Snipe Hunt

[Samantha McManus]

"Better, better," she smirks as she spots the hand.

"But not good enough yet."

She goes flat against the rooftop, letting Will sail overhead.

[Will Stanton]

Will did, indeed, sail past Sam.

He did, however, stretch a leg out behind him, trailing across the roof and kicking up shingles towards where Sam had fallen prone. Easy enough to dodge, mind you, but it at least should get her attention...

...As he continued to stretch, taking a sharp 90 degree turn around the weathervane, and continuing to wrap his body across to a chimney on another rooftop, taking yet ANOTHER 90 degree turn as he began weaving himself around -- a net to catch a raven, perhaps?

[Samantha McManus]

"Better still," she admits as she scrabbles back up, brushing off the shingles.

"But at your best you don't only think in two dimensions..."

Her avatar breaks up into the flock, soaring over the net.

[Will Stanton]

"Yeah, yeah, there's only one of me in here, and, like a bajillion of you," Will mock-grumbled, his plan unravelling.

He bounded up after Sam, taking to the air high above the city. At the peak of his bounce, he reached down and grabbed a chunk of clay from his chest, took aim, and hurled it at one of the ravens.

[Samantha McManus]

The raven explodes in a puff of black feathers, each of which sails to other birds.

"Feeling well enough to waste your clay?" The chuckling response comes from several places in the flock.

As he chases them, Will might realize too late that they're leading him toward the chocolate factory.

[Will Stanton]

"Feeling well enough to remember that this is ALL my clay. Every bit of it," he smiled, taking a deep breath of the air. "I am the sun and the clouds and the wind whipping through the air. Stay here long enough, and I might even be you."

The X-Man landed atop the shoulder of the giant Sam statue.

"Let's not go to Camelot. 'Tis a silly place."

[Samantha McManus]

"If you're feeling that strong..." The flock says as it circles around the statue.

"Build a bridge across the chasm. End our long national nightmare."

[Will Stanton]

"I can't do that myself," he sighed. "No, we need the silly, and we need the fighty, I suppose.

He won't see me, you know. He might not even see you."

[Samantha McManus]

"Then let's go with the excessively accommodating one first," the flock says, resuming course for the chocolate factory.

[Will Stanton]

"I thought that was me," the X-Man joked, leaning back into the statue to get a running jump off of Sam's ear, as the two of them soared towards the factory proper.

[Samantha McManus]

Sam is certainly not respecting the gates of the factory, the flock winding upwards towards where she recalls the executive offices being.

[Narrator]

That set off some sirens -- that was breaking and entering, don't you know? -- and from the side of the factory, a couple slits opened. Small, brightly colored tubes peered out, and starting shooting some chocolate balls at the flock. Air support!

[Will Stanton]

The X-Man bounded after Sam, blocking a couple of the shots from hitting the flock. Whatever hesitation he had about visiting the factory vanished when action started, erm, actioning.

[Samantha McManus]

"You know," Sam's voice comes from the flock as it bobs and weaves towards its destination, "Things have gotten quite a bit ruder than when I was last here."

[Will Stanton]

"Sounds like someone needs a refresher course in manners," the X-Man nodded in return.

[Samantha McManus]

"Or at least about food waste..."

The flock came together suddenly as it crested over the railing near her destination, resolving into Sam's form as she did that superhero landing everyone wants to do but never quite works right in meatspace.

[Narrator]

The balcony shook as Sam landed on it, a shockwave sending a few workers flying left, right and center. Man, that superhero landing thing felt cool.


The factory was busy busy busy. She could sense Robin and Bruce together low in the working part of the factory, Tosh alone trying to find his way up in the more administrative portion. The proprietor, it seems, had not been seen for some time, and was likely barracading himself somewhere high near the tippy top. And then there was that maddingly familiar presence -- sort of like when you thought you saw someone out of the corner of your eye. Any of the four seemed like good places to start.


The factory didn't have security, per se, but it did have people in the factory's uniform sort of hurrying in her general direction as she landed.

[Samantha McManus]

"Seems he's relocated," she grumbles. "But I've an idea where he might be hiding."

"Keep up, aye?" She says over her shoulder to the X-Man as she starts honing in on that nagging presence, weaving through the workers in disarray.

[Narrator]

"No! No, stop! Hold it!" the workers said, trying to get in Sam's way. "You're not authorized to be up here!"

Sam and the X-Man would have, at first, few problems shoving their way through just the workers, though there were a lot of them milling about. Gradually, though, the hallways would clog up with these extra workers, all demanding to see their various badges and ask for explanations as to why they were there.


Out of the corner of her eye, in the back of the pack, she could see Tosh emerging from an office. And from the corner of her mind....


Walk in like you own the place, aye?

[Toshiro Narumi]

Thinking fast, Tosh ran up and told the crowd, "It's okay, they're with me."

[Samantha McManus]

"We don't have time for this," Sam grumbles, to the unseen voice as much as anyone.

She squirms and tries to climb over the crowding workers.

[Narrator]

"Did you sign them in? Where's their badges? There's all kinds of confidential stuff up here! They could be spies! Corporate espionage!" the varied workers complained to Tosh, Sam, the X-Man, and everyone in between as the hallway was getting ludicrously crowded at this point, with workers, all trying to stop the trio from going forward.

