Isn't it fun, doing this while trying to keep up with school?

Mal and Jay belong to Disney Channel, Ash belongs to Renaissance Pictures, and Tails belongs to Sega Corporation. Did I miss any?

Getting a ride back to the Hangar was easier than I would have thought.

Of course, the fact that we knew the avatars had something to do with that. Mal Damon, Jay's fellow Descendants avatar, was in the area, and when we went up and explained the situation, she didn't ask questions. She just turned into a dragon and flew us up to the Hangar.

Pretty cool, right? And really, it was one of the perks of being a VLADJI. A lot of people would kill to ride a dragon through Philly, but we got the privilege courtesy of Mal, who had the gift for transforming into them, and Kori, who could either turn into one or summon one or two. But, as I've said before, these perks come at a price – being marked as a target for monsters and other baddies.

I cradled the censer against my stomach the whole time. I'd found a plastic bag for it – they were practically floating around the place (had anyone in the old city ever heard about littering? Not that I was ungrateful, or else I wouldn't have any quick storage options) – and stuffed it in there. Not a great place to stow a relic, I know, but after going to so much trouble to get this relic, I was not keen on losing it. And I did not want to stuff it in my shirt any longer than I had to.

Of course, Mal did have some opinions on our little errand.

"Typical of Jay," she mumbled as she flew us back to the Hangar. (She never lost the power of speech when she transformed, unlike with her movie counterpart.) "Assign VLADJI to a quest that could be handled by an avatar – even a high-grade one."

"So Ash was assigned to it?" I asked her. At least, that's what she was implying. What Jay had said.

"Yes. And it wasn't Jay's place to put him there, either. Ash wasn't his responsibility, not at first. He was Sophie's."

DJ frowned like she might have misheard Mal's comment. "Sophie Lung?"

That gave me pause. No wonder Jay had reassigned Ash from the mission. Sophie – Jay's long-standing girlfriend – was nice enough, a high-grade with the power to alter the outside temperature. The problem was, she was a little… unstable. We suspected she was bipolar, but we had never been able to confirm that. I wasn't sure who put her over Ash. Who in their right mind would?

And what did Mal mean, it wasn't Jay's responsibility at first?

"So, Jay's co-mentoring Ash with her?" I asked. It would not have surprised me. Jay would have known about Sophie's mental state.

"Yep. Takes the lead when she's manic. She doesn't always have the best judgment in those circumstances, really."

I had no trouble imagining that.

I quickly spotted the Hangar – the old school building we'd chosen as our headquarters. We'd called it that on account of the parking lot (which was expansive enough to hold an airplane). We'd done some revamping to it over time, and it was really starting to feel like the sort of place we'd meet up in.

"Down there," DJ said, pointing to the parking lot.

Mal flew us down, and once we dismounted, resumed human form. "Well, explain it to Jay, if you're going to," she said before parting.

We headed to the front entrance, airlocked with a changing passcode. DJ tapped the touchscreen next to it.

"Password?" came the computer's voice, which sounded like J. Jonah Jameson. I'd made enough jokes to call it an… interesting welcome.

"Aiding destruction makes you a traitor, no matter who destroys," DJ said into the speaker. I was starting to wonder if Tails chose those passcodes arbitrarily or if he knew when to use them, because those verbal passcodes often lined up with what we were facing at the moment. Or perhaps I was reading too much into the password choices. I do that sometimes.

"That's correct," came the response as the door opened.

We walked in to meet our latest sight as of the school year – the artwork in the opening hallway. Vinny Lee had put up colored tissue paper to mimic stained glass on the glass roof. The paper resolved itself into scenes of our adventures – except for two pictures at the east end of the hall. Those were pictures our avatars had commissioned – the pictures of their two former masters, Melanie Stangeley and Alex Coleman, also known collectively as the Rainbow. I wondered if the senior avatars got homesick looking at their pictures.

We headed into the Fam Zone. This used to be the school cafeteria until we managed to convert the space into a sweet three-rooms-in-one deal. The section of the room nearest the windows featured a flat-screen TV with all the entertainment options you could ask for, along with some recliners around it. There were also some bean bag chairs around a coffee table in another part. And the part closest to the kitchen was our dining space.

I'd played around with several names – including Chill Palace – for the collective space, finally settling on Fam Zone because it looked like the sort of place the family might hang out. There didn't seem to be much of a family atmosphere in here at the moment, though.

I caught Jay there, sitting on the arm of one of the armchairs. He looked to be having a serious discussion with Ash, who looked ready to trade his fake hand for the chainsaw at any moment – in other words, very tense. Jay, in his turn, shot worried glances in my direction. I betted forty bucks and Starr's coffee table of playing cards that it was over the missile exchange. Sophie was also there, her navy-blue and green kimono fluttering as she tried to get into the exchange. Good luck with that, I thought, knowing how often Jay questioned her sanity.

Vinny Lee and Imira were present, Imira talking with Vinny Lee in a low voice. I didn't like the way they were whispering. I seriously hoped they'd just come out and talk to me. This whole tension over a stupid strike thousands of miles away… I really did not like it.

