Iudex followed Cruiser, "The time is about ten to three..." he responded after looking into his tag

The slender cat spotted a sign with a bus on a corner nearby just as a bus pulled up, "Oh my! We
Must hurry!" Iudex sprinted to the bus, wheezing all the way. He waved to Cruiser from the bus as he took another pill to quell his breathing

"Oh, yeah, here." Skya said as she handed her friend the cross. "Sorry I couldn't get it back to you sooner, but, you know, room full of exploding computers and all." She added, laughing a bit.

Selina sighed. "Maybe he chickened out and went down the stairs instead. I guess we should probably go back in and see. though I really don't want to." she said, looking uneasily at the building as she added the last par.

"I wouldn't say that was funny..." Plamen said with a serious tone. "Someone might have got hurt, you know..."

The infinite staircase was back. Matthias dashed forward, down, taking the steps two at a time, but he could still hear something right behind him. It matched his pace, moving silently aside form the scratching of claws on the tiled steps. The dim beam of the flashlight, bouncing wildly in the dark, flickered again. Matthias let out a low whine and gave it a whack. "Come on come on come on ... "

The flashlight's beam brushed over a door, a flight of stair below. Matthias felt his heart soar. Alllmost there. Almost there. He leaped blindly down the last few steps, landing awkwardly in the dark. A sharp pain shot through his ankle and he stumbled forward, landing against the door. He tried to turn the doorknob.

Locked. "Ohhhh no. No no no no." He tried again, before pounding on the door with his free paw. "HEY! Guys! Someone!" Something touched his shoulder. With a choked yelp, the Retriever spun on his heel. The flashlight shone for the briefest instant on a pair of

black eyes

before flickering and dying.

"Woow," Breathed Willow, "They look so... delicious!" He stared at the cakes for a long time. The smell of them was beautiful. Fresh.

Ooc: @constructionboots: I'm sooooo sorry if you were waiting on me!!!!

Selina walked into the building, still a little uneasy about heading back for those stairs. When she got to the door of the stairwell, opened the door. "Are you coming down or what?" she yelled up in hopes that Matt was there.

"Hope so." said Rover as he continued to walk. " Is that it up there?" he asked pointing to a building just ahead.

"Yeah thats the one" Reno chuckled as they entered. He flashed his card to the man at the prize counter, and he gave Rover and Trigger guest cards, which they were to return before they left. "Alright, which ever game you wanna play, just swipe your card and have fun" he smiled and walked up onto the "Dance Dance Revolution" machine "Let me show you how its done" Reno smiled and selected "Dual" mode on "Guru". "Are you ready!?" the machine chimmed "3,2,1, GO!", Reno's feet took off to the song "Dissapearance of Hatsune Miku", hitting almost all of the arrows perfectly

Trigger watched Reno play DDR for a few minutes, impressed. "Fancy footwork." He commented, grinning. He waved to the others before walking off to another part of the arcade. Screens and machines echoed around him as Trigger walked by. Reno was right, this is a pretty huge place. Racing games lined a wall and other games were spread out here and there. He passed by a Mrs. Pacman machine when he spotted what he was looking for. Eagerly, Trigger swiped the card and started the game. "Yay, Time Crisis." He held the plastic gun up to the screen and put his finger on the trigger. "Ready....steady..." He whispered. He closed one eye and started firing, hitting every target on the first level. "Gotcha." He grinned as he continued playing, songs from Def Leppard, blaring out of his headphones.

“Whoa! Wait up!” Cruiser dashed after Iudex, nearly tripping as he ran up to the bus. “Dang, stops are usually on the hour, fashionably late. They’re almost never early!” He said aloud as he caught up with Iudex at the bus and boarded. “Uh…hold on a sec.” Cruiser fumbled a little with getting a dollar out of the clip in his collar for the fare. “Here...” He fed the single bill into the little slot by the driver and went to find a seat.

The bus was almost entirely empty. If it wasn’t for the one person requesting a stop and getting off, the bus would have just breezed by leaving Cruiser and Iudex with an hour’s wait for the next.


--



Zaya was silent as she carefully looked over her small metal trinket. Remembering how shocked she had become upon waking up and realizing it was no longer with her. In detail, the cross had a worn, aged appearance. I looked to be made out of iron which still kept a dull shine, and had small etchings on its arms and interior circle.

Zaya looked back at the empty school behind them, then put that necklace chain on the cross around her neck, placing the cross itself inside her scarf. “C’mon...let’s leave.”

"Good idea!" Skya said, mostly ignoring Plamen's statement about how dangerous the situation was. In reality, she knew exactly how dangerous the situation had been, she was TRAINED to identify threats, and making jokes if everyone was okay after a situation like that is a trick she heard from an experienced guard dog to keep oneself sane. "Can we go somewhere where I can eat, because my stomach is growling about missing breakfast." She said with a nervous giggle.

Iudex also payed the fare and sat next to Cruiser and the bus began to move. "Thank you again for showing me around."

The cat continued to see the strange masked face in every shadow they passed, "Dreadfully sorry to ask, but are you seeing that masked face as well?" Iudex inquired. The bus reached Main street and Iudex departed and looked around for the arcade

Cruiser seemed to daze off the moment he took his seat. He wasn’t even looking out the windows, just sitting and staring blankly with a sight smirk. It wasn’t until Iudex thanked him did his awareness return. “Oh sure, no problem cat…” He gave Iudex a confused look when asked about seeing masks. “...What? A mask?”

The shepherd looked around at the few other bus passengers and out the windows, but didn’t really see anything. He continued looking about for any oddities like Iudex mentioned until they disembarked and were out into the busy streets. “Man, I thought you said not to worry about any weird stuff. I don’t see anything. Anyways, c’mon! The arcade is just up the street!”

