Oh hello there

Perhaps she would do a rewatch as well while she dried her wings. Five was a real pain in the ass. Rook had a feeling he had considered how much of a nuisance the ruin could be for her before using it as a beacon.

"I'm glad you guys understand the importance of settling this with empathy and diplomacy." she then added. Lucien looked even more pleased to hear that.

"Indeed, we are. I'm Empathy," he began, before motioning to Antonio, "while he's Diplomacy."

"And I will provide my point of view as well." Willow reassured.

"I especially want that." Rook told her.

Ratchet was going to regret setting foot back in the city. Even if that meant she was only allowed to punch him, Rook wanted this to be a night to remember for him.

"Hell yeah they are! This is awesome!" Fae's enthusiasm could have propelled her upwards. Instead, she summoned a spear made of pure light and used it to keep her balance while quite literally running up the front of the building. "If it's always this wild, I'll have to drop by more often!"

"And I suppose you can always count on the Torchic powers." Lucien replied, before emerging from the fog, "Excuse me."

Once turned fully solid, Lucien raised his arms, the cuffs lightning up right away. Levitation was a spell that clearly belonged to the fae, but unlike the full blooded fairy ahead, he preferred it when the ground was firmly under his feet.

The moment of hesitation allowed Willow to aim her grappling hook and follow her double. It almost looked like a boring exercise from the way her gaze wandered to the others on the way up. But it looked like she had another surprise for Simon, as she retrieved a small camera and tossed it at a wall. The little spherical device would blend perfectly in the dark.

"It occurred to me you might appreciate a second point of view." Willow said, sending a link to the camera feed, "I feel much safer with you watching our backs."

Meanwhile, Lucien had found the courage to get himself up in the air. His ascent was far more gracious than Rook's, who had resorted to breaking her way through the front door to head up on the roof. Some property damage was acceptable in this case.

Only Erica was missing now. She was always happy to hang out with Travis, but they had a street fight to get back to.

"Hold on tight! We're taking the fast lane!"

Which coincidentally meant literally sliding down into the abyss. They were back into the city in no time and Erica was already biting through one of the bananas.

"These are real good. Oh! One more thing." One large shadow hand emerged from the ground holding a baseball bat, "So you won't have to touch Five or Ratchet."

It was best not to take their chances there.

With his audience finally gathering, Five figured it was time for him to stand up. He had done his best to arrange Russell's seat. The blanket did absolutely nothing against the toxic cocktail cursing through his veins, but that was the closest thing to goodwill Five was willing to show. Kicking Ratchet off the roof unfortunately wasn’t an option. He needed a punching bag.

"Look, Ratchet. The whole family's here— Where's Rook?"

Right on cue, Rook burst through the hatch then, coming to an abrupt halt while the flames retreated back into her body. She let out a sigh and wiped some ash off her face.

"Why the fuck are you sitting up here? Freaking weirdo." Rook grumbled, leaning on her knees, "What... What did you do to Russell?"

"Looks like we got a vertically challenged bird on our hands, boss!" Ratchet mocked her, "You guys all look terrible! Did we catch you at a bad time?"

Seeing that Rook had appeared to be getting more and mor soaked, and knowing her affinities, Bill then offered the umbrella without another word. Now that the sun was significantly blocked out, he didn't need it so urgently.

"I can accept being diplomacy," Antonio said, with a small smirk, "And I am looking to seeing your angle on all of this as well, Willow."

Antonio was at least looking forward to that part, even if he really didn't want to have to deal with Five again, especially not so soon. But it had to be done, and at least getting to torture Ratchet would provide some carthasis after.

"It'll certainly be good to see you more often," Bill said, before he then used his shadows as a grappling hook to rappel himself upwards, just he had done during their last battle all those months ago.

"Yes, it would be," Leofric agreed. He then got back to muttering the spell in preparation.

He then became slightly transparent, and jumped through the wall, disappearing from sight entirely. It seemed that he had his own plan for ascending.

Antonio had taken to jumping, using his stick and his magic as footholds, as well as any hollows in the walls of the tower. He had certainly approved, given that his movements were very fluid and his leaps were high. Claws also dug into the wall, leaving indents as they did so. They had gotten sharper since the last encounter.

