The sun rose on Lungmen slowly, and the city slowly hummed to life from its slumber. For many it was an unordinary, boring morning.

"Augh…fuck…my head…" whined Swire as she got out of bed in response to the light flooding her room. "How much did I…"

She stopped. Why was she on the far right side of her bed? She looked over to the left to see the reason why and images from last night flooded her mind as she remembered pieces of her night.

Another glass slammed the table and she gave an ungraceful burp before holding it up, ice swishing around as she called for more. To her left, Ch'en and Hoshi continued their rapid nursing of their drinks. Once they were finished, more whiskey was poured into her glass and she immediately started chugging.

She gauged Ch'en's face as her neck gave way and her head slammed onto the counter. She felt closer this time, but she could tell Ch'en was still far from her limit. Ch'en herself continued with Hoshiguma and she felt her mind slip away.

Next thing she knew she was on Hoshi's back as they walked her through Lungmen. She squinted at Ch'en as the two talked happily and she flipped her superior the bird before passing out again.

A wretched sound escaped her throat as the contents of her stomach fell into the toilet and Ch'en gave the third flush. She groaned and looked to see Hoshiguma enter with her folded pajamas.

"Noooo, stay! You guys always sleep over with each other!" Swire whined as she wrestled Ch'en on the bed using her horns as handlebars. Several colorful swear words were coming out of Ch'en's mouth while Hoshiguma just videotaped the whole exchange with an amused smile on her face. Ch'en used her tail to grab her leg and managed to throw her off balance. "Hoshi, stop staring at your phone and help me!"

"Get the hell off of me you- gaaaah"

Swire's face twisted in exertion as she pulled her whole body back and pulled Ch'en on top of her and grabbed her across her collarbone and wrapped her ungrabbed leg over the dragon's stomach.

"Cry uncle and I might let you go!"

"Hoshi, what are you doing there with your phone!? You better not be recording this!"

"You're both so lively before bed," Hoshiguma chimed as she continued her recording.

Eventually they both tired out and she felt a third set of hands on her in her drunken stupor.

Right now, Ch'en's figure was lying with her back to Swire's side as she was crunched up in a fetal position with her mouth sucking Hoshiguma's horn like a baby bottle. The large oni didn't seem to care as she slept soundly with a content smile on her face.

For some reason, she felt compelled to take a picture, for blackmail of course. Why would she dare think the sight in front of her was a once in a lifetime memento of a wild night with her two closest coworkers? As she tried to lift her other hand though, she felt rope-like tension hold it back and she noticed that Ch'en's tail had wrapped around her wrist.

She gently grabbed the tail and slowly but surely, peeled it off. Somehow the scaly appendage had stuck to her wrist like tape and made a slow quiet peeling sound as well which she cringed at, both due to how gross it was and how she didn't want to wake the dragoness up.

She successfully pulled the last bit and the tail flopped to the ground. With her hand free, Swire navigated her phone and positioned herself in front of it and gave a grin to the camera along with a peace sign.

The flash and click sounded and Hoshiguma blinked her eyes open. The horn was slowly extracted from Ch'en's mouth which twisted in discomfort without it.

"Morning," Hoshiguma muttered, leading the one who woke her up to bristle and straighten her tail while giving a small 'eep' before turning around with a quivering smile and wide eyes. While the oni woman didn't seem bothered at all, Beatrice still felt like she was caught in the act.

Before anything could be said, the final person to wake up groaned and turned in her sleep as though she were uncomfortable. Her tail searched for something and she slowly but surely tossed and turned herself awake.

When Ch'en's first sight was Hoshiguma, she thought nothing of it and simply sat up and held her head, hissing with pain. After that she looked around, and she rapidly began remembering her night as well, no doubt. Her face flushed like a tomato and she stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Hoshiguma and Swire shared a stare before the oni shrugged at her and sat up as well, opening the door to follow her friend. With nothing else to do, she followed Hoshiguma and walked outside to see Ch'en holding her head at the bottom of the stairs and she was reminded of her own thumping and throbbing.