Reno smiled and found a racing game, hopping into the "car" and swiping his card, he picked a nice red Ferarri on a rather easy track "Start your engines!" a voice called from the screen and a stop light appeare on the screen, changing from red to yellow and then to green, his car took off and he squeezed into third place "Rover, you wanna play me after this round?" he tilted his head to the "car" next to his

In the time, it had taken for Willow to make it to the bakery Inky had already talked with his owners and arranged for the cat to be given something to eat and drink. However, Inky would have to make up for it later by washing a couple of dishes which he didn't mind as he found pleasure in cleaning. Standing behind the counter staring at Willow through the glass case Inky just watched him as he looked over all the cakes.

"If you do not see something you want I'll see if we have something more to your taste in the back. However, you'll have to let me know what you want also you'll need to pick out a drink."

There was a wide assortment of cakes, pies and treats along with a couple of freshly made candies somewhere pet friendly others are meant for humans only. Then, there was the drink station it had the basics sodas and some teas along with juices along with a special drink his owners made, which is made from carrots.

"Correction," Iudex spoke as he followed Cruiser to the arcade, "I said we wouldn't have to worry about powerful malevolent beings, obviously the mask must either be weak or benevolent."

The cat arrived at the front of the Arcade with Cruiser, "How do we go about getting in?" Iudex asked

"Wow..." Willow said again, as he couldn't think of anything else. He looked at the wide variety of baked goods, with beautifuly decorated icing. His eyes quickly found a small doughnut at the back of the stand with beautiful hundreds-and-thousands sprinkled on it.

"Umm... could I have the one at the back, please, I mean, if it's not, like, taken..." Willow said, his shyness creaping back into the volume controls in his voice box. He glanced at the bunny.

Marcus stood next to Selina and looked for some sign of Matt

C'mon man quit screwing around let's get out of here!

Matthias came tearing out the doorway as quickly as his injured ankle would let him, stumbling forward a few feet before turning on his heel and slamming the door shut. He leaned back against it, eyes widened., panting heavily. It seemed to take him a few moments to even notice the others standing there. When he did, he grinned faintly and abruptly rushed forward to pull Selina into a tight hug. "Oh, thank dog ... am I glad ... to see you guys," he said in between gasping breaths.

"I would've invited you two at my place, but it's still messy." Plamen said "How about we return to that café we met?"

Selina was startled at Matt running out of the doorway, because she hadn't seen him before. He seemed to have just appeared out of the darkness. She hugged him back. "Calm down. What happened, we only lost track of you for a few minutes, 7 at the most."

"Meh, why not?" said Rover as he sat down and grabbed the controls. "Just tell me when your done."

Looking around Inky found the one that Willow was pointing at and with a smile, he took a small plate from the shelf behind the counter then picked the doughnut up with a pair of tongs, which was placed on the plate.

"Is there any others that you would like to try?"

He held the plate and tongs at the ready to collect any other pastries that Willow may want from the display. If there weren't any others, then he would hand the plate to a short lady with shoulder lengthen red hair so that it could, then be handed to Willow.

"Ready when you are" Reno grinned and picked his car, the same red ferarri from before "You think you can take the heat?" he smiled from his playful tease "I bet you are a real speed demon" he turned his attention back to the screen "Or maybe we could do a Co-op race eh?"

Matthias took another deep, slow breath and reluctantly let go of Selina. He was still shaking all over - adrenaline had practically replaced blood in the Retriever's system. "Yeah, let's ... let's get out of here. We can talk when we're ... far, far away from this place." He gave the door a sidelong glance, and shifted a bit closer to Selina again.

"Yeah, I don't really want to stay here either, so... where should we head?"

Matthias tapped his foot on the ground. "Well ... Selina, we could head back to my place. Figure things out from there."

scritch. Matt's breath caught in his throat. He looked over at the door with his heart pounding, but it was still firmly shut. Gah. Imagining things... Still... He grabbed Selina's paw and started walking very, very quickly to the exit. "Yeah let's go. Like. Now."

Selina just followed behind, being dragged. "Okay guys, I guess we'll see you around."

"I don't think a co-op is going to be possible," said Rover "Cause you have my dust to eat!" he exlaimed while gunning the engine, he easily sped to first place with his distraction.

"Oh no you don't!" Reno floored his pedal,weaving through the cars in front of him, getting to second, tailing behind Rover and slowly catching up "You didn't think it would be THAT easy did you?" he chuckled "You're pretty good" he said concentrating on his screen

Soren didn't go back in the building. He climbed down to find everyone gone. He stood there at the door, waiting on them to come out. He wasn't going to take his chances in there again. Rescue dogs went into the unknown... not the unknowable...

Matthias quickly exited the building, pulling Selina along after him. He didn't stop until they were a good thirty feet away. After that, he paused, leaning against a telephone pole and taking a few deep breaths. He didn't seem to realized that he was still squeezing Selina's paw in his own, shivering grip.

"You can let go of my paw now; I'd like the feeling to come back," Selina said with a chuckle.

Matthias blinked and let out a little nervous giggle. "Oh. Heh, sorry about that, Selina." He let go of the cat's paw.

Marcus walked back to the door where he'd last seen Soren, he was releived to see Soren waiting for him, he didn't want to lose anyone else today.
Let's hurry up and find out where Cruiser went so we can get the #### out of dodge.

"It's fine. So what got you so worked up? I know that place was creepy and all. and had us seeing things. I actually thought I saw you fall from the window then disappear." She chuckled as she said the last part.