Adrian paced along the dripping alleyway, stopping occaionally to investigate a door or a window. Piles of random garbage spiced with the occaisional obsolete prop or theatrical pariphenelia littered the narrow space, the theatre building made up one wall of the alley. Spearmint stopped, apparently finding what he had been searching for - an open basement window. He grinned in the darkness, then remembered he had no weapon. With a muffled curse he scavenged on the ground for a plank of wood, then turned to look for Harm. The girl had an awkward talent of blending into any alleyways they passed through, force of habit he supposed.

"Harm!" He made the usual hoarse whisper of one trying to shout whilst staying quiet, "Are you there?"

Alex Pratt parked his brand spanking new jeep a couple blocks, and out of sight of, the Bay Street Theater. After looking to both sides and glancing to the rear, he slowly climbed out of the jeep and walked to the back, opening the rear compartment, where he kept a large tan canvass bag.

His arsenal...

Before unzipping the tan bag, Pratt pulled out his Beretta 92FS and affixed the standard silencer before returning it to his holster.

Once Pratt opened the canvas carrying bag, he saw what he was looking for almost instantly. Slowly and silently pulled out the Israeli-made Uzi 9mm SMG that he carried with him. It had been purchased on the black market by one of Pratt's solicitors and enough to the Canadian government had ensured that he could carry a f---ing nuke around legally.

He also pulled out the Uzi's silencer, affixing to the SMG's stubby barrel. At his condo, Pratt had many more weapons, but for now, he just needed the Uzi. After zipping up the canvas bag, Pratt locked the jeep and headed down the street towards the darkened Bay Street Theater, his now silenced Uzi hidden under his dark summer jacket. The Uzi was attached to a strap that was wrapped around his shoulder, concealing the SMG but leaving it easily reachable.

Harm was far more accustomed to these alley ways then Adrian would ever be. Even this particular ally. Being on the streets so long, you never stay in one ally long and that meant travelling through them all. She knew the system like someone would know their home.

When Adrian called out her name in that whisper, she suddenly came into veiw, as if she just poofed there that very moment. She was also holding a very useful peice of garbage that in the shadow of the ally, looked to be a crowbar that had been bent, as if hit aginst a wall and then tossed out because it was no good anymore.

"Looking for somthing like this?" She asked him. She didn't whisper, but her voice sounded low and easy. While Adrian was at home in a dark house with thugs running around, Harm was at home in this dark, damp ally.

Harm walked over to him, her barefeet silent on the slick wet ground of the ally. She handed the crowbar over to him, then squated down beside the little basement window he'd found.

"Uh.. yeah. Thanks." Adrian replied, giving the crowbar an experimental swing. "Find yourself something as well. To come clean with you, I don't know what's in there or why we're here. For all I know, we won't even need weapons it it doesn't hurt to be safe." He hunkered down beside the window and lifted it open. He hadn't mentioned to Harm the possibility that what they would find would see a crowbar as about as dangerous as a foam finger, no use in scaring the girl. "Ahem.. right." He whispered. "Hold this open, I'll go in first, you follow me in."

Adrian gripped the crowbar tight and scrambled down into the darkness.

Alex Pratt, excitement tingling up and down his spine, walked along the sidewalk normally since none of his weapons was visible. As he neared the corner which he knew turned into the alley, his superior hearing captured the hushed words between Spearmint and Harm.

When he reached the corner, he silently shook his jacket off and raised his Uzi SMG to the 'ready' position and did a 360 degree spin so that in less than half a second, he was facing the darker alley, his Uzi tracking any potential targets.

As it turned out, only Harm was standing their. Spearmint must have already climbed into the basement.

Since Alex has seen the .38 Detective's Special that Adrian usually carried back at the office, the vampire knew that Spearmint and Harm must both be unarmed.

Idiots...

Pratt, after lowering his SMG so it wasn't aimed at Harm, stepped forward.

"Harm, it's me, Pratt. Did Spearmint go in the window already?"