"I'll make you both some coffee," Hoshiguma said before leading Ch'en to the sofa. With no other alternative, Swire opted to join Ch'en on the sofa and they both held their heads as the only one capable of doing anything made them some hangover remedies.

Once coffee was made and the hungover ones got their second or third cup, all three sat around the coffee table of Swire's apartment to discuss something of great import.

"So…what are you two doing on your day off today?" Beatrice asked, eyes firmly planted mostly on Hoshiguma in the lone chair. Instead, the oni grinned and set her attention to Ch'en.

"Yeah, Ch'en, what will we do today?"

"Why are you asking me? I just want to go home."

"And do what?" Swire spat. This earned her a rather dangerous glare from her superior. "I'm serious, when I don't see you at work you're usually holed up in your own apartment for the whole day doing who knows what."

"What I do in my home is none of your business!"

"Hoshi," Swire called, switching her attention to the oni. "What does our superintendent do all day on her days off?"

"Hmmm,: Hoshiguma hummed while tapping her chin, debating whether or not she should tell the little missy what her closest friend does on her days off. The curiosity in Swire's eyes won her over Ch'en harsh gaze and she spilled the info for the tiger. "Mostly she watches news, catches up on sleep, or she's actually working from home."

"You can't be serious...working, on a day off?"

"It's none of your business," Ch'en complained, crossing her arms and pouting for once.

"The hell it's not! Alright, that's it, we're spending today together like it or not."

Ch'en looked over to Hoshiguma with pleading eyes only to be met with one of the happiest smiles she had ever seen on her subordinate.

Next thing she knew, they were in lieutenant Swire's car, driving to their first destination. The grumpy dragoness just opted to watch the concrete jungle she called home move by with her her elbow leaned on the windowsill while she used a fist to prop her head up so she could lazily watch the scenery while her captors spoke excitedly about what they were going to do.

"Oh, after lunch we should totally go shopping, get Ch'en some holiday clothes," Swire suggested.

This earned the superintendent's interest. Not because she was interested. No, quite the opposite. The idea of being their dress up doll sent a chill down her spine and through her tail, and somehow she knew that was what was going to happen. At the very least, she wasn't going to be alone in her suffering.

As she slowly drifted into consciousness, she felt compelled to go back to drift back into the realm of dreams almost immediately, consumed by a feeling of warmth and good smells. She gripped the source of the pleasant stimuli more and took a great big whiff.

"Aaah…so good~" Closure mumbled to herself as she grabbed the unknown source harder, squeezing it.

Suddenly, it shifted in response and she was fully awake now. Closure's first sight was a collection of brown hair combined with the nape of whoever she was in bed with. She let go and rapidly slipped off and scooted herself to the wall. She thumped against it and her bedside partner lazily turned to look sideways at her.

"Oh, good morning…" Evan yawned before sitting up in bed, still dressed in his mildly formal attire from last night's meeting, well as formal as standard Rhodes Island clothes could get. Her lips quivered as she tried to hold herself together, but it was clearly no use as her mind started swimming with possibilities as her memory came up blank.

"No way, no way, no way, no way!" she screamed in her head over and over as she stared at Evan, sitting in her bed, in the morning no less.

"D-D-D-Did w-w-w-we…" Closure struggled to formulate a single sentence as she tried to make sense of the situation, her mind going further and further to the gutter with each passing second. She felt heat flush through her neck to the top of her head like a thermometer.

"Hm…oh, oh! Closure, I'm sorry, you see-"

"No! I don't want to hear it, get out!"

"No, it's not-"

"I said out! Get out, now!"

The vampire grabbed a pillow and proceeded to chuck it at Evan with a surprising amount of force. While he managed to somehow catch it, it wasn't the only thing being grabbed. He began backpedaling to the door and rapidly fondled around for the door button, holding his pillow up as a shield. It clicked and the door opened, with him stumbling back out of it. He thumped back into the wall and he saw his boss march up to the control panel and shut the door, a locking sound was heard soon after. Right before she did close it, she gave him an evil eye with her face so flushed that even the tips of her ears were a bright red.