"You can count on me to keep an eye out," Simon promised, as the camera was set up, "Don't you worry there, Willow."

It would especially be useful if Five or Ratchet had any hidden traps or henchman waiting in the shadows to get involved. Simon would keep all eyes and cameras open for anything of the sort.

"I'm more than ready," Travis said, but that still didn't stop him from letting out a surprised yell as they started to slide. He quickly got used to however, taking the trip in stride, "Well, this is definitely better than flying on a plane."

He also looked pleased to get the baseball bat, admiring and taking a quick practice swing before he got moving again.

"Oh yeah, it's all coming together," he said with a little grin, "Let's see if I can get some mangling done this time."

The first thing that hit Bill was smell of Russell's blood once he made it up to the top. Some of it was still dripping from under the cuff, before the stains faded

"Bloody hell," he only said, wincing, before he glanced up at first, "What you have done? Turned the poor lad into a lab experiment?"

It wasn't one particular poison that Russell was suffering from, it was a concoction of multiple, and Bill could hardly tell where one started and the other began. He supposed it was a blessing Russell was asleep, given that he most likely wasn't feeling any pain right now. But by the way his eyes moved beneath the lids, he was experiencing some awfully intense dreams.

"You keep her name out of your mouth!" Antonio snapped at Ratchet, his tail twitching in irritation.

Leofric finished the spell just as he rose up through the wall, like it hadn't even been there. A transparent dome of blue light had started to surround everyone in range. When that was done, Leofric reached into his coat before his arm emerged with his shield.

"I'd say it's a good time to kick your ass," Bill said, before he looked at Erica, "Nah, that's too good for him. He needs something a bit more painful."

"We can save that for after this," Leofric suggested.

It was strange material for a family photo book, but it could go between the pictures from the camping trip and whatever they were going to do together next. Five had brought them closer, after all. The times they were going to keep humiliating him deserved the recognition.

"I guess I'm not that lousy of a boss after all. Four out of five families is still a good result." Rook said with a shrug, "Well, I can't tell you guys what to do to Ratchet. Just make sure not to do anything too brutal to him while I'm going to be very busy kicking Five's butt."

Lucien couldn't help a small malicious grin, glad to be quietly enabled. Ratchet wasn't going to get away with hurting Russell like that just because he was a regular horrible human being.

"You heard the boss. We must be on our best behavior." Lucien said.

Ratchet would regret ever crawling out of the ditch the Twins had left him in.

"Now that one sounds like a joke!" Fae chimed in.

"Your ride will be there shortly." Willow announced. The shadows were already gathering by Erica, "Ah. I certainly hope that won't be the case."

Losing a limb, even temporarily, wasn't an experience Russell needed to get acquainted with. She would do anything possible to avoid that.

"The hope is that between all the tools we have, we can find a way to pry it off before it comes to that." Rook said then, "Ratchet doesn't really enchant his stuff and we already have some experience with it. Hopefully, we can spare him that at least."

But they'd deal with that once they got there. They first had to reach to their painfully obvious destination without causing too much alarm while Fae lit up the whole street.

"That's right! You gotta do things with style!" Which included defying gravity wherever simply getting around an obstacle was just too boring. "Nice grippers, Bill!"

Lucien needed none of that. He would leave Fae to her sliding and gliding from one pole to another and simply faded into the fog to keep up with the group.

"Come on, Antonio. You don't want Rook to curl your tail."

The taunt was a little moment of lightness while they hurried ahead. Rook's magic was as effective as it was unstable and none of them wanted to get caught in her path. But with stealth out of the window, the occasional set of burning fingerprints could be overlooked. The flurry of flames advanced, careful not to melt everything in her path.

"Eh, and I thought Willow had big pockets." Erica grinned, before her nose caught on the scent of bananas, "Thanks. I'll be right back!"

Right as Erica retreated into the abyss, a pair of hands emerged to take the bananas from Travis' hands. That was an excellent offering and with some luck, they would help Five make another swift exit once they were done with him.

"Hello, Big Big Bro! It's good to see you." Erica greeted Travis with a smile that was a little too wide as usual, "The others are taking the long way, we'll take the shortcut. Grab on!"

