::The landlord leads Petunius through the grubby hallway to a polished-looking door. But when he opens it, Petunius might learn never to judge a book. Anyways.::

"Two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, no mice. What more could you ask for, eh son?"

::Handing Petunius the keys, he lumbers off back down the hallway.::

(Wow. All that glitters definitely isn't gold. Whatever, I suppose I can work with this)

"Yeah, it's...great. Thanks"

::Petunius takes the keys and watches the landlord go out before inspecting his new home more closely::

(Guess I was one of the lucky ones)

::Mildly satisfied, he leaves the apartment and heads out into the Hallway::

::Petunius unlocks the door to his apartment and lets Paz and Chloe in first before following suit::

"Take a seat. I'd offer you something to eat or drink but this place is more barren than a post apocalyptic wasteland"

::He takes a dish cloth lying by the sink, runs it under cold water and applies pressure to the bump on his head, which has now begun to bleed. He moves to the lounge area and flops onto a comfortable armchair before going back to the already initiated subject of magic::

"My shield? Yeah it's cool I guess. Just have to work on controlling it better. Not just that, I've apparently got a hell of a lot to learn about being a witch."


::Realising that he hasn't properly introduced himself to Chloe, he turns to her::

"Hi, sorry I never got to say hello properly. I'm Petunius. That's Paz over there. Excuse the mess out there, it kind of got a little messy. I take it you're a witch too?"

(I better hope she is because this could turn out in two ways. Either I've exposed myself to a complete stranger and she's gonna go to the papers or she'll just think I'm a crackpot wanna blessed be.)

::Chloe walks in and stands uncomfortably off to the side. She listens to Pehtunius talk about 'shields', trying not to show her confusion.::

(Blend in...)

::When Petunius turns his attention to her, she shifts a bit.::

"Ummm... Witch? Not quite... Well..."

::She crosses her arms, shifting again.::

"This lady told me I was a Shapeshifter/Familiar..."

(I am oh so cool...)

::Petunius watches Chloe's visible discomfort over the subject at hand::

(O-kay. You are now officially a lunatic. Stop talking! Just stop talking now!)

"Uh shapeshifter? That's...unusual. So does that mean you can turn into anyone of us?"

(Dude. You. A hole. Keep digging.)

"Look, I realise this is all weird and hard to swallow all at once."

(Yeah, double entendres. Those are certain to make her feel more at ease. Why are you still talking?)

::Petunius rubs the back of his head before continuing::

"It might sound like I've got more than a bump on the head but trust me, I'm serious here. I know all this talk of witches and powers and whatnot is hard to believe. Hell, I'm still trying to deal with it myself. But the way I figure, we could all sit here waxing lyrical about our sudden change in lifestyle and wait for those...things to come and pick us all of one by one or we could be more proactive and try to find a way to make sure they don't come after us again"

(Nice, real nice. If that doesn't scare her, nothing will)

::After walking into Petunius' apartment and sitting quietly, Paz now takes the turn to pipe up::

"I think you're right there, but what can we do? I know squat about all this magic stuff and it's actually really freaky, but I suppose there is squat we can do about it. And like Petunius said, if we don't learn were sitting ducks, there are people like that guy in the hallway out there in the world that are gonna come and kick our asses. I say we fight, and do it damn well!"

::Paz comes to his senses realising he has risen to his feet during his outburst of ranting, and sits down slowly and calmly::

(Lord, i'm a geek)

"Seriously though, if we fight together then we can actually do alot more, I mean what the hell use am I by myself? We just need to pool our seperate abilities to make us unstoppable"

(I started ranting again didn't I?)

"Thing is, does anyone know anything about magic? I mean, that's why I went to the magic store before, so I could learn more about what I could do. Anyone think we should head back after we've been cleaned up?"

::Paz looks around for a reply, or some form of reaction::

::Chloe stops shifting a bit.::

"No, I don't think I can. I think it's only the eagle thing... Which I haven't had the time to practice yet..."

::She backs up a bit as Paz starts to get all worked up. She tries not to smile as he clams down and then absently rises again.::

"I think that would be a fine idea. But like I said, I need some practice with the whole... birdbreath thing."

::She laughs to herself again before heading off to the scrungy kitchen, in search of some rags or paper towels to start cleaning her new friends up with.::

::Paz rises from his seat::

"I'm just gonna go back to my apartment to get myself sorted out, I need more clothes"

::He looks down at his blood stained shirt::

(Like I can be seen in public looking this way!)

"Want me to come back here or meet somewhere else? You can just come get me...mind you, I do think we should head down the magic store. I'll go get some supplies and stuff, so we know a little more about what we can do"

::He scurries off to his apartment::

::Chloe sticks her head into the hallway after Paz, rags in hand from the kitchen.::

"Just bring a shirt. I should dress your wounds."

(Hmm... Slightly kinky... I probably shouldn't yell something like that in the hallway...)