Evan sighed and slinked down the wall. When he decided to get up off his butt and go to his own room, he turned around to see the three stooges of the LGD and Ace with varying degrees of looks.

Swire's mouth was agape as she stuttered so hard that nothing came out of her mouth while pointing to Evan, Ch'en had her arms crossed and eyes narrowed to the point he couldn't think of a sterner expression, Hoshiguma just held a blank look on her face while her hand outstretched a wad of LMD to an Ace with a very pleased grin showing on his rough face.

"D-Do I get the chance to explain myself here?"

"One," Ch'en nearly breathed out with signs of venom seeping from her voice.

"Ok, I did not sleep, with Closure, in that sense of the word. I was just leading her to bed when she shoved me down and held me down. If anything, I'm the assault victim here."

Ch'en's eyebrow raised, but her stern expression stayed in place. Swire finally found some semblance of composure and let out a relieved breath for some reason and put her hand on her head as though it hurt.

It was then that the door opened and Closure stomped out. A glimpse into her room would show it was basically turned inside out with a trash bin spilled over and all her sheets and covers splayed out on the floor. She marched right on over to Evan and pointed her finger between his eyes.

"Alright mister, you're going to answer this: Did we use prote-"

"For god's sake we didn't do it!" he shouted to her, grabbing her wrist and holding it above her head, his own inching just a little bit closer so she could hear him loud and clear. Her eyes widened greatly at his actions and words. "Yeah, let me say that again, you and I, we did not do any illicit activities. You blacked out before you could go through with giving me a hickey. You held me down and nearly took a good fangy bite into my neck."

He pointed to his jugular specifically where she nearly took a bite with her fangs to emphasize his point. He could remember the cool scrapes of her tongue and the pointing of her fangs right before she blacked out, and it made him blush in turn a little.

"Ah…" Closure replied, turning her gaze and head slightly away, from even the four witnessing the whole scene ironically. "Did I do that?" A nervous laugh followed as she scratched her cheek. "Sorry…"

"Yeah, oh, and welcome to the 'I slept with Evan' rumor club," he said while tilting his head over to the four watching them. The two guilty offenders both looked very nervous. Ch'en was keeping her pose while trying to look anywhere but ahead with a tint of pink on her cheeks. Swire just turned her head to cough into her hand while closing her eyes then attempted to whistle away while her head was firmly turned away. Closure's response was to rub the back of her head while giving an uneasy laugh.

"W-What do you mean?"

After that, Evan began detailing how he walked her to her room and helped her in when she asked to be helped to bed, at which point, she started holding her face in her hands to hide her expression. He then added the fact that they had been seen together.

"Oooh, how embarrassing…" Closure moaned into her hands before sliding down the wall and pulling her knees closer. "Why do you have to have such good smelling blood…"

He didn't really have a comment for that. Instead, he looked towards the observers of this embarrassing morning and asked, "So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

"Well, since you're still here, I thought the three of us would give you a tour around Lungmen."

"Let me get a shower and some fresh clothes first."

"Ooh~?" Beatrice teased with a hand over her mouth and a smug smile peeking out from either side of the hand. His response was to just roll his eyes and walk into his room.

Roughly ten minutes later he was back out, and they bid goodbye to Closure and Ace. Swire had insisted he sit up front as she drove. This allowed her to yammer on about the history of Lungmen, especially the neighborhoods and districts they drove through. What was most interesting about the whole explanation was the fact these nomadic cities weren't one continuous machine. Turns out, one thing of common knowledge he hadn't heard until this moment in time was the concept of nomadic city plates. Though, at this point it made some sense. If one wanted to expand a city's territory and keep it mobile, then the concept of city plates made too much sense.

Their first destination, to his mild surprise, was a shopping mall. It was interesting, to him at least, to see the vast flow of people going through the entrance. It was a far cry from the malls he regularly visited in his old world, given the fact online shopping was lowering the vast majority of them into the ground. It was odd, he was old enough to remember when malls dotted the landscape and made for great shopping, so it was strange to his adult mind that he was seeing an active and flourishing one right in front of him.

