Shannon twirled a long strand of her dark brown hair around her finger, staring out the window of the car as they drove. "So, where are we going, again?" she asked. It was supposed to be some sort of training exercise, they'd said, but she hadn't been notified until about ten minutes ago. Not that it mattered, anyways. She had a modest apartment, and she herself was fairly modest - jeans, boots, a plain black tanktop, and a black jacket - that was about as fancy as she got. She didn't really "dress up" ever, but for the sake of not looking a fool, she'd run a brush through her hair.

She blew a bubble with her gum and popped it, glancing over to Rafael. "Is this really necessary? I know I'm a "trainee" and all, but, I mean, I'm doing fine. I was about to go to bed when they called me and told me to be ready," she said. She was whining just a little, and she knew it, but she was all settled in with her ramen and her pillows, and now, well.

"I didn't even get to finish," she muttered to herself.

Rafael, in all honesty, hadn't been any less comfortable at home than Shannon had been with her ramen and pillows, but he was trying not to complain. Ilyana had not been kind the last time he gave her shit, and that really didn't mean he wouldn't do it again, but he was going to be more choosy about his battles. He still thought the VK was stupid for having a demon in that sort of position, but sometimes the company had its reasons.

Other times, it operated like a typical corporation, and he hated it.

He was NOT fond of being called out of his comfortable living room for this, but he understood the reasoning. If Shannon was going to do this job, training her properly was majorly important, and it was his job. If Ilyana tried to find out if he'd done his job properly and Shannon didn't match up to expectations, things could get messy. He didn't trust the demon to play fair

"It's for both our sakes. Ilyana just about ate my ass once this week already, and I'm not looking for a repeat. We'll go deal with this, then you can go back to bed and I can reclaim my couch," he told her, thinking back to the zombie flick he'd been in the middle of. Zombies were so much cooler in movies, where you didn't have to smell them.

"Yeah, and you still didn't tell me why she was bitching you out. Robert did, sort of, but I guess she didn't really feel the need to inform him of how she felt, either. I mean, if I were some all-powerful ancient demon lady from beyond, I'm sure I'd behave pretty much the same way, but still," she frowned. "It wasn't because of me, was it? My shit is all coming back good - or, I thought it was?"

Shannon still doubted herself sometimes. So far, she'd been doing surprisingly well. The fact that she was a human in a world full of supernasties, as she called them, put her at an amazingly poor disadvantage, but she was tough enough to hang on without getting blown to smithereens so far, so what was with all the scrutiny?

She shifted her weight in the seat, pulling her knees up to her chest and continuing to snap her gum as they drove. "What sort of werebeasty are we going out for tonight, anyways? They never send me along for any of the good stuff, only lame shapeshifter woes," she said, stealing a glance at him from the corner of her green eyes. It was meant to be a slight on his part, but he'd know she was kidding.

Still. She was sick of the kid stuff. When could she actually get a little badge and a cool title?

Rafael snorted when she got on his case about not telling her what Ilyana was bitching him out for, but he thought it was really amusing that she thought Robert would have told her. Robert Triton knew what the issue was, but he wanted to tell Shannon about as much as Rafael did. Which, in the end, was pretty much 'not at all'. Rafael had gotten called in because he wasn't training Shannon in the more messed up, dangerous areas of the job, in all honesty. And his reasons? He was still planning on convincing Shannon that she didn't WANT the job before she got traumatized by something like that.

Or worse, got used to it.

That'd be even worse, so he was trying to avoid it. Tonight was Ilyana's way of pushing at that, and he knew it. She knew his reasons, even if he hadn't said it, and she was forcing his hand on this one. He didn't like it, but he had little in the way of choices unless Shannon decided to drop out of the Custodian training. That was still his hope. "The only 'lame shapeshifter' you'll be dealing with tonight is me," he pointed out, giving her a sort of half-smirk that made it obvious he knew she was teasing, but he couldn't pull off a fully-fledged grin over it. He didn't like what was coming. At all, and not just because of Shannon.

"I still don't know why you'd possibly want this job, Shan. It's not all bright and shiny," he told her, glancing over at her here and there from the road.

It was a good thing Shannon couldn't read minds, or she'd have slapped him on the back of the head. "Stop mothering me, Ortega," she demanded, pronouncing his last name with a bit of flair. She glanced over at him, and then reached up to ruffle his hair. She loved how bright it was; if she had any artistic talent, she'd attempt to paint him, but as it was, she and watercolours made more messes than pictures.

She smiled at him, genuinely, and it showed in her eyes. "It doesn't have to be bright and shiny. You do it, don't you? It can't be all that bad. Besides, you met me, right?" she sang. "And I'm the most wonderfulest trainee ev-ver," she added, snapping her gum as she shifted back into a normal seating position in the car.

The smile faded as she went back to staring out the window, a little tug on her chest where her heart sometimes reacted to her emotions. She was young still, and human, and thusly she did have them. "I wish you wouldn't worry so much," she said softly. "Nothing's going to happen to me - not anything that I can't handle, and not anything that you can't handle, so stop worrying," she chided. Inwardly, she was cursing him for making her feel so pressured. When he worried, she tried to be perfect, and when she was trying, she usually botched things. She hated it when he stressed her out.