It all ended when DJ whistled. Prrr-eeet!

I swear, her whistle always gets us going, even when an apocalypse happens right outside our door.

"So," Jay said wryly. "You survived."

I grabbed the censer out of the plastic bag and handed it over.

Jay eagerly grabbed it and his Morphis went into overdrive, causing him to glow and smell of incense – both of which dissipated once he released it and returned it to us. "Good," he said. "You found it."

I gave him my strongest displeased scowl. "We almost died trying to get that. You could have told us Starr was home. Or that he had a–"

"Hey, don't yap at me for stuff I didn't know," Jay retorted.

"Whoa, what was the situation?" Ash asked, breaking away. "What did Jay have you do?"

I explained about my mission – starting with Jay telling us about Starr–

"Patrick Starr?" Ash smirked. "I'm pretty sure I might take an r out of the last name."

"Not gonna stop you," I replied. Then I went on to describe our chase in the building–

"'Baby Got Back' and AC/DC along with it? What was the song – Actually, never mind. I don't want to know." Imira scowled, her lip curling like she'd smelled something rotten. "Does this guy have no taste?"

I then continued to how I'd found the censer, leaving out the way Horzvedt had covered for me – and no, I still didn't understand why he did it. I did, however, mention that he'd dropped by the hotel room.

"So Happy Face Horzvedt's here in town?" Jay asked, his tone carefully neutral. "Didn't think he had a fancy for the gritty East Coast."

"What do we know about him?" I asked.

"He's a shifty fellow. When he smiles at you, watch your wallet. That's when he's about to scam you. Not much about his background. Rumor was he was involved in a San Francisco fire, as was Starr. The fire killed a boy."

Great. I was liking this less and less. Of course, that didn't mean he actually wanted the boy dead. "When was that fire?"

"Good thirty years ago. I researched that for fun. There was some sort of artifact lost in it, too." He shuddered with distaste. I guessed artifacts getting lost in natural disasters was a sore point for him. "Horzvedt would've been in his teens. He might've started it, but I wouldn't put it past Starr. I certainly don't know whether either of them started it, or whether it was just an accident."

"California's certainly got enough of its own wildfires," DJ replied. "I wouldn't know if it was arson."

Nice. So we were dealing with a guy with a history. I didn't know which prospect I liked less – dealing with a guy who blared out AC/DC with no regard to who was listening, or a guy who had lost a boy in a fire – which he may or may not have started. Gee, we really don't know.

So I did what I do best with that problem. I changed the subject.

"Also, Tails' habituation day present? Those were comm devices," I began, pointing at my Comclip.

That sent a ripple of excitement through the two other VLADJIs.

"Comm devices?" Vinny Lee spun on his heel. No, her heel. She'd switched back to female while I was gone, I'd realized.

"Tails wouldn't hold out on us, would he?" Imira demanded, glancing at her Comclip.

"Probably didn't want to ruin your surprise," Ash muttered.

At first, I didn't know why the other two weren't reacting to Ash's presence. Then I remembered, oh, wait. He was at the Hangar with them when we showed up. Perhaps they'd already gotten acquainted with him. I found that disturbing.

"We tested them out on the mission. They work," DJ said.

"Good," Tails said, materializing out of the other armchair.

I sighed. "I hate it when he does that."

Along with multiple other cool powers, such as his shapeshifting and conjuring abilities (and his telepathy), he could turn invisible. As if he didn't have enough ways to hide. He could be even sneakier than I was when he wanted to be, and that is really saying something.

"Glad to know they worked," Tails said. "And yes, I heard the entire conversation. I suspect Starr might be the target to go after."

"Why?" I asked. "And what about the Comclips? What did you make them for?"

Tails frowned. "Really not anxious to stay on the subject, are we?"

"Can you blame me?"

He sighed. "Well, I've been working on them for longer than that," he began. "I intended them for me and my friends, but I never got to finish them before…" His voice trailed off, before meaning before the Rainbow left us and sent us away. I didn't think the avatars resented that, but I guessed he was more bothered by being interrupted in the middle of a project than the Rainbow backing out on him. "Anyway, I got the idea from an agency's four-way walkie-talkies. They're color-coded to represent the different channels."

"Nice," Imira observed. "And I hope you two found some sort of communications lingo to work on the Comclips?"

"Already got some codenames," DJ said. "Mine's Royal. Amos's is Rose."

Imira frowned, apparently weighing that in her mind. "Sounds appropriate. Like colors?"

"Feel free to choose codenames in the same theme," Tails said dryly. "But it sounds like we might want to look into this."

"This being what?" I asked. "The Horzvedt-Starr drama? No thanks."

"I wasn't asking for your opinion." The fox's twin tails wound around each other. "Horzvedt is serious trouble, and Starr might be even more so. If that forger stole a censer to duplicate, we need to figure out what he's doing up here in Philly – before someone gets hurt."

Now how do they plan on doing that?

Verse for the update: Leviticus 12:8. Stay tuned!