::Petunius gets up from the armchair and waits for Chloe to clean up his wounds::

(Mmm. Soft hands...)

"I don't think Paz is coming back anytime soon. We probably should meet him over at the magic shop"

::With that, he picks up a coat from the rack, puts it on and waits for Chloe to follow him to the magic shop::

::Chloe sighs.::

"You're wounds are going to infected... If you don't want me to help you, you should at least take a shower or something."

(If he doesn't want me to touch him, as things are seeming right now, screw it.)

::Chloe moves past Petunius, her arms crossed against the draft in the hallway. She is without a coat. She goes to leave, but then remembers she has no idea where it is. She waits.::

::The door opens and Petunius enters with a worn out sigh. He closes it and dumps his shopping bags on one of the armchairs in the living room::

"Okay, first things first, I better clean this wound up. Then we'll see about getting me a job. Might try at P3 tonight. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky."

::He walks off to the bathroom to start cleaning up his wound::

::Having fully cleaned himself up, Petunius makes himself a quick snack before heading out into the hallway in order to make his way towards P3 and enquire about a job::

::Petunius enters, closes the door and purposefully walks towards the living room area and unpacks the bags of magical goods he had purchased from the shop earlier on. He rummages for a bit before finding a small crystal attached to a silver chain. He moves over to a shelf, searches some more and digs out a map::

"Okay, scrying. This had better work. Daddy needs to find a new witch on the run."

(I really just said that didn't I?)

::He closes his eyes for a moment and breathes deeply a couple of times. Feeling calm and centred, he opens them and slowly drags the crystal through the air above the map all the while concentrating fully and hoping that the location of Andrea will be found::

Andrea is in the magic shop.

Thank you for scrying with Scry Me E-Z maps.

"Co-operative and polite. My kinda map"

::Petunius places the map and crystal together and puts them away safely in a drawer next to the shelf. He then gets his jacket and goes out into the hallway in order to make his way to the magic shop::

::The door opens and Petunius enters. He takes off his jacket and places it on the coat rack before locking the door. He then walks over to the bags of shopping that are still haphazardly strewn about the living room and picks up a book of potions, along with various jars, glasses, boxes and other containers of ingredients and moves to the kitchen area. Taking out a large brass pan which he intends to use as a makeshift cauldron, he fills it with water from the tap and places it on the stove before tossing the various ingredients in, while following the instructions in the book carefully::

::After what feels like quite a few hours, Petunius emerges from behind the kitchen counter, with as many as 25 multicoloured vials containing among them, exploding potions, potions to turn someone into stone, potions to create a fog and potions to magically transport one's self from place to place. Feeling satisfied with himself, he walks over to the other side to view them better::

(Not bad for a day's work. Let's just hope they don't fuck things up like that spell did.)

::He gathers the vials together and places them into a pouch before getting his jacket and making his way out to the hallway in order to see if any of the other witches are still at the magic shop::

::Petunius enters his apartment and closes the door. He takes a moment to savour the lingering feeling of the kiss and the ensuing thoughts of Phoebe then suddenly walks over to the mess of occult paraphernalia and picks up his map and crystal once again.::

(They might have that blue light mojo thingy, but I've got some mojo of my own too...)

::He holds the crystal and chain over the map and concentrates intensely before swinging it slowly over it, hoping to find the location of Phoebe.::

::The crystal swings wildly for a moment before calming down. Gradually it pulls down and gravitates towards 1329 Prescott Street, more specifically The Halliwell Manor::

::Petunius quickly puts the map and crystal away and hurries to the front door. He glances back one last time, checks in his pocket to make sure that the potions hadn't spilled or anything, then makes his way out into the hallway.::

::Petunius walks into his apartment after what feels like months and closes the door. He takes off his leather jacket and sets it down carefully on the sofa before heading to the bathroom for a nice long hot shower.::

::Petunius gets out of the shower, feeling clean and refreshed. Soon he is in his bedroom, tempted by the prospect of sleep.::

"Just a few minutes won't--"

::He doesn't finish that sentence, as he immediately drops off to the land of nod.::

::Luke slips the folded sheet of paper under the door with much difficulty. The note reads as follows:

"Went to P3. The scrying crystal pointed out Carys' location there. Meet me there and bring the elixir and Zionne summoning vial."