"Well, how far away are we? And what are we doing?" she asked, glancing back to him. She didn't want to openly tell him all the things going through her head. She tried to make it impersonal, even if he was good-looking and a generally amazing sort of person. She knew in her heart that jobs like this weren't tagged with long life expectancies, and it terrified her to think of it.

Honestly, he wouldn't have even been surprised if the 'stop mothering me' comment had come complete with a smack on the back of the head, so the ruffling of his hair really wasn't all that unexpected. He ducked a little towards his window, trying to swat her hand away while still focusing on the road, and he broke into that grin despite himself. He knew his hair amused her, especially since she'd sworn up and down that it was fake when she met him. Naturally, she'd had it explained to her and slowly started to believe him, so he was fortunate in not having to shift to prove it to her. Considering how uncommon macaws were, he sometimes felt pretty out of place, especially when it came to that sort of thing. Besides, he hadn't known her nearly as well back then as he did now, and he wasn't into new people. He'd be more inclined to shift for her now than he would have then.

Not that he was volunteering.

It wasn't just a good thing that Shannon couldn't read minds, but also good that Rafael couldn't. Blushing clashes horribly with his hair, and if she'd ever given him any thoughts about painting him, he'd turn like fifteen different shades of red before he settled on one.

He actually didn't comment on her 'you do it' reasoning, since that sure as hell wasn't a reason he wanted to consider. Just because he did it didn't mean it was something that he wanted her doing it, and he resented his father just a little for not warning him about what it was like. He didn't want her dealing with the troubles he did. He just...thought she was better than that. "That's no excuse, and you know it. You can be as wonderful as you want, but the job isn't, and that's my problem," he told her, not for the first time.

Of course, he punctuated it with a sigh, shut up and only returned to voicing his thoughts when she spoke up about him worrying. It was a nice try on her part, but that didn't mean it made him feel any better. Actually, it just made him feel more certain that she wasn't ready for this job. If she thought that there wouldn't be anything happening that she couldn't handle, then she obviously didn't understand all that she was getting herself into. Maybe tonight would help her with that, though he was hoping she wouldn't have nightmares over it. He certainly had the first time he'd dealt with this kind of thing. He still hated the things.

"It wouldn't be me if I didn't worry about it," he pointed out with a dry laugh, shaking his head. "I'm not worried about what you can handle, honestly. You adapt well enough that I don't worry about those things. I don't have to like it, though."

As for where they were going? She'd see soon enough. At least he'd been told that this was a small situation. "We're not far."

Shannon muttered something inaudible in response, but they'd started to slow down, so she quickly checked herself for the basics - phone, identification, and of course, firearm. Sometimes these clean-up jobs could get hairy, especially when there were lingering creatures, or even other creatures who'd come about to see what all the ruckus was about. Her last experience had been with a very testy leprechaun who wanted to discuss with her the innerworkings of his pot of gold - and he'd been grabby, too. She'd wanted to boot him square in the green ass like she used to do when she played Golden Axe way back in the day.

As she got out of the car, the stench of goblin flooded her nose. "Oh," she moaned, putting her jacketed forearm up to her face to try and stop the disgusting smell. She did little to hide her displeasure, and looked over at Rafael. "This is how you intend to get me to quit? This is a good start," she exclaimed, walking towards the abandoned building that had been recently relieved of its "infestation".

What Shannon and Rafael didn't know, of course, was that when Ilyana had come down on Rafael for Shannon not being prepared for what the job sometimes entailed, she'd intended to really show them quite what she'd meant. She trusted Shannon to be headstrong and confident enough to walk in without checking things, first, and that, of course, was the biggest mistake that Custodians and Enforcement Teams alike were guilty of. It was also the most fatal.

True to her nature, Shannon did just go right for the door. She pulled it open, glancing back to Rafael. There was plenty of light outside from the street and the moon, and she could see him perfectly. "Come on. Let's get this over with," she called. Before she could hear any warning, she went inside, plunging herself into the darkness.

The thing about goblins, of course, that Shannon failed to remember, was that in complete dark, they were fairly potent and highly aggressive little bastards. No sooner had she vacated her only saving grace, the illumination of the light, than did something grab her by the leg and yank her hard enough to cause a nasty fall. She shrieked - surprised, naturally, from inside the darkness.

Cue Rafael's heart attack.

Shannon wasn't the only one who set to checking herself for the basics instantly upon exiting the vehicle, though Rafael was a few steps behind because there were things in the trunk he needed.

Including a massive 'flashlight'. Really, it was better described as a spotlight, but it was one of those hand-held things that looked like a massive flashlight. Fortunately, he'd come prepared, just in case the goblin infestation wasn't as 'under control' as he'd been told. It also meant that he was too far behind Shannon as she walked in the door.

God, it stunk. Nasty little things, obviously. He wrinkled his nose, only refraining from covering up his face because he had more important uses for his arms, but it was a close call. "Whatever it takes," he told her, trying to act like the stench didn't bother him as much as it did. No matter how long he did this, he was still going to hate this shit. It wasn't something you really got used to.

