaps someone aware of the situation. Eve is not sure which.

"Guys? What's happening?" Says one worker as somehow the reapers conjugate into one mass in the halls. The obvious answer to the question is 'a blackout' but the inquiry is directed more at how such a thing could occur. Blackouts do not happen. It simply is not a possibility in the minds of these people, who have spent their entire work life operating without such problems.

Someone who has his head still firmly attached to his shoulders raises his voice. "Everyone calm! Let's try to go somewhere with some light!" The idea is a good one, and thus followed, though not without incident.

"How did the lights go out?"

"It's just the lights! Stop panicking!"

"This kind of thing's never happened! Shouldn't we stay put and hide? What if we're under attack?"

"I imagine several of us would be dead already." Eve interjects into this particular conversation, cutting it short. She purposely neglects to mention that she can hear something following them, because that would only serve to distress her co-workers more. Which would be stupid. "So keep moving."

By the time they all reach a well-lit section of the floor, the noise Eve had heard, rustling and whooshing air, is loud enough for the others to also hear. What is that? No one else seems to be panicking, but Eve cannot say she can identify the source. An animal? Wind from a broken window?

The answer comes a matter of seconds, flooding the air above with their wings and the sound of flapping feathers: pigeons.

...pigeons?

Now that she thinks about it, Eve acknowledges as everyone raises an arm to accept a messenger bird on his or her arm, pigeons are the main source of communication, at least out on the field. Reapers, like humans, rely heavily on eyesight even given their short-sightedness, so it makes sense that these animals would have a better time navigating in the dark than any of the reapers would. Although, judging by the noises of collision, Eve reckons, they still had some difficulty maneuvering indoors with no light. Whoever sent these messages, tied around the foot of each bird, must be aware of the situation, and thus be possibly addressing it.

Copying what the others seem to be doing on instinct, Eve raises an arm for a bird to land on, stripping away the scroll of paper wrapped about its foot. She does not expect good news, but at the sight of the message inscribed, the reaper cannot help but scowl.

"Tch." Eve's face twists into a grimace. This is bad.

The note reads:

Due to the sudden disruption to the power source, the Dispatch Management Division has been quarantined until further notice. Please proceed to the nearest exit for examination, upon which you will be released.

So this last incident is probably the doppleganger, or whatever the high ups think it is. They're finally taking some course of action besides investigation, huh.

They're going to probably inspect them via cinematic record. Eve deducts. Meaning the last tow people left should be me and the doppleganger. But that would take a long time considering the member of people here... By then, someone else could get killed.

She does not even have to think to know the most likely targets are her and Grell.

"Nothing left but to find the exit, then..." She mumbles to herself, matching the murmurs of the people around her.

"It's so dark!" One person exclaims. "How are we going to find our way around?"

"There are two staircases in opposite directions from here." Eve offers, having memorized the building infrastructure a long time ago. The suggestion is no louder than any other, but seems to garner the appropriate, if not slightly uncomfortable, attention.

The members of the group, huddled together in the centre of the long and otherwise empty hall, look at each other, the letters in their hands, and then Eve, the only one with a means of seeing I the dark- but still the one in the most danger. As if by silent, spontaneous agreement, the crowd splits in two, turning their backs on Eve and going to fulfill their prospective goals, leaving her on her own.

Momentarily, she contemplates following one of the groups, but instead takes the middle prong of the fork, back into the darkness from which she came, a flame held between her fingers to light the way.

She is going to find Grell.

...

"...Grell-Sempai?" Ronald says, muffles against his senior's chest. "Mind letting go...?"

The redhead in question pouts. She had, instead of balking and maybe screaming like a little girl at the fact that the lights had gone out for no explainable reason like most people outside were, chosen to cling to the blond with an unwavering tenacity that, to be honest, was making it hard for Ronald to breathe. Not that he needs to, but being suddenly deprived of air for no particular reason is still a rather discomforting experience for any reaper. "Aw, you're being no fun Ronnie." Grell purrs, oblivious or more likely deliberately ignorant of his junior's situation. "This is the part where the the gorgeous damsel in distress begs the hero for help! Where's your sense of adventure?"

"Haha... Ahahahahaha..." Ronald chuckles nervously. It is not very often he does that, but Grell is someone who always manages to get that kind of reaction from him, especially when she goes on her theater-related spiels. "Only one? I'd prefer having maybe another girl or two clinging to me." He half-jokes. "The more the merrier, right?"

"I imagine they're too busy clinging to each other." A voice, accompanied by the click of an opening door, the light of a flame the size of a candlelight, and the sound of the flapping wings of two messenger pigeons as they fly through the threshold into the room. The last person Ronald expects to see walks through the door.

"Eve?"

There is a split second pause, as if the girl had just realized what she had done and had not taken the time to think of a further response. "...hello."