He hoped silently that Harm wasn't still angry about earlier. After all, Pratt was just joking. It wasn't his fault if Harm had no sense of humor.

You can't have a sense of humor and survive on the street. Harm learned that at age six. The hard way.

She silently nodded and watched Adrian slid through the window into the darkness. She heaved a heavy sigh, knowing perfectly well that there was a lot that Adrian wasn't saying. And if he were asking her to arm herself, after she made it more then clear that she didn't want to hurt or kill, then that meant that there was bound to be a lot of danger in there. But at this rate, even if she wouldn't admit, she would follow her 'employer' anywhere. So she picked up the wooden, wet peice of wood and lifted prepared to go through the window.

That would be when Adrian scared the shit out of her by appearing around the corner with a gun aimed at her. She held her breath but didn't speak until Alex lowered the wepon.

"What do you want. Your suposed to be at the office. Adrian dosn't want you here." Well...she didn't want him there. Without answer his question she slide, with suprising grace for one so frail, in through the opening, lowering the window after her, careful not to make any noise. She stood still a moment, allowing her eyes to adjust to the change in light, then looked around for Adrian.

"Hey. Old man?" She whispered, barely audiable.

"I'm here." Came Adrian's reply from a little way ahead. "Careful where you step, we're in the toilets. Men's room probably, guessing from the stench." Shuffling footsteps and the occasional squelch announced his progress, "That's better not be laughing boy Pratt out there. He follows you round like a puppy y'know that? Throw him a stick and see if he goes for it." There was the sound of a collision, and a muffled cry of pain. "Found the door," he muttered. The lights flickered on, "And the lightswitch."

Ham scoffed at his words, a sound from her throat showing her disgust at the very idea. It was she that Alex was following, she knew this. She was just a side of beef. Adrian was the one Alex was following. She was smart enough to know this. Extending her hands in front of her, Harm followed the sound of his voice.

"It's him alright. The freakin nut has a gun. I thought he was gonna shoot me for flippin him off before we left." When the lights came on she whinced and allowed herself a moment to adjust. Then she walked to Adrian's side.

"What exactly are we doing?" She looked around, judging by the way the toilets were different, given she'd never been in a men's bathroom, she assumed Adrian had been correct in assuming this was the Men's room.

OOC- Would you mind not skipping me? It was my turn to post Harm. Thanx :)

After Harm had entered the building and closed the window, Pratt strode over, his silenced Uzi at the ready and looked in. Several seconds passed before a light came on. He assumed Harm or Adrian had flipped a switch.

Alex knelt, the whole time heeping the end of the Uzi's silencer pressed against the window glass. From what he could see, it appeared he was looking into the one of the theater's public restrooms.

Gently, Pratt pushed on the window, but it wouldn't budge. After applying a little more pressure, he figured Harm, whether on purpose or by accident, had jammed the window shut when she had closed it. After all, most windows in a public restroom are left closed.

Pratt shifted his hold on the Uzi, gripping it by the silencer and swinging it like a baseball bat. He was rewarded with the sound of the glass window shattering, spilling its shards all over the nearby floor.

After sliding the Uzi around to clean any loose shards, Pratt swung his legs through the now shattered window and jumped down, landing with a slight thump on his feet in the bathroom.

He looked at Adrian and Harm and silently walked over, his Uzi aimed at the bathroom's only door, and whispered, "Hello Adrian. Harm and I already chatted out in the alley."

He winked innocently at her.

Harm had her back to the window when Alex had cracked the window with the butt of his gun. The sound of breaking glass made her jump and turn, half ready to jump behind Adrian. But then she saw Alex cleaning away the glass from the frame.

She glared at him. He was really hitting a nerve. Even Adrian didn't make her that angry, not even when he'd summoned that god with the haunting eyes. When he hopped down, glass crunched under his shoes and Harm's thoughts went to her bare feet. by now she was used to broken glass in her feet, but no matter how used to it you may be, it still would be painful. This just did to promote her anger towards Alex.

When he winked at her...well, that didn't help her mood. She said nothing.