Maybe THAT would convince Shannon to quit. Nastiness could definitely do the trick, and he was going to play that up afterwards.

That was the plan until she told him she wanted to get it over with, which was when he glanced up to see her walking inside. "Wa--"

She shrieked, and he seriously almost DID have a heart attack.

"SHANNON!"

Fortunately, most of what he was carrying wasn't anything breakable, because everything other than the flashlight was dumped on the ground while he flicked the light on and drew his gun. Naturally, he plunged right into the place himself, though that move was made less stupid by the fact that he actually had a light. It still wasn't going to be easy, though.

Damn it!

For a second, Shannon's vision cut out, which didn't matter terribly anyways since she was in total darkness. It wasn't until Rafael came in after her that she regained consciousness, but it had been enough time for her lack of fighting for things to happen that she didn't necessarily want. For starters, one of the Goblins had taken a healthy bite out of her forearm on the way down, literally jumping on her like a small dog. She laid very still for a second, making a moaning sort of confused noise, and then the pain set in.

She screamed.

The beam of Rafael's light hit the floor where her body was, the swarm of the critters that seemed no more than two feet tall and hideous in appearance (Cat's Eye, anyone?) immediately scattered like cockroaches having been exposed to the naked eye. The light literally burned their black and gray flesh, and high-pitched noises and hisses followed their forms as they raced around, trying to circle in on their "catch" and figure out a way to get it back to their disgusting little hole in whatever sewer tunnel or wall or whatever that they called a place of home.

Shannon rolled from her back to her side, using her good arm to reach for her gun. She un-holstered it and tried to clutch it with both hands to take any sort of aim. She found that when she tried to fix her fingers to force the target to lower to a level appropriate with the head of one of the shapes she saw darting around the dingy room, she couldn't, and in fact experienced great amounts of pain when she tried.

"The little motherfucker bit through my goddamn TENDONS!" she screamed. With her left hand, which was not dominant, she took half-assed aim and fired a few rounds into the darkness. The muzzle flare illuminated the area just enough to display how many of them there truly were still remaining, and Shannon realized that she had to get off of the ground before she got eaten alive by them.

"Rafael, shine the light on yourself!" she commanded, pulling herself up to a standing position. Goddamnit, she couldn't see well enough to shoot any of them directly. She dropped a few more rounds at her feet where she felt the wooshing of motion, and managed to hit one of them as it dove at her leg. She jumped up when the shell casings hit the ground, very aware that she could easily ricochet a bullet - and in this room, she wasn't sure where it would end up.

Another ended up at her ankle, taking a healthy bite. "Ah-AH!" she screamed. She made a run forward for Rafael, but its razor-sharp teeth had gone straight through her boot and punctured her Achilles tendon. She stumbled, her steps stuttering, and fell forward and into a pool of dead goblin goo, landing on her arm that was already wounded for the sheer fact that her dominant limb went out to catch herself, and failed.

"FUCK!" she screamed. This was all happening too fast.

For a split second, Rafael thought she was dead. It was fast, too fast, but he thought for an instant that she was finished, and that the goblins had struck a fatal blow. She was bleeding, so he couldn't be sure, not until she moved. Then, he breathed a short breath of relief, keeping the flashlight aimed at her while he watched his own back, gun raised to deal with whatever critters came looking to take a bite out of HIM.

He flinched when she screamed about the bite, and flicked his attention to her briefly enough that one of the little fuckers jumped him, digging claws and teeth into his shoulder from behind. Naturally, this was NOT cool with Rafael, but this totally wasn't his first rodeo. It still hurt like hell, but he grit his teeth and raised his gun to blow the top of the little fucker's head off rather than try to fling it off. The good thing about this was that it died, and hopefully scared some of the others. They seemed to react badly to gunfire, which was encouraging. Maybe if they shot enough of them, they could get out long enough for him to get something that would deal with them better.

Now, as for the bad things about shooting his goblin attacker. For starters, he really didn't want that gun fired so close to his ear, since there was an unmistakable ringing sound following the blast, and the creature's teeth being jerked free sure as hell didn't feel good in his shoulder. The best part, though? He totally splattered the whole left side of his face and head, including his ear and neck, with goblin goo. "Jesus Christ, they explode on impact!" he shouted, less than pleased with that turn of events, and jerked to make sure that he kept Shannon in the light whenever one of the little bastards took advantage of shadows.

The next one that lunged for him got an elbow to the face (which hurt because he didn't take teeth into account), but he just about knocked its teeth down its throat and rushed forward for Shannon. That may not have been the best idea, considering how they were being circled, but his goal was the get her the hell out of there before they both got eaten alive. "Don't be stupid. Get up," he told her regarding the light issue, and had to juggle gun and light to have enough of a free hand to grab her upper arm in an attempt to help her up. When another bit into his calf, he merely hissed and tried to kick at it, but the point was to get Shannon moving. Preferably before he got totally trashed, but he healed up faster than she did.

It was a good thing, too, since his back was completely plunged in darkness. The light left a massive shadow behind him, and he had to