Only to late did Aral notice his mistake. he had come into the game without noting all the payers and so hadn't prepared for every contingency. Letting his head rotate so that he saw the boy out of his peripheral vision he flipped the switch yet again and let the boy become an outline of emotional energy. Filled with bad habits and filled with doubt and insecurity. It was almost to sweet to resist but resist he did and he showed no signs of his want to play with the boy's inner turmoil. A time would come for that but now he had other things to do.

Who am I? A question he didn't even fully know the answer to. Some would call him old even ancient and yet still he felt the child. His powers had yet to mature and almost every day he was finding a new use for something and a new way of going about things. Aral might have lived longer than he felt but if age was only how you felt and that didn't inspire assurance. And age wasn't his only problem, he was human and he wasn't. Sometimes he was a thing; a shadow, and others he was tried down the the name he had when he was a mortal being. Not a question with a right answer. Or if it has one I have yet to figure it out.

"Aral. A traveler and hopefully a friend." The girl had seemed to want that from the human boy and he hoped her need for such a thing would extend over to his invitation and so establish a greater hold on not only her but everyone else. " That would be nice wouldn't it," Aral took of his fedora and played with it between fingers before flipping it back on to his head," if we were all friends." No question more of a suggestion as if he was thinking for her.

Only for a moment did his eyes leave Kiki's form and that was to look at the boy, not the creature of yes and no. The creature could be left alone for now as it wouldn't help in his current situation. All of us such wonderful friends. He couldn't slip into her mind her not being a mortal creature and on top of that awake but he hoped he still had some control on suggestion.

Two friends at once, that was something she had never tired. It was easy to find friends, but they never lasted too long and she had never had more than one at a time. What would she do with two friends? Which one would she follow? Which one would she talk to? Which one would she play with?

She hardly knew what to do. Her new friend looked oddly confused as to what was going on with his bulging eyes and gaping mouth; he backed up away from the wall, bumping into some of the sleeping people in the street, and continued to lengthen the distance between Kiki and him. Some of the drowsy ravers moaned and cursed at the boy for having disturbed them, but he was quickly forgotten or forgiven. Such was the life of the psychoravers.

While the boy questioned his possible hallucination brought on by whatever it was the group have scavenged from those more doped up them them in this hellhole of a city, Kiki tried to make friends with this nice man in dark hat and matching suit.

"I like fiends." She smiled and hugged her stuffed animal friend to her chest. If it were not for the fact that Kiki could not bee seen by those that were not friends, the happy little girl would look vastly out of place with her frilly pink dress in the sewage covered backstreets of Sanguian.

Therion did not move. He did not think. He simply, simply observed. The ego he had developed over eons was not called upon, nor was the snide pride he'd cultivated through the budding, collapsing human cultures he'd courted again and again. He waited, instead, watching this new stranger with an emptiness that bespoke an alien mind, so unfamiliar to the human counterparts who could not fathom the inner workings of something spawned from the taint.

So long as this new stranger did not try to steal Kiki, or use her for his own ends, the monster could not care less whether or not the stranger tagged along. It didn't matter if there were merely two, or two hundred of them when they challenged the mouse and the owner of the matron's house, and the very abyss itself if it came down to it. Therion was playing his own games.

"Yes, a friend." He said, not overeager to remain where they were. "You can be a friend so long as you do not hurt the girl."

There wasn't much expression to him, the features of his chosen mask of flesh slack and dull. He turned as if to leave. "Come, Kiki. We must go."

A gentle smile caressed Aral's face pearly teeth peeking out at the edges. The expression was over quickly though replaced with a slightly comical grin splayed wide and a little lopsided. " Good to hear, because I like friends too." One of Aral's small hands hesitantly made its way up in the air and started after Kiki when he heard the weird thing speak. Aral looked up still seeing thoughts and emotions to few a blank surface where had once been a strong outline of right and wrong.