"Eh?" Grell shifts her gaze slowly, lazily, towards the interrupting girl, suddenly a little more snippy in tone. "And what are you doing here? I thought Alice was going to make sure you stayed away! Sure ruined a good chance for me to have any quality time with- ow!" Her air of superiority is quickly broken by one of the pigeons landing on his head and pecking him harshly, before flapping out of his reach as the redhead tries to snatch it out of the air in retaliation. "Little mongrel! Get back here! That hurt!"

"I suppose you didn't get the messages yet because you were so many floor up." Eve says to both of them at once, though a little more concentrated on Ronald seeing as he is not the one preoccupied with trying to catch a bird. "But the building's been quarantined. The higher ups have made their move."

Ronald frowns. His face is unused to the action so it feels rather funny. "Then what are you doing here? I thought Alice... Made things clear for you." It is hard, saying this. So openly admitting his purposeful alienation of Eve. But judging by how calmly she is taking this, there is not much of a need to feel guilty, right?

The girl in question carries on as if nothing in particular is happening at all. "Whatever has been causing these attacks, it's definitely going to hurt someone by the time this place is evacuated. I've already been to the bottom- they've been examining and letting people out, but it's been slow. I decided to start looking for... The thing behind all this myself." She explains, pausing too long at the very end for Ronald to not be suspicious. "So, Grell, will you come along?"

The question is timed so that Grell is diving off a desk trying to catch his pigeon, only to plummet to the ground with an "Eh?" And then an "Ouuf!"

"And why, pray tell, would I do that?" He then huffs, trying to pick himself up in the most dignified way possible.

"You and I are both aware that we are the most likely targets. I will draw the culprit out, one way or another. In other words, you're bait." She says bluntly. "But you also have the opportunity, should we find this creature, to attack it as much as you like with your scythe. Any move against it can be written off, penalty free, as self-defense.

At this, Grell's eyes light up instantly. "Then count me in!" She claps his hands. "A chance to tear something up with my dear scythe nowadays comes so scarcely! Now that I think about it, maybe this will get me off probation..."

As the redhead goes off to look for his scythe, a rather hard task in the dark, Eve turns to Ronald. "You should start downstairs." She advises. "If you go straight ahead from here, turn left, and then right, you should be about to find a better lit area and the staircases."

"And you?"

"I'll be looking for one more person to help." The girl says. "Hopefully Undertaker. Though I haven't found him yet..." Even as she mentions this, Ronald's eyes start to widen, as a pair of hands start to slowly reach out from the barely lit darkness from behind the girl to wrap around her face.

Frozen for a split second by fear, Ronald unsticks and moves to shout-

And the legendary reaper, better known as Undertaker, circles his arms around Eve's shoulders, blocking her view, and promptly flops onto her in some kind of bizarre, suffocating bear hug.

"Find me? Why, I rather'd like to think it the other way around, wouldn't you say, poppet?"

Eve, momentarily startled as Ronald had been, actually starts to wrap her arms around the mortician's as if about to throw him over her shoulders, before registering just who her 'attacker' is and finally relaxing. "Please don't call me that." She asks, muffled by his sleeves.

"And what were you intending to call me for, hmm, poppet?" Gleefully ignoring Eve's request, Undertaker goes on to repeat his newest nickname for her as he starts to rock back and forth on his heels cheerfully, taking the girl with it. For some reason, Ronald is unsettles by this, but he cannot put a finger on what seems off about the picture so he stays silent. "I was just about to take advantage of this lovely darkness and scare a few passerbys!" He giggles. Apparently Grell is not the only one making light of this situation.

"Grell and I are going to purge this place for... Well, you know what for. Will you come?" Eve says, still muffled. She looks a bit more uncomfortable than usual, like she too can sense something 'off'... Is whatever is out there attacking the reapers close by?

Naw, that can't be right. Ronald shakes his head internally. We're almost all alone up here.

"...alright." Undertaker agrees off the bat.

Grell, having just returned his his scythe in hand, revs the engine with a glint in his eye. "Well then, try to keep up! My scythe waits for no one!" Having accepting the addition of the party's newest member, she then proceeds to prance off again into the darkness. And then pop her head back into the dimly lit room. "Erm... Where are we going anyways?"

Eve sighs heavily, and the flames she had been sustaining become much larger to accommodate her two partners. "The roof. We'll start there."

"Lovely!" Grell squeals, having a strange liking for high places. "Well, let's be off! See you Ronnie!" She finishes, blowing a kiss at the blond.

And so the three depart, and Ronald is left with nothing but a bird and Eve's advice. The former of which is flying off already, to doubt to its roost.

Blinking and seeing nothing, he sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose. This will take longer than he thought.

Annnd there's a little parallel between Ronald and William to end off with. OOC is serious business, guys. Seriously, Eve just makes people negative and depressing, she's kinda a downer.

R&R! If too many people don't want bimonthly reviews, I may be tempted to change my mind.