With that done, Luke hobbles over to the front door at Halliwell Manor.::

::Petunius wakes up, still not feeling fully rested but marginally more energetic than before. Washing his face and brushing his teeth once more, he heads back to the hallway, picking up the note Luke had slipped under the door but not yet reading it.::

::Petunius walks inside and locks the door before heading over to the kitchen and pondering over a snack.::

::After a hearty meal and a long overdue clean up of his apartment, Petunius goes over his magical supplies and deciding he was low on a few things, heads back out to the front entrance.::

::Petunius walks into his apartment and closes the door. Stripping off, he tosses his clothes on the floor and walks off into the bathroom in order to take a long hot shower.::

::Petunius gets out of the shower and is about to get changed when he hears the commotion coming from the hallway. Wearing nothing but a towel around his waist, he runs to the hallway to investigate.::

::After what feels like days, Petunius, now fully dressed, walks back out to the hallway.::

::Petunius walks into his apartment and closes the door before promptly locking it. He quickly marches over to the kitchen area and pulls out a large cauldron like pot before filling it with water and putting it over the stove, which he promptly lights. Reaching into the cupboard, he pulls out a few herbs like hemlock, billingsroot and nightshade and places each one consequetively into a mortar and pestle before grinding them finely. Once that's done, he tosses them all into the pot and stirs them together, stopping occasionally to add in a few other ingredients. After about half an hour, the potion is ready and he carefully places a small amount into a vial and then goes back down to the front entrance.::

::Walking in, Petunius tosses the keys onto the key holder before moving into the living room and turning the TV on. He flops onto the sofa and soon nods off.::

::Petunius suddenly wakes up with a jolt and looks around him, trying to reorientate his senses. He rubs his eyes and looks at the TV, which was showing the news. Not finding anything of interest on there, he turns it off and gets up off of the sofa, stretching as he does so and the letting the warm tingle of waking reality wash through his being. He goes to the bathroom and removes his clothes, getting into the hot shower.

After about twenty minutes, he walks back into the living room fully dressed.::

(Okay, apparently the Paz thing can wait, which is all good because I need to focus on the whole Cole/Marissa thing anyway.)

::Grabbing a notepad and a pen, he sits back down and begins to construct a flowchart consisting of all the times he had runs in with both Cole and Marissa and the elusive connections he knows deep down exist between the two of them.::

::After a couple of hours of hardcore sleuthing, Petunius puts down the pen and notepad, which is now complete with scribblings and random things crossed out here and there. He closes his eyes and rubs his temples to ease his now throbbing head, while his mind continues to race with fresh thoughts about Cole and Moony's connection. Deciding that it was way past the time that he told someone about his suspicions, he gets up and stretches once more before going over to an old trunk that he kept his magical supplies in.

Upon opening it, he pulls out five magical candles that he annoints with various oils and spices before placing them into the position of a pentagram. He then walks over to the kitchen and rummages about in the cupboard and two boxes of old Corn Flakes, some demon blood in jars and mouldy old cheese later, finds some salt. He walks back to the pentagram of candles and sprinkles the salt around them, thus consecrating the magic circle before sitting down in the middle and gathering his energy in preparation for his spell to summon Leo.::

(He's a whitelighter first and foremost. He has to know everything, regardless of what I did, or why he thinks I did what I did.)

"I call upon the sacred spirits of magic older than time.
Guiding gods, divine benefactors,
May my words travel through the ether
And reach the one I wish to bring before me.
Leo Wyatt, hear my call as I summon thee."

"Oh fuck this."

::Petunius curses at the heavens before extinguishing his candles and cleaning up his stuff. Realising a considerable amount of time had passed since he locked himself in, he decides to stretch his legs and walks out to the hallway.::

::Petunius walks in with Lirie and Patience and closes the door.::

"Make yourselves at home. First we gotta talk about the issue of how to respond if we succeed in luring Paz here and he gets a little testy. Namely, offensive powers."

::Looks at Patience.::

"You're our trump card here in that respect. How good's your control over it?"

:: Lirie strides into the bedroom automatically, flopping onto the bed. She lies on her stomach, wiggling her feet up in the air behind her ::

"You said..."

:: She shrugs, looking around ::

(Is this the first time I'm here...?)

"How are we on explosive potions frontier?"

"I can mix up a batch in no time. But I think this situation might call for a bit more than your garden variety exploding potion, slash vanquish combo."

::Petunius sits down on a nearby chair, wondering how Lirie had managed to make her way into the bedroom since it's, you know, a whole other room. Just because I don't have a penthouse, hobangs, doesn't mean all my rooms are in one boxed space. So there.::

"He might send his...boss? Yeah, boss after us. And last time I faced him, my powers were useless."

"Since when do employees send their bosses after people?"

:: Lirie watches Petunius through the door, since you know, she did went to the bedroom and just held the door open. Ho. ::

"When you think about it... how many reliable active-powered witches do we know? Cause Pazzie, with all do respect to your bubbliness, is good at being bad...

OMG! Luke's is Robbie Williams!"

::Blinks at the last statement.::

"Um...good for him? And employees send their bosses when said bosses are all destruct-o-rama on the slightest whim."

::He sighs and rubs his temples.::

"I'd say we should go around the complex and see who we can find, but this place isn't exactly the Garden of Eden of reliable witches. The only one we can rely on is teh wikkin at the magic shop-- oh and..."

::Flicks out a hand at Lirie, surrounding her in an anti-magic field and thus preventing her from using her powers.::

"Try turning into a puddle."