Aral allowed himself a true pause, this time it was no game. Within those few heartbeats he noticed the mortal had left probably due to his sudden and unusual appearance, or because of the smell of the place. Aral knew why he would have ran. " No worries, no worries at all. I would not lay an angry hand on this girl." Letting himself see again as everyone else did he nodded politely to whoever the thing was and then let his lazing hand to fall on Kiki's head and gently ruffle her hair. A completely normal act and yet Aral couldn't get his hand off her fast enough. " Kiki and Aral. I'm coming too. You guys seem like such fun."

Mr. Dolly was there but he looked different again. This time he didn't look like a doll and didn't have wings, he looked more like a real person but still somewhat like himself. And he called to her. Kiki smiled again knowing that her dolly friend had not left her when she had been ripped from the abyss.

Then the man in black touched her cheek. He actually touched her. His hand didn't go through her, it didn't flicker or fade in color. He touched her cheek and pulled his hand back. Like a real kid. Kiki nearly peed herself in excitement, she let loose a high-pitched squeal of delight and bounced up and down in place.

"I want new fiend to come too." Then she remembered the boy that she had bonded with. He looked scared and confused, sitting against a wall opposite the others. He rubbed his eyes and his eyelashes blinked repeatedly. "He comes too," Kiki pointed at the boy. She couldn't go anywhere without her host-friend and he couldn't go anywhere without her.

"Come, then." Therion said, not bothering to specify to whom he spoke. The artifact of the Taint. It was not something to be taken lightly, or to underestimate the parts others might play in the unfolding quest. A quest, like something one of the humans might undertake. Amusement like satisfaction briefly touched him, and then it was gone. Time to move. The monster did not truly know where to go, what to do, but he knew enough to test his other senses and see where he was lead.

He started to walk away from the others, striking out in a random direction that had nothing to do with anything but to get moving, to feel the territory under his feet; to feel for Taint. He closed his eyes, spread his fingers, and his lips tugged downward in a pantomime of concentration though the effort he expended was not so great as to cost him anything just yet. Unfelt and unseen sensations danced through his being like the faintest brush of a cobweb, and he sought after them with greatest diligence, taking exactly as much time was needed to determine their source.

At last, a string unwound inside of him, tugging gently at his attention until he could follow it out over the ground and through the air, until it reached water. . .

"The bands." He said softly, stopping still in his tracks as he came back to his physical form. While he'd been walking he'd trailed a drunken path through the everpresent rubble, and he twisted now to look behind and around, to see where his small party had gotten to. "We go to the bands. Come. Perhaps we shall have to acquire a ride-motor."

Aral saw(heard) her happiness without the help of his abilities and a faint smile ghosted his eyes the light glimmering in his green pupils. His lips though smirked lazily as he pulled his hand away from her and fiddled with the brim of his fedora. It couldn't really move unless he wanted to but when he graced the world of mortals he normally let go of his control on his clothes. Whatever he needed to appear normal. He needed as much normality was possible.

"Come boy you heard her." With his smirk still on his face he motioned the boy to come over with the rest of him. He didn't really understand the reason why the boy must come but to each his, or her, own. He had to be inside the mind's of people she had to have this boy. Strange but not exactly stranger. Rolling with the punches.

Not really waiting the other group member started off look utterly confident in his choice and Aral started after him as he made sure the others came with him. He thought over if he should hold Kiki's hand and walk alongside her but he quickly pushed it away. That would be moving to fast to quickly. he would let the mortal work on her for now. They only stopped when the other did and started to concentrate, or at least he appeared to.

" You know I always thought ride motor was a weird name. I tried to get the name car started but no one seemed to like it." Aral looked behind him and smiled at both the boy and Kiki. " Do you guys have any names that sound better?"

Kiki thought it seemed rather silly that her new friend was acting so scared. He was a big boy compared to those she usually picked as friends, so she couldn't understand why he was acting like such a scarredy cat.

She shifted her stuffed panda from one hand to the other and offered a hand to her friend to help him up, off the ground. "Don't be afraid, we are fiends now." She had a big smile on her face and looked very much the part of an innocent young child.

Aphid on the other hand just sat there and stared at her, he knew he had to be way too far gone to be seeing what he was seeing. He had to be hallucinating right? This couldn't be real. Or maybe he was so far gone that he had actually fallen asleep and this was some sort of drug-induced dream. That sounded reasonable, right?