Adrian and Harm shared a look. Spearmint reached out an arm and pushed gently at the window frame. It swung out freely, then fell back into position. "From the outside you pull to open, kiddo. I'm guessing observational skills aren't necessary for Special Forces work." He leaned the crowbar against the wall for the moment and looked blankly at Pratt once again.

"I'm sure you're having lots of fun with your little gung-ho adventure here and I'm sure Harm is flattered by your continuing and daring efforts to impress her," Adrian hurried on quickly before Harm could protest, "But there ain't no Gooks here to waste. There's no secret terrorist cell to wage war on. Hell, there ain't even a cult of death worshippers." He looked pityingly at Alex, "This is a theatre Pratt. A normal place for normal people. Look," Slowly, like one explaining something to a particularly dim-witted child, Adrian reached out and lightly touched the wall. "Nor-mal."

Suddenly, the world turned purple. Not a dim, changed-light-bulb purple but a glorious technicolour monochrome. Harm was only visible against the wall by a thin black outline. It was like the world had suddenly decided that complex colours and shading weren't worth the effort and that a comic-book style had more appeal to the younger generation.

"No-one touch anything."

Adrian's words reverberatted endlessly against the walls, creating mutant echoes that tossed the sounds around, jumbling the syllables to produce more interesting sentences. The chaotic noise silenced without warning, gravity shited ninety degrees and Spearmint flew inside a mirror that promptly shattered into a thousand playing cards.

OOC: Welcome to the funhouse. Feel free to create or destroy reality as you so wish.

Pratt glared at Spearmint when he made the comment about his observational skills, "They at least taught me to travel armed..." The word 'Idiot' was implied at the end of the sentence.

He pasued when Adrian continued, "I enjoy my little adventures. They make life more interesting. Besides, I am not chasing Harm. She'd be good in bed, but she's not that important."

Then the world went straight to hell...

When the room was engulfed in edgeless violet, Pratt knew which direction the bathroom's door was and vectored towards it, ignoring both Harm and Adrian. When heard the sound of a shattering mirror, Pratt turned around, his Uzi at the ready and his finger itching to fire, but only saw playing cards.

"What the hell is happening?!" Pratt yelled to no one in particular.

He turned back to where he thought the door would be and felt his hand around the wall until he gripped what felt like a metal doorknob. He looked down and saw nothing.

He twisted the knob and shoved open the door revealing...

...a normal hallway.

He stepped out of the bathroom and looked up and down the hallway. A little dingy, but then again this was the basement where no normal theater patron would go.

When he looked back into the bathroom it looked normal and he saw Harm and also a broken and bloodied mirror that had been above the sink, but there was no sign of Adrian Spearmint.

Harm had swayed violently when the world turned purple. She'd thrown her arms over her eyes, sheilding them from all the different changes. Then she uncovered her eyes and allowed them to adjust to the lighting once more.

Then the world turned...crooked. Adrian fell aginst the mirror and Harm leaned back, trying to right herself, to stand straight, and suceeded in falling on her ass, throwing her hands back and cutting them in the glass. Playing cards exploded in her face when it should have been glass from Adrian's mirror. She closed her eyes.

No more cards hit her face and she opened her eyes and could no longer see Adrian. The world seemed to right itself once more and she looked up to see Alex standing with the bathroom door open.

Placing her hands on the ground to get up she whinced at the cuts and glass in her hands and held them aginst her chest. She was confused, scared now. And without Adrian, she found herself looking to Pratt, requesting help, confused, accusing, hateing, and a little needingly.

"Where's Adrian?" Her tone suggested that she thought Alex might have something to do with Adrian disappearing. After all, why else would something so weird happen on the same night that Alex walked into their lives. "What the hell happened?"

OOC: Nice goin' there fellas. Really let your imaginations go wild didn't ya?

