Xaviers!

Emilie had texted Victor to meet her at the garage, because she was goingto get to the bottom of this.

She walked the bike back to the garage and waited for Victor.

Thus far the machine has betrayed nothing to Emilie's gentle threats of drill presses and belt sanders, but she does have some difficulty getting it over the lip of the door's threshold into the shop.

Meanwhile, one of Sean's wards registers that it's been tripped...

Steph followed with Em, helping provide some muscle to move the bike where needed, still curious about what exactly was going on here.

Victor eventually showed up in surprisingly tame and dressed-down attire, because one didn't want to get engine oil on a suit. He knocked on the door before stepping inside.

"I dunno how much help I'll be, I know almost nothing about eng... that's a big dog."

"Victor, this is my room mate Stephanie." Emilie replied pointedly.

"Stephanie, this is the jackass I'm bound to, Victor."

"Hey now, there's no ring on my finger." Victor quipped, giving Emilie a little look. Funny, from what he remembered this whole bound across dimensions thing was supposed to be hush hush.

Sean had been asleep in his workshop when the wards were tripped and he wandered out to find the source. He looked well, like he'd just been woken up from a nap with his hair in disarray and beard slightly out of shape. Several paper golems followed in the air around him.

Stephanie bristled a bit at Vic calling her a dog, and she let out a low, threatening growl before catching herself and covering her mouth in embarrassment.

"Don't pull punches, he deserved it."

Emilie's attention turns towards the door and Sean with his menagerie of disposable 'friends'.

"Hey Wiz, just in time to watch us destroy a bike that's not a bike at all."

Victor waved to Sean, and adopted a sort of fish out of water expression. Between the little paper people, the werewolf, and now a not-bike, he was starting to feel like he was in a Studio Ghibli movie. He remembered to get out of the fey realm, right?

"Wait, we're gonna break your bike? But I thought you loved this bike."

"I love my bike. This is not my bike."

"Bike?" Sean asked an edge of sleepiness still in his voice. "I was just looking for... why do you want to destroy a bike?

Victor stepped a little closer. "... it looks like your bike though."

“Smells like a bike...whatever that means.”

Sean opened looked at the weave of magic around the bike and his three peers. Something was... off about this situation.

"Bikes shouldn't trip the wards I set up," Sean said.

There's something about the bike that resonates faintly.

All told, it's quite similar to something Sean's been dealing with lately.

Or someone he's been dating, depending on your view.

"That's the thing, isn't it? If it quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it must be a duck?

But here's the thing. Any scientist can tell you that your brain is lazy and fills in the blanks for your senses when you can't determine what a thing is.

And an inanimate object that animates of it's own volition is not a object at all.

It's a Stanton." She concludes.

"Now help me bore a hole in the hull so he stops pretending to be shit he doesn't own and gives me my bike back."

"Wait, like... used to have green hair Stanton? Why don't you just ask him to stop being your bike?

"... there's not more than one of him, is there?"

"I dunno, maybe. Shifters are weird and don't follow standard logic.

Anyways, let's break 'im."

"Did you TRY asking it?" Victor pushed the question a little more.

"Oh, and maybe try peeing on it first. 'cause if I was shapeshifted into a bike, I wouldn't want to be peed on."

"A: I tried reasoning with him and telling him to stop and he didn't.

B:I shouldn't have to ask anyone not to pretend to be my shit without my consent. Especially a thing I straddle over and ride around on like it's a goddamn pony.

C: We got plenty of time in our relationship to unbox your fetishes Victor. Right now, I want my bike back."

"Um, my fetish is sizeplay, clearly."

While they argue, the radio on the moped gives a faint crackle.

The talk of fetishes, even in jest, made Steph blush with embarrassment, though you couldn’t really tell underneath the fur. She was grateful for the distraction of the noise from the radio.

“...anyone else hear that?”

Bits of words start to filter through the static, soft but slowly clearer. Singing.

"Oh I just don't know where to begin
Though he says he'll wait forever
It's now or never
But she keeps him hanging on
The silly champion
She says she can't go home
Without a chaperone..."

Sean cursed and made a complicated set of hand gestures as the three paper golems moved to put themselves between the others and the bike.

"Oh bloody hell. Hannah if you're in the bike flash the headlight twice," Sean said as he drew energy to himself. "Because this is not a good time to dimension walk"

"Aww fuck, Em, your bike is Bumblebee."

"What's a Hannah and why's it pretending to be my bike." Emilie stated more than asked.

It doesn't seem to be switching stations at all. Just playing the one song still.

"Accidents will happen
We only hit and run
He used to be your victim
Now you're not the only one"

Victor furrowed his brow. He wasn't one to get the symbolism of song lyrics and poetry. It was one of the reasons he hated most English classes.

"Did someone run over Hannah with this bike?"

"Why do my goddamn timeline holes always come to bite me in the ass?" Emilie asked of no one in particular. She didn't recognize this song at all, and from previous experience she knew that it's creation fell in a timeline she didn't exist in and therefore had little contact with it.

“...timeline holes?” Steph asked, having a hard time keeping all the strangeness around her straight.

"A ghost and the last time I heard stuff over the radio bad things started happening," Sean said before looking over at Emilie and echoed Steph's question. He began casting a spell on the bike to try and see if there was something a hole or an entity actually in the bike playing tricks on them.

"I got gaps in my knowledge. I dunno what this shit is." She explained, psycho analyzing the lyrics as they played.

"Sounds like a song about jilted lovers or cheatin' or somethin'."

There's... something in the moped. A presence. It doesn't seem to bear as much trauma as Hannah, but that's honestly not surprising.

"Accidents will happen
We only hit and run
I don't want to hear it
'Cause I know what I've done"

"It's not Hannah, but still something that's had something... traumatic happen to it," Sean said feeling the presence. He starts chanting a spell to give the entity a gentle "push" out of the motorcycle.

Pushing the entity seems to cause it pain. The radio hisses and pops as Sean chants, only seeming to come back into tune during the pauses.

"There's so many fish in the sea
That only rise up in the sweat and smoke like mercury
But they keep you hanging on
They say you're so young
Your mind is made up but your mouth is undone"

"Was Hannah murdered?"

Sean stopped pushing at... whatever it was inside the bike for the moment.

"Yes," Sean said not really wanting to explain how many times Hannah appeared to have been murdered.

"Bike ghost, were you also murdered?"