It was certainly wasn't a normal storm. That was for sure.

"And hey, there is a silver lining in all of this," Bill suggested, "We'll get more material for the Fam Kicking Ass compilation, and the album. It's one way to see it."

It seemed that Bill was feeling fairly confident about how a confrontation could end, despite everything that had been discussed moments before.

"You're not lousy at all," Leofric only said, "And we'll make sure to save you a chance to get your own back at him as well after you have dealt with Five."

Antonio was wearing a devious little smirk of his own at Rook's indirect blessing. He was certainly looking forward to making Ratchet pay. If anything, the man deserved it for not learning anything from last time, and he had to be taught an even harsher lesson.

"I'll show him best behaviour all right," Antonio replied then.

Fantasising would be need to be done later however. Right now, it was time to get going.

"It's a bit of both," Bill said to Fae, with a small grin of his own.

"Glad to hear it, I'll be ready," Travis said, with a nod. It seemed that he wasn't too worried about what said Travel might entail.

Perhaps he figured it was worth it when it came to kicking some ass and saving his brother.

"That's what I'm also hoping for," Bill said. It would be a last resort, and with any luck, it wouldn't need to be used, "But the sooner we get there, the sooner we can sort this whole mess out."

As he swung, he smiled at Fae.

"Thank you, they are pretty neat, aren't they?" Bill said.

"I still prefer that to freezing," Antonio said, as he looked over, impressed at the way Rook moved among the flames, "But I do see your point."

"It's all about how to modify a space to your needs," Leofric said, "But we will see you soon."

He would soon get his shield out once they were close enough, but he was already summoning the protective spell for the fam to have when they got up to Five.

Travis let out a low impressed whistle at how quickly Erica had gotten through to him, allowing her to take the bananas from his hands.

"Good to see you too, Sports Elf," Travis said. Despite the circumstances, he couldn't help but smile at the greeting, "Sounds good to me."

With that, he took Erica's hand.

"Ready when you are."

Russell didn't have much to say about the current matter, due to still being unconscious.

He had been placed on a folding chair with a blanket over him. While his body was still unmoving thanks to the mix of toxins keeping him numb and sedated, his eyes still moved with a harsh intensity beneath the lids. It seemed the dreams he was having were not pleasant ones.

Russell chuckled a little bit.

"I, I know Grand, Grand Theft Auto does," Russell said, "Or, or least it, it did for, for an event. But it, it was in this, this game that, that came out this, this year. Poke-Pokemon Pokopia. You, you can, you can get, get particular items so, so you can launch fireworks in, in the game."

But then a new thought came to mind.

And he definitely has never played Pokopia since he didn't have a Switch.

But the idea of actually being able to do so in a video game actually sounded like fun. Especially if it was a whole game dedicated to it.

Apparently, it had been allowed up again for the New Year's Eve that year too, but he couldn't really remember. But then he smiled a little bit on hearing Worth's enthusiasm for playing.

"Well, you, you are in, in luck," Russell said, "We, we did pick that up as, as a, a 4th July special for, for customers to play."

Russell then got out a laptop from a locked cabinet, and then placed it down, opening it up. There was a username "EmeraldWingedLewis" and a password (CardinalRobinPigeon) for the account attached to the laptop on a note, just in case it was logged out.

It was already opened up onto the Steam up, and as it was, Fireworks Mania was one of the more recently played games.

Russell was, as always, heartwarmingly considerate.

"Little critters always come first. But my only lil' critters are bugs an' they don't care. There was a big show bein' set off down by th' water, so I sat up on th' top of my building an' watched with a 12 pack of beer. Not too shabby."

But then he thought, "Hey what nerd game do ya play that lets ya set off fireworks? Grand Theft Auto 'er somethin'?"

Russell chuckled a little bit.

"I, I know Grand, Grand Theft Auto does," Russell said, "Or, or least it, it did for, for an event. But it, it was in this, this game that, that came out this, this year. Poke-Pokemon Pokopia. You, you can, you can get, get particular items so, so you can launch fireworks in, in the game."

But then a new thought came to mind.