IC:

Bright light dazzled Adrian's eyes, sparkling shining light from a dozen points. The sharp, blinding spears stabbed even through his closed eyelids, What new madness was this? Was he cast into a star? Was he trapped in some ethereal prison? Was he dead? He blinked. Oh wait... it was just a room full of mirrors. Not even a big room. Sort of an anticlimax really.

Adrian strode into the centre of the room and looked around. It was a simple, white painted concrete box lit by a single, powerful lightbulb and hung with dozens of mirrors of all shapes and sizes. He rubbed his temples, well at least reality seemed to have calmed down a bit. With any luck there would be a hidden door or...

"Hello!"

Spearmint spun round. Standing directly behind him, not six inches from his chest, was a creature made entirely of fabric. It was around a foot shorted than Adrian, but it's stomach bulged till it was almost as fat as it was tall. It could pass at a push as an extremly fat man who had glued rags of all descriptions to his body. It waved cheerfully.

"What the hell..?"

"I see you are confused." It's voice ranged across the octaves at random, "You need explanations, yes? This," it swept it's arms grandly to encompass the small room, "Is Mirrorworld. I am Norman, it's keeper."

Adrian looked around again, "Mirrorworld? How can this be a world? It's about ten feet across and there's only... what? Seventeen mirrors here? It's Mirrorsmallroom for God's sake."

Norman looked uncomfortable and wrung his cloth hands, "But... mirrors make room look larger." Suddenly he became more active and smiled again, "And you are forgetting my mirrored disco balls!" He held out one hand in front of Adrian's eyes, from it two bauble-sized disco balls dropped down and spun slowly. "Look at them shine!"

Adrian pulled back slightly as they sparkled, "Uh.. sure..."

"Look at them shine!"

"Can you jus.."

"Look at them shine!"

"Liste.."

"Look at them shine!"

"Would you sto.."

"Look at them shi..."

"Shut up!" Adrian cried, slapping the balls away form his face. "Now how the hell do I get out of here?"

The creature looked stunned. The balls dropped back into place and swung wildly as it looked blankly at Adrian. It spun round and began polishing a mirror, sulkily. "There is a way out.. if you choose the right mirror. However if you choose the wrong one you must stay here for all eternity with no hope of release. Which one will you choose? Eh? Which one? Which one will you choose?"

It blathered on. Spearmint sighed, picked a mirror at random, and walked through it.

The fat creature was left alone.

"Bugger."

At first, Pratt didn't respond to Harm's question, but just stared at her. She was very hot when she was worried. Her face showed her lack of nerves and yet she was so hot. Her figure, despite her malnourishment, was good enough and Pratt envisioned her in bed with him on top.

He walked towards her, the Uzi falling from his hands and swinging loosely on its strap hanging from his shoulder. Because of his vampirism, Pratt had had sex very rarely.

As Pratt neared her, he stated in a slightly mesmerized tone, "I don't know where Adrian went, but lets get out of here."

When he was within arms reach of her, he reached out and, with great speed, tried to grab her shoulders and pull her into a deep kiss and tight hug.

By the time that Pratt had been walking towards her, she’d already been frightened and now un-nerved. Harm began to scoot back across the floor and glass, away from him.

“We...can’t just leave Adrian! I’m not leaving.”

Her hands hurt, her feet hurt, but not enough to cry, not yet. As Alex advanced on her quickly, and the gun slipped from his hands, she began to worry.

Alex pulled her up by her shoulders and she knew he wasn’t helping her to her feet. Harm turned her face away from him as he attempted a kiss. Pulled into his hug, she pounded on his shoulders with far too weak fists.

“Adrian!” She was scared more now. At least as a homeless girl, she’d never been harassed in such a way. Her fists hurt from pounding pointlessly at his chest, the glass pushing deeper into her palms, blood splattering his shirt. She began to cry tears of furry and fear.

OOC: You're not even trying are you?

IC:

Dark, wooden floorboards. That was a good start. Good, solid floor like that, you knew where you stood. Adrian almost didn't want to raise his eyes from gazing into the woodwork, nothing he saw would appear better than the way floorboards looked right now.