"Hello…" Swire waved her hand in front of him, breaking him out of the trance he was in. "Geez, do they not have malls where you're from or something?"

"Oh they do, just that they're dying these days."

"Really? Malls are dying in your world?" Swire asked, followed by an immediate slap on the head from behind. "Ow, what'd you do that for?"

"Watch what you talk about in the open," Ch'en hissed to her lieutenant who proceeded to stick her tongue out at her like a child, making a vein threaten to pop on her head. She would have started laying into her if Hoshiguma hadn't gripped her shoulder and gave her a stare that said a thousand words. Ch'en sighed and listened to Evan and Swire talk about how his world had a worldwide net, which seemed absurd at first until she remembered this was the man who could make energy from sunlight. Swire even inquired about it, and the answer, like most things with this strange case, was shocking.

"Oh, we actually have a massive network of cables running along the ocean floor between continents."

"Whoa, whoa, hold up. You're serious?! How?! How does it not get destroyed?!"

"I mean, there are videos of sharks trying to bite it," he responded with a laugh. "But I guess permanent non-nomadic infrastructure is a luxury on Terra."

He certainly could say that again, Ch'en could count with her two hands, maybe even one, the amount of places she knew had permanent infrastructure slated into the earth without the capability of migrating. The only way cities could communicate across their borders was by messenger, provided they were outside of radio range. Granted, there was also something in Kazimierz where several cities joined together briefly for their world famous Kazimierz Major, but then the lines between cities blurred to practically nothing.

Ch'en had to admit, she was becoming engrossed in his talk about how different his world was, how something that seemed common to him was so alien and foreign to them it almost made her head spin. She didn't even notice or care that they had already passed an escalator or entered their first store. At least, that wasn't until Hoshiguma and Swire handed Ch'en a collection of clothes with varying levels of grins.

One more stop, one more stop he told himself as he watched the burning daylight tint the city of Lungmen in an orange color. He had to admit though, these kinds of days were few and far between in his old life. He took a good long look as they passed through the various blocks of the expansive city, and holy hell it was huge.

Currently, Hoshiguma was driving them to their final destination of the day. While Swire had opted to take them shopping, which turned into an embarrassing game of dressup for the dragoness with him being pushed and prodded to give compliments and comments to a blushing dragon lady he was sure could erase his existence in seconds as she gave him a look he couldn't tell was a warning, anxiety, longing, or some weird mixture of the three. More than one Lungmen profanity was uttered for sure. Especially when Hoshiguma opened the door while Ch'en was struggling to accept the fact she was wearing something frilly and girly, which he had to admit made her look cute combined with the blush and tsundere behavior.

Ch'en opted to take them to a park built in the central city. He could see something in her eyes as they walked through one of the few nature reserves of the concrete jungle that was Lungmen. He knew it very well. As they walked through the park, her eyes settled on various parts as though she was looking far, far away into her past, reliving days that he could tell she cherished very much. He had seen the same look in his mother's eyes when they visited the neighborhood she grew up in.

The last place was in some random part of the city where alleyways were a mess. Everything from rotting food to needles was splayed out in the alleyways if one looked hard enough, and occasionally he could see residents chatting or lying in the gaps between buildings, some occasionally sparing a nasty look when they caught his eye.

"Are you sure we should…um…be here?" he asked uneasily before prying his eyes away.

"Missy wanted to give you a tour of Lungmen, well consider this a part of the tour. Besides, there's someone I want to check up on, maybe we'll get an early dinner out of it."

A parking garage later, and they were on foot walking through the outer slums. He could feel eyes on them as they walked through the bad neighborhood, with some civilians in rough clothing giving them an uneasy eye or downright glares of some people in classical gangster gettups. Yeah, he wasn't enjoying the feeling of unease screaming all the way to his spine as he walked. Sure, these three guiding him were some of the top LGD officers in the city, but something in him was panicking. Actually, Swire and Ch'en seemed uneasy as well, with hands never far from their weapons as they met some of the glares with daring stares. The only one who didn't seem out of her element was Hoshiguma.

