"I lost Jace," Chandra said. She was pacing. Something about the whole situation was weird. She had watched the whole thing, seeing no need to intervene as he had it covered. Why would Kurai fight for him if Jace is perfectly capable of doing so? Suddenly she stopped.

"You stopped pacing," Lotus noted dryly.

"It makes sense now," Chandra said to herself. He's not comfortable with it. He seemed to have no recollection of what had happened when his face cleared. He seemed just as shocked as us but then something like this must've happened before. That would explain how he had been able to infer what had happened based on the way we were looking at him. "I have no idea where he went. He's not anywhere in the city that's for sure." She had opted to take the two boys that were still conscious after the incident home and personally swore them to secrecy instead of chasing after Jace.

"Just have Echo scan for him," Caedrus suggested unhelpfully.

"It's not that easy. A scan wouldn't be nearly as effective since he doesn't have access to mana. His signature would be weak if it was present at all," Chandra explained, "It would blend in with every other magical energy around him."

"Oh," Caedrus shrugged, "It was worth a shot."

Chandra shrugged.

"And maybe he just needs time alone to deal with it," Lilianna suggested irritatedly.

"And the problem with that is he won't deal with it," Chandra snapped. She turned and walked out of the dorm common room. She hurried to the hotel and stopped by Echo's tech lab. She knocked on the door.

"I've got nothing Phoenix," Echo said through the door.

Chandra's eyes narrowed, "Fine."

"Fine?" Echo opened to the door, "You aren't going to go look for him?"

"It'd be a waste of effort at this point," Chandra shrugged, "He has to come back of his own volition now." She turned and walked away, "Besides. All hell's breaking lose at the school anyway. Sometimes people are on there own because other things come up." She looked at Echo over her shoulder, "Keep me posted.

Echo nodded.

Chandra returned to the school.

Ral looked at her curiously.

Chandra shook her head, "He's long since gone."

Ral sighed, "Alright." Of course Cat Ears will come back. He did last time he left. It is unavoidable and he will have stuffed animals waiting for him when he returns. And probably a lot of food from both Melody and Erin. Ral snickered.

"Would all students please come to the auditorium," the principal's voice spoke over the intercom. The students filed into the auditorium in a completely disorganized mob. The principal was rubbing her temples as though she had a head ache then Ral walked in and sat down next to Rick and Erin.

"Alright," the principal shook her head, "I give. However, though I am repealing some rules I will not be loosening my grip on all of them. Foam swords and ballistae of any sort are still banned. And inappropriate use of any sort of utensil or material required for school activities will lead to trouble. That includes paint buckets, tape, writing utensils, paint in general, clay or Play-Doh, and everything else even if it isn't banned. Is that understood?"

"Understood doesn't necessarily mean it'll be obeyed," Rick whispered.

Ral shrugged, "I don't think she sees the difference there."

Erin choked back a laugh.

Every student nodded. Ral could see Michael and David plotting two rows in front of him. He smirked, "Watch her end up taking every single rule down because we just don't care."

Rick nodded, "Yeah. That would make sense."

Ral yawned and opened his eyes. A couple days had passed. The entire student body had pushed the principal to remove three more rules that she'd put in place. Last he knew she was lying on the office floor cursing her job. Of course that was nearly ten hours ago. He looked out the window. There was frost on the ground. He sat bolt upright, "It's nearly Halloween! They've had the decorations for it in stores for forever now!" He grinned excitedly.

"Ral," Kaious said quietly.

"Huh?"

"Do you think I should've followed Jace?"

"C'mon little guy," Ral walked over to Jace's side of the room and knelt down in front of the dragon, "Cat Ears isn't helpless and he'll come back eventually. He will. Once we get in enough trouble for him to find out he'll be back in a flash." He got to his feet. He doubted that would reassure the baby dragon. He seemed to know a lot more than Ral did. So did Chandra and Lilianna. Ral felt completely uninformed but he knew one thing for sure. Jace would help them when they were in trouble. Even if he wasn't there in the beginning he would show up in time to save the day. Ral skipped down the stairs happily.

"You're happy," Onyx noted.

"I don't understand why everyone's so worried," Ral shrugged, "Ever since Cat Ears disappeared everyone's been down and I don't see why. I don't know much about Cat Ears but I do know that he will help us when we need it. Even if he's not there at first he'd be dead before he let anything bad happen to us."

"You seem pretty positive of that," Onyx nodded, "Alright."

Ral nodded and continued into the cafeteria. He saw Xerxes sitting with Claire. He had sat with them at first but once Melody started to become more interested in the group than him he left. Ral didn't mind. The older boy made his skin crawl. He sat down in front of Isabelle, "What kind of stuffed animal do you think Cat Ears would like? I'm running out of ideas and I'll end up defaulting to cats eventually. I don't think he likes it when I do that."

Isabelle shrugged and shook her head, "I have no idea. Why? He's not here-"

"He'll be back and I'm going to continue to get him stuffed animals until then because good friends annoy each other even when they are really far away from each other," Ral snickered. He's going to be so damn frustrated if I cover his bed with stuffed animals. It'll be great! He looked expectantly at Isabelle.