Why else would there be this young girl in a fancy little dress, a dark shadowy figure in a nice suit and this other guy who appeared to be normal but at the same time not fully so? These people contrasted with their surroundings in such an extreme way that it just didn't make any sense. Why had they come from or how did they get here without being marred by the grime that covered these streets? How were they not covered in sweat, sand and dirt like everyone else?

But, if he was truly hallucinating or dreaming, why would they need to be? If they weren't real, they could be whatever they wanted to be. With that same train of thought, Aphid decided that he might as well humor the figments of his hallucination and do as they ask of him. What would be the fun in ignoring the drug-induced visions and just continue to stare at a wall?

So Aphid pushed himself off the wall, and tried to use Kiki's hand as leverage to get up, but that didn't go so well for him. When his hand should have connected with her tiny little fingers, they faded faded into nothingness, flickered in and out of existence and gave off a pale glowing light of their own were his hand should be touching hers. Then there was the cold, tingling feeling; it was like sticking his hand a frozen bucket of melting ice but at the same time zapping the tips of his fingers with a low voltage of electricity. His fingertips felt strangely numb when he tried to touch her, then when he pulled his hand back and she became a solid-looking being again, his fingers regained warmth and the numbness vanished.

"What are you?" He asked the strange little girl.

"I'm your fiend, silly." Then she turned to skip off towards the others.

Aphid shook his head and got up on his own to join the rest of the group. he didn't know what was to come of him if anything at all. It was quite possible that he was still lying in the pile of bodies that he was climbing over. For a moment he thought to look down to see if he could see his own body among the crowd, but then he remembered something somebody had once told him about seeing yourself in such a state and dying. So he just kept walking.

The man in black was rambling on about something that he only caught the end of and he merely shrugged it off.

The monster assessed his companions each in turn, calculating their estimated usefulness as he walked. Too much unknown to really get a good read on any of them, but he did not need to know fine details just yet. Minor confrontations along the way, he was sure, would allow him a better idea. For the moment, he would watch and wait. He might appear stuffy and grumpy to the others, but what matter was it to him? He was playing bigger games than juggling human games out of boredom, and these were not such as he wished to manipulate just yet. The time would come; he must learn before he make assumptions and turn out a bad hand. Like last time. He winced.

They were lackadaisical, perhaps touched in the head, slow. They were not an ideal troop to marshal against the void, nor were they a band easily directed if a battle were to come to force. Therion was not precisely a fighter, though he had some ability to be dangerous, it was not the sort of thing he actively tried to get involved in. He preferred to direct the warriors, and these. . . well, if there was trouble, perhaps one of them might prove useful in such a situation. If not, he would have to at least protect Kiki. Somehow. He still didn't know what she was, much less the other, though at least one seemed human enough.

His pace was quick and tireless. His face was set in grim lines.

He stopped suddenly, pivoted, stared at Aral with narrowed eyes before sweeping them past Kiki and on to Aphid. "Whatever you wish to call it," this, directed at Aral, "we are too slow. We need a ride-motor. Either of you know where to find one?"

Psychopath, and not one of those humorous ones. Aral's ability to read the emotions of other people extended beyond simply switching his way of viewing things. For those moments when watching things like a normal human was something he wanted he had learned to watch the fidgeting of the fingers, feet, and facial expressions. After years and years of studying he was quite adapt at it. Yet it was no perfect science and his assuptions could be wrong.

This one isn't. Aral knew the movements of anger better than he knew the others because it was such a common and violate emotion. Its little brother, annoyance, was almost as easy to spot. The narrowing of ones eyes was a symptom of both and yet Aral knew he tainted in front of him felt no such emotions. No, he had seen the vibrant strands of righ and wrong. This was more a creature of reason, but a creature that knew how to mimic humans around him.

"The dirty human is from around here. If he just stops acting so weird I think we can get some info from him." No smile was showing as Aral rotated 90 degrees and looked at the human and Kiki. At the last moment he curved his lips upwards to keep up the look of friendliness. " Kiki he is your buddy, why don't you ask him where the nearest ride motor is?"