Hell, the six foot plus oni lady even happily waved to some of the residents who waved back or simply nodded. Some of them mumbled a greeting while actively trying to avoid the suspicious eyes the other two officers gave them.

Eventually, they came to a stand where the sound of chopping was heard before Evan got a look in to see a white haired man in street clothes hacking away at a piece of fish in an open aired kitchen. Hoshiguma gave a knock on a pole and the man turned around from his work and pulled his mask down. Dead fish eyes met their gazes and upon seeing Hoshiguma he let out a sound of surprise.

"Ah, Madame Oni," his monotone voice rang with a pleasant tinge to it.

"Hey, Jaye," she replied. "How's business?"

"Eh, same as usual. I don't know why Uncle Tung bothers making me run stands, but I'm not complaining. So, want some finballs?"

"Yeah, but get some fresh ones going. Gotta make a good first impression," she said while giving a little glance in Evan's direction. Jaye tracked her eyesight and he stared a little before giving an understanding 'oh' and going back to his workstation. Whatever he was thinking of, he didn't say anything. Jaye just casually went to work, going back to the fish meat he was working on earlier. Methodically, he sliced up the fish until it was a mince and then began pounding it into a paste.

The paste was then seasoned and the collection of smells sent the observers' saliva glands into overdrive, imagining how marinating the fish paste with those flavors would stimulate their taste buds. Jaye then poured oil onto his skillet and began the process of making pan-fried finballs. Meanwhile, he listened to the conversation behind him.

"So how do you know this place?" Evan casually asked Hoshiguma. Jaye simply looked over his head at that, curious to see their reaction, especially the reaction of 'Madame Oni' as he had called her.

"Well, that's quite a tale. We'd be here all night if I had to explain my connection to Lungmen in detail."

"Can I ask for the short version?"

"Sure, the quick and dirty answer is, I was a gangster."

He nearly did a double take and looked her up and down all over. When Evan first met her, Hoshiguma was the calm and collected Chief Inspector of the LGD, so when she casually admitted to being a gangster, in front of the Senior Lieutenant and Superintendent of the LGD, he was rather shocked. Hoshiguma clearly found his reaction very entertaining as she let out a great big, hearty laugh before continuing.

"Yup, led my own gang for…gosh, years. One night we were celebrating a holiday, um…what was it again?"

"It was on new year's," Ch'en commented casually.

"Ah yeah, New Years, we were all out drinking in the park, celebrating the new year when Ch'en Sir waltzes over and challenges me to a drinking contest."

"That is not what happened and you know it," Ch'en refuted flatly with her eyes narrowing. "I was going to offer you a deal in exchange for overlooking your reckless activities. Then you said you would agree if I beat you in a drinking contest."

"Ha! Yeah, but you accepted," Hoshiguma retorted, which made Ch'en cross her arms and pout a little while looking to the ground. "Anyways, I don't know how she did it, but I passed out and couldn't remember anything besides her declaration. The deal was to co-operate in dealing with The Nian, and that's how my gang and I ended up working for the LGD and Chief Wei."

"The Nian?"

"Some say it was a hundred kilometer long originium slug, others say it was a beast of legend, and some think it's a myth. Kind of a New Year's urban legend if you will. To the gang, it was a fun excuse to go out and cause trouble on New Years."

"Except it's not a legend," Ch'en stated. "The graves stand a testament to that, even if it never got anywhere far through Greater Lungmen's outskirts. Some of our artillery and city defenses still have marks to this day."

"So...the LGD hired a bunch of gangsters to deal with a threat that people still don't know exists?"

"Well, it's more complicated than that, but I can't say anymore. Information on The Nian is highly classified data, and that data is controlled by an entire branch of Yan's bureaucratic courts. Stating any more than this could be considered treason."