"Well? Sing!" A commanding voice disturbed his reverie. Adrian looked up and stared into the pool of darkness before him. Row after row of empty seats were just visible in the gloom. The speaker had called from somehere deep amongst the shadowy forest of seats, the echoes still bounced around the cavernous hall. He was on the stage...

"Come on then!" The voice called again, invisible in the shadows.

"What? Who are you? What the hell is going on here?" Adrian's spirit rose, he was on the stage in the theatre. There was nothing strange about that, except how he got here but that wasn't important. The man down there had obviously confused him with someone else and in a few moments he'd be back on track in his investigation.

"I want you to sing! That's what you're here for isn't it?"

Adrian pulled off his hat and scratched at his scalp, "No, it's not. Listen to me, my name is Adrian Spearmint, I'm a private investiga..."

"Sing or the monkeys will steal your face."

Adrian launched energetically into the only song that came to mind, "Hot and cooooold, the shower sprays on me. Hot and coooooold, it's what it does to me. Baaaaaaby..."

"ENOUGH!" Silence. "Not good enough I'm afraid. Rabbit! Take his clothes!"

Adrian spun round. Behind him stood a six foot tall rabbit in a fedora hat and brown overcoat. His fedora hat and brown overcoat. "Dammit, give those back!" He leapt to grab it, missed and fell heavily on the stage. The bunny darted away. "What the hell is going on?"

Pratt laughed as she began hitting him, driving the glass shards deeper into her hands and spattering blood all over him. Her weak attempt at fighting him only aroused him more.

"Oh yes Harm...your very hot. I want you Harm. I want to feel your body next to me."

He tightened his hug, rubbing his whole body against her, trying to intertwine his legs with hers. His crotch against hers and the feel of her clothed breasts against him. Oh yes, he wanted her.

With her face turned away from his, he licked her cheek, running his toung down to her neck and up to ears, nibbling on them gently. He liked her taste as well.

((You want creative Adrian...I'm not very creative in the 'funhouse' sort of way. But I'll give it a whirl.))

Harm screamed at the top of her lungs at these words. This wasn’t what she wanted! His hug tightened and her legs were tangled in his. She groaned and the world around her began to shift and color. Whether it was in her mind or it was real, she could not determine. Greens and reds and blues shifted around, making her dizzy. She didn’t want his body against hers and she felt her cheeks flush when he licked her.

She hit him one final time, groaning. “Get off me!” The words echoed in her ears, she wanted it to stop. “Adrian!” She screamed. The world felt like it was shifting again, almost like a whirling ride at a fair. It shifted upward, tipping one way, and then it shifted down, tipping the other direction. She felt the sting in her hand, his body against hers, his saliva on her cheek and ear. She had to get away from him. She would have to assume that he could feel the world shifting as well.

A light flashed yellow, blinding her, and hopefully Alex as well. She hooked her ankle behind his leg as the world shifted upward again, and then pulled at his knee violently as the world shifted down, hoping that he would fall.

OOC: Apologies for the delay, it's a long story.

IC:

Adrian stumbled through the twisting corridors after the shadowy form ahead, the rabbit was ferociously fast and utterly unscrupulous. It'd jumped him a few turns back, tripping him to crash heavily into a pile of props and making off his his shoes and trousers. Up ahead the rabbit darted into a left turn, barely slowing in it's mad sprint for even a moment. Adrian powered down the hallway, skidded round the corner, impacted off of the opposite wall and broke into a run again.

It was useless, the rabbit was gone. The new corridor was connected to a dozen or more passageways within running distance, the rabbit could've made it to any one of those. Adrian stopped and sighed, slumping against the wall. After the crazy chase the support was worth wasting a few moments. In fact, simply leaning against the wall seemed as relaxing as lying dow....

Uh oh.

Adrian's scrabbling attempts to climb to his feet again were rendered pointless as gravity shifted another ninety degrees without warning. Spearmint slid up the wall and crashed into the ceiling, his head breaking through the cheap tiles with a puff of dust. "What the hell is going on?!"