Bureaucracy can be the pits. Watch out for the red tape.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Well it was worth a try, at least," Tosh sighed.

Looking to the X-Man, he asked, "Please tell me you're Will's suppressed Ego."

[Narrator]

"Do you think he needs more ego, just as a general rule," the X-Man grunted, trying to squirm his way through a couple workers, who were pressing back with equal force.

[Narrator]

Down a side corridor, the trio would get a fleeting glimpse of a raven, headed away from the mob itself.

It wasn't one of Sam's, was it? She was all accounted for, right?

[Samantha McManus]

Sam continues climbing over the glut of personnel, shoving off limbs that try to grab her when she spots the raven.

"...this way."

She tries to push off from the living clot, jumping down the side passage.

[Narrator]

Shoving past the guards would probably require giving them a swift kick in the face, but you know, that can be cathartic sometimes! It gave enough of a clearing, at least, for Tosh, Sam and the X-Man to scamper down a corridor. The throng followed, but at least they were behind the trio, rather than in front.

Instead, in front of them was a set of double doors, ornately decorated, and very much not in style with the rest of the factory, as Tosh could attest. The raven disappeared through a small flap near the top, which slid closed after it went through.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"I think we've found the president's office," Tosh observed, ever a captain of the obvious.

[Samantha McManus]

"Suppose knocking first is only polite," Sam sighs, rapping her knuckles on one door.

[Groundskeeper]

It was unclear whether the knocking could be heard over the rabble threatening to smash them against the doors, but one way or another, the door swung open, letting the trio through before immediately closing again, a bar coming down to block the workers from entering.

The room was not a room.

From this side, at least, the door wasn't actually attached to anything; just sitting out in the open, on some rolling green hills. It was a pleasant spring day; a babbling brook wound it's way down towards a lake in the distance.

Opposite the door was a homey little cabin, with an (open) white picket gate surrounding some a nice garden -- mostly flowers, but a couple fruit trees and what looked like some vegetables growing as well. Wild but maintained, as it were.

Tending to some of these flowers was a woman who would look almost familiar to the trio. They had seen other versions of people they knew in the town and in the factory, but Sam could tell this mental presence was different. Other versions of, say, Sara or Tereza or whoever she had met in the town still mentally 'felt' like Will -- they were all him, after all, after a fashion. The woman in the feathery dress didn't not feel like Will, but it clearly wasn't him. Nor was it her -- it was closer to the feeling she had gotten when she had encountered Melpomene in Will's head so many months ago -- an echo, a memory of a presence, as it were.

The woman straightened up and regarded the new visitors with a careful eye. "Well, it looks like the three of you had an adventure."

[Samantha McManus]

"I ah... don't mean to be rude here, but you're not exactly who we're looking for."

"We've got to get him back up to speed if everything's to work, aye?"

She gestures to the X-Man.

[Groundskeeper]

"I may not be who you were looking for, but I am who you have found," the other Sam smiled. "Well, you had better come in, and we'll get this all sorted, aye?"

"I see you've put Humpty Dumpty back together again, more or less."

[Toshiro Narumi]

"That's the plan. Though I have yet to find out if my delivery reached the right part of Will on this side."

[Groundskeeper]

"Oh, it arrived just fine. It's sitting on his desk inside. Getting him to take his medicine is another matter entirely"

The Groundskeeper walked over to the X-Man, walking a slow circle around him. She grasped his jaw, and turned his head left and right, apparently evaluating Sam's handiwork. Finally, with a satisfied nod, she let him go. "Not bad work, I would say."

[Samantha McManus]

"Best I could do working from memory. Still fine-tuning him a bit to get him back to how he was."

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Hopefully my fuzzy side can talk the other Will to the negotiating table. I think he's almost there."

[Groundskeeper]

"It's a never-ending process, aye? You could tweak and twist all your life, if you chose to. At some point, you need to cut the threads and consider it done, whether your fingerprints are still visible or not."

The other woman led them up the garden path and unlocked the door, leading the trio inside to a well-appointed living room. Over-stuffed leather armchairs, row upon row of books on the wall. Lots of wood and mahogany; it smelled deeply of homey comfort.

On a table in the center of the room was Tosh's six-pack of bonbons, currently untouched.

"Can I tempt anyone with some tea? Biscuits? Negotiations, as you put it, can be tiresome."

[Samantha McManus]

"We need all three of them to bridge the gap, aye? Or at the least, we need an infusion from the other two so this one is strong enough to put his town back together."

[Groundskeeper]

"Aye. And, you've come to the right place for at least one of the three. He runs in here and hides, sometimes, when he's feeling particularly weak. Not his most redeeming quality, mind you, but we must forgive each other our foibles, aye?"


She disappeared into the kitchen for a moment, and came back out with a tray. A kettle with some delicious smelling tea, a plate with some cookies biscuits, three mugs...and a small wooden box. Simply but skillfully carved, made of dark, polished wood with a gold clasp and a hinged lid. Elegant, but understated. The kind of box you might use for storing silverware, or handkerchiefs, or jewelry.

It looked nigh-identical to the second box Will had brought Tereza and Sam on their celebratory breakfast after Tereza had bought him from ASHLIE, and very, very similar to a much larger box Sam had opened in Will's head oh-so-long ago.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Okay, Mister Stubborn has agreed to listen so long as he's treated with respect," Tosh reported.