That was scary, and thankfully divine intervention came at an appropriate time and way for once as their freshly ordered pan-fried finballs were finally ready. Evan noticed that the sky was now a nice shade of purple and the street lights were turning on. They found shelter inside one of the lamps next to the shop and sat on the streets with their finballs, which were quite good for something so cheap. He had to admit, street food was mostly a hit or miss for him, but it seemed Hoshiguma knew what was a good hit.

The four of them ate in peace with Swire making a lot of noise as she ravenously devoured the finballs while the other two made a point to savor them. He himself was more with Swire, devouring the balls until nothing was left and he looked to the street.

For the outer slums, it was really quite peaceful somehow. The view wasn't anything grand, but there was something oddly fulfilled about it. As though despite the clear lack of opportunity, some unseen force was keeping order among it all.

They didn't do much talking, but that was fine. Slowly, the darkness grew around the environment until it was as though they were in their own little world, protected by the streetlight they were under. He decided to check the time and pocketed his phone before looking at the trio who had shown him around Lungmen.

For a moment, he could see why Hoshiguma showed him this part of the city. It wasn't glamorous or the most well off, but it was still a part of Lungmen. Sure, this wasn't a desirable part of it, but it was still a piece of a whole. Each trip, he could see each of their eyes glitter with a love for this city, and now he was finally understanding it.

But still, all good things had to come to an end at some point.

"I'm ready to be done, I still have to get back to Rhodes and get working on the next project."

They all agreed and worked to properly dispose of their trash before walking back towards the parking garage. During the walk, he got a text from Ace, asking if he was safe. He responded with an affirmative before he pocketed his phone.

Suddenly, he was pulled backwards and a brief pain in his head was the last thing he registered. Thankfully, Swire noticed his sudden absence and the sound of his head being struck and immediately turned around.

"Hey! Get back here!" she shouted before taking off. Ch'en and Hoshiguma saw the resulting kidnapping attempt and followed after. Almost immediately, the kidnappers turned a corner and went into a building. Swire tried moving the knob only for it to be locked. She gave a few kicks and found something was blocking the door. "Hoshi, door!"

The oni woman shoulder checked the door and whatever was behind it into the wall behind the doorway. Immediately they charged through and saw a stairway with rapidly sounding footsteps coming from below. They practically jumped down each flight before sprinting and jumping down the next as they were brought to the basement level. That's where they saw the goons disappear behind another door, not bothering to close this one.

"LGD, stop!" Swire commanded before running after them with Ch'en and Hoshiguma hot on her heels. They barged through the door and into one of Lungmen's many lower levels of tunnel networks, with a van starting up in the underground area before skidding off with its doors still open, only to be closed by one of the mafioso moments later. "Stop! I command you to-"

Realizing her orders to cease were pointless, Swire proceeded to swear the worst of the Lungmen profanities she could think of and took her frustration out by kicking some random bottle into the wall on the other side with enough force to shatter all of it into small shards.

Author's Note

Aight, so Mostima gets shelved for another chapter. I keep thinking I have her in my sights and then she vanishes, it's the strangest thing. Anyways, Evan gets his first taste of action, but he's kind of on his own to deal with shit. I should have the next chapter out before the month is out, but I could eat those words too.

To respond to some comments:

No, Evan cannot and will not transform into a vampire. Vampires don't work that way on Terra as they are a sub-set of the Sarkaz race. Closure cannot give vampirism, and she didn't even bite him, she blacked out before she could.

I know video games exist on Terra, buuut, this may have been written like right before Kirara was added as an op, so I'm making video games a mostly Higashi specialty, and files state not much is known about Higashi and the far east. So I have something to fill that plothole with.

Also thanks for the support and suggestions, I love that people want to see this series continue and grow. I honestly never thought this spur of the decision story would end up competing against RI Psychologist on this site, basically 100 favorites away and basically be 2 follows away from beating it. Never did I think I as an author would even get the chance to be #1 in a category in anything. Thank all of you who read, support, and enjoy my content.