Disclaimers: All characters belong to rightful owners.
Story concieved by Lee.


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"Well, I _hope_ that it's great..." Lem commented a bit more quietly as he tipped his head on side. Wrapping his arms around himself, he held the farbic of his coat closer to himself as he again surveyed their surroundings. "It'd be a real shame for everyone if it weren't..."

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"I know," Sophia replied a trifle dryly, "but then, you yourself are somewhat glib for someone your age. What are you-- junior, senior in high school?"

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"Glib for someone my age? Is that bad though?" Sam tilted his head as he gnawed on the remains of his pizza crust. "So, how do you feel that a senior in high school should act?"

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Alexei paused in the midst of his gnawing. "Oh, you are a smart one. But we need to kill them, you see. They killed Sergei." He paused as Erik spoke to him. "Erik says we should all discuss it over pizza. There is a pizza parlor nearby that serves delicious food."

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"Blessed..." Shittsui repeated, amused, "Perhaps..." Poor, poor Nevan. If he only knew what the evil pimp had in mind! "I don't particularly believe in things like blessed. It implies there might be some supreme being," He mused, "and I most certainly don't believe in any such thing. Life would be much... different... were such things true, I'm sure."

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"You really don't believe in God?" Nevan murmured as he eyed the other sadly. Rather obviously, he was quite convinced in the existance of God as well as all the other tenets of his faith, but he wasn't exactlty sure that the streetcorner was the best place to attempt conversions. "Not in _any_ form?"

"Well, I, of course, don't know your life, but perhaps God put those things before you for a reason." He offered slowly as he tipped his head on side. "They say that His ways are mysterious, so maybe He only wished to test you or... or to shape you for some future plan..."

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"O-okay..." Tesu replied - whether to the idea that They had to be killed, They being responsible for Sergei's - whoever *he* was - death, or discussing it all over pizza, he wasn't quite sure. Oddly enough, the idea of the cactus talking to Alexei didn't strike him as all that odd. Somehow, that just seemed to fit in the increasingly bizarre scene he now found himself a part of.

"Well... um... pizza sounds good... but maybe you can... um... kill this guy later, huh? I mean... you wouldn't want to eat pizza on a full stomach, right?" Leaving the businessman to his own devices, Tesu stooped down to once again scoop Stubby up into his arms. If anyone gave him any shit about taking a dog into the pizza place, he'd just tell them that Stubby was, in fact, a new variety of cactus that had just been discovered.

Tesu idly wondered if he'd gone insane in the last few minutes and just hadn't noticed til now.

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"You _are_ a smart one," Alexei said admiringly, "almost as smart as Sergei was before They got hold of him." He allowed the poor -- evil - - businessman to go and walked with Tesu to the pizza parlor. "Chachacha... oh! We are Alexei Parnikov and this," he held up the cactus, "is Erik. We will pay, as this was our idea. Our grandmother will not mind as long as we are home before curfew."

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"Awww Lukas, you're not fun! I give you all my sweet, sweet love, and I get nothing in return." Kisoku sighed rather dramatically, before scanning the daily specials menu. "Darn, no zeppoles..."

"I am parched... I think I'll get a soda, but I need some sort of substitute for the zeppoles... Whaddya think?" The blonde blinked up at the taller boy beside him. Thought... thought was a hard thing to do with little sugar in his system. From out of his pocket, Kisoku grabbed a grape lollipop and shoved it into his mouth. As was quite unbecoming of a fellow of his status, he showed no shame in talking with his mouth full. "Whant wan?"

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"Nice to meet you... um... both..." Tesu replied hesitantly as he fell into step with Alexei - and Erik. "I'm Tesu... and this is Stubby..." he added, inclining his head at the stray dog he carried. "Um... who's Sergei?" He secretly thought that Sergei couldn't have been *too* smart, if he'd fallen into Their evil clutches... but of course, kept this thought to himself.

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"Well... I'd buy you a zeppole... if they had any..." Lukas replied wryly in response to Kisoku's lamentation.