"I don't know. I barely even saw him let alone talked to him," she shrugged again.

"A dragon!" Jenny squealed. She sat next to Ral, "Sorry I have no idea-"

"Perfect!" Ral grinned. He nodded to Jenny, "That's perfect. I'll get him a stuffed dragon!"

"He likes dragons then?" Isabelle asked.

Ral shrugged. He looked at Isabelle, "By the way who's the blond that's always hanging out with Kyle? I don't know him well but they seem to be roommates."

"The blond? Pyro?" Isabelle asked.

Ral nodded.

"Yuri. He's basically the leader of our group," Alice explained.

"Why doesn't he hang out with us then like you guys?" Ral asked.

"I have no idea," Alice shrugged, "He's always doing his classwork anyway so he wouldn't be very interested in conversation."

"Oh," Ral sighed. He got to his feet and left the cafeteria. He skipped down the halls towards the front door and left the school building. He hurried off the school grounds and headed to a nearby toy store. Finding the stuffed animal section was easy. A lot of adorable stuffed toys sat in shelves. All different kinds of creatures and plenty of other interesting things all sat there. Ral looked around, "Hm. Which one though?" I should probably be in class instead of buying stuffed animals. Oh well. I'm sure Elspeth will understand. Why are Princess and Beautiful so tense anyway? It seems like when it comes to any kind of important decision making those two clash. Badly. Maybe it's because Beautiful's impatient and would rather have action than a pressure hanging over her while Princess would rather wait for something to happen instead of searching out trouble. He sighed, "And they think I'm just a tinkerer that doesn't pay attention to what happens around him." He shook his head in amusement and bought a relatively large stuffed dragon. Maybe next time I'll get him an eagle. He returned to his dorm room and set the stuffed animal on Jace's bed. He sat on his side of the room and studied the technology around him. What can I make out of you? Well given the pressure in the air I think something a little more interesting would be required just in case. I don't think just charging the small amount of magical energy I can muster into a relatively ball shaped mechanism is gonna work. This pressure's been building for nearly as long as we've been in school. When it finally resolves itself it's going to be big.

His eyes narrowed, "Maybe if I get something a little more recent then I'll be able to get something a little more effective." He got to his feet, "Hey Kaious."

"Huh?"

"Look after things for me? I'm gonna be doing a lot of shopping." Ral slid out of the room without waiting for a response. He wandered the school building until he found who he was looking for. Michael and David were wrestling with what looked to be a steel plate that wouldn't bend. They were sitting in a storage room where the door was barely cracked open. Ral walked up to them and opened the door. He leaned over them curiously, "Having difficulties?"

"Sh!" David hissed, "We're working here."

"You're failing," Ral knelt down beside them, "Let me see." They reluctantly held the plate out to him. Ral studied it, "What do you want it to do?"

"We want it to be slightly domed," Michael said, "So that it'll fit over a doorknob without fitting the doorknob directly."

"Ah," Ral nodded. With a little bit of energy he created a shock that warped the metal into a slight dome, "Like that?"

The twins nodded, "What's up?"

"Can I borrow the money car. I need to buy some stuff that's a little to expensive for my funds alone," Ral explained.

Michael handed it to him, "Sure. What're you getting?"

"A whole bunch of stuffed," Ral grinned. Ah shit. How am I gonna get it back here? I can't carry all of it.

"Talk to Onyx then," David said, "He'll get you a ride."

Ral nodded, "Thanks." He got to his feet and turned to walk away. He paused and turned back to him, "I'm just going to call you two Tweedledee and Tweedledum." He turned and walked away snickering as the two of them began to argue over who would be Tweedledum. He skipped down the hall. Finding Onyx proved to be easy as well. The two of them shared Mr. Rice's class for the first class of the day. He hovered outside the room. He pulled paper out of his backpack and started throwing bits of it at Onyx until he had the blue haired kid's attention. He motioned for him to come to him.

Onyx sighed, "Sir. Can I go refill my water bottle?"

"Sure," Mr. Rice nodded. He shook his head in amusement. He was pretty positive he was really doing something for Michael and David given the bits of paper that had been flying into his room for the past two minutes.

"What do you need?" Onyx asked.

"I need you to take me to a technology store. I'm going to buy it out."

"And you need to be able to get it back without killing yourself," Onyx assumed.

Ral nodded.

Onyx sighed, "Fine. Where to?"

"Uh…wherever," Ral shrugged, "As long as it has up to date computers and phones I don't care."

"Alright," Onyx pulled his keys out of his pocket and led the way to his copper van. He was the oldest and most mature of the entire group and was often in charge of all the group's transportation needs. Ral sat in the passenger's seat of the car and Onyx started it up, "How much are we buying exactly?"

"Enough that I can just take it all apart and make something amazing."

"Alright, you might want to talk to Kyle about an extra storage room somewhere around here," Onyx said.

"Good point," Ral cocked his head to the side, "After we get back then."