"Well now... I might be able to advise you if I had the slightest idea what a zeppole was..." he chuckled, "But since I don't... I can't even begin to tell you what a good substitute'd be..." He shook his head at the offered lolly, "No thanks."

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"Sergei," Alexei proclaimed, "is our older brother. We are in love with him, but They drowned him, so we have to get revenge." He said this as they entered the parlor. And sitting there, as though he had not a care in the world, was one of Them. Not just one of those wicked souls who do Their bidding without knowledge of Their existance, like the businessman he had just assaulted, but truly one of Them. Alexei's mismatched eyes narrowed as, with a hiss of hatred, he launched himself at the other.

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Kisoku would not be detered by Lukas's generally stiff attitude. He plunged right on with his chatter, still in the lollipop-in-mouth language. "A chepploie ish der fried toe ting det hash shuger awn it! Dat Ishtalian ting!"

/A zeppole is the fried dough thing that has sugar on it! That Italian thing!/

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Contentedly nibbling on his bit of pizza, Sam cried out in pure alarm as he suddenly found himself being attacked and, at first thinking that it was sempai or Lukie playing a trick, he chuckled easily. Still, when the attack proved too brutal to be anything launched by his friends, he took another route.

"Oi! What's the big deal?" He all but yelled as he tried to push a creature seemingly made entirely of teeth away from himself. "Who let loose the killer pitbull?"

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Apparently an old hand at translating Kisoku's lollipopese, Lukas had no trouble deciphering what the blonde was saying. "Oh, a dessert... hm... Only two Italian desserts I know are spumoni, an' tira misu... they got either one of those?"

As he glanced up at the menu, he heard what sounded like Sam yelling at... someone... Spinning around, he saw some kid latched on to his friend like a bulldog, biting and gnawing...

"What the fuck!?" he roared, turning and heading back toward the booth, desserts, pizza, and milkshakes quite forgotten.

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Tesu blinked as Alexei halted his explanation to launch himself at another poor soul. Apparently They were everywhere, today...

"...Um..." he said, jogging over to the table where Alexei was chewing on his latest victim, "I thought we were gonna eat pizza..." He knew that was a stupid thing to say even as he said it, but he had absolutely no idea what was the appropriate response for this sort of situation. And to make matters worse, Stubby wriggled out of his arms, leaping joyously into the fray, yipping frantically and nipping indiscriminantly at both perpetrator and victim. He moved forward to once again try to pry Alexei from his victim when an angry roar sounded from the area near the counter. Glancing over, he saw a very angry looking red-head stalking towards them. Not good.

"Um..." he said, tugging futilely at Alexei, "This *really* isn't a good idea..."

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Alexei growled and swatted at Tesu, "He is one of Them! Can you not tell? Can you not smell the death and destruction and _Themness_?" Then he addressed himself to Sam, "We know what you are. You are one of Them. We knew your friend Azazel. He killed Sergei, and we have sworn to get revenge."

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The three lower classmen looked on with interest. Or rather, Jeremy looked interested, Arvel looked bewildered, and Estelle looked furious.

"Woah, look, it's a psychopath!" Jeremy said in awe.

Arvel blinked in confusion. "What's going on? Is it a publicity stunt?"

And Estelle went over to help pry Alexei off Sam, "Get away from him, you freak!"

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"What the _fuck_ are you talking about?!" Sam all but cried as he contiued to pry the vicious animal away from himself. Of course, it wasn't helped by the fact that the boy--if you'd call it that--had already latched itself pretty firmly onto Sam's body and had also managed to make quite a few deep bitemarks. Still, as he next spoke, his tone took on a bit of hysteria that actually had little to do with the bitings. "I'm not one of 'them', I never killed _anyone_, and I don't even _know_ an Azazel!"

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"You," chomp, "_are_," chomp, "one of Them," chomp, "as was Azazel," chomp-chomp. "And Azazel killed Sergei. You are a killer as well. We know this," Alexei insisted, "and we will kill you before you can kill again!"

Erik nodded his agreement.

"Azazel said there were more like him, that is why we have been looking, so that we can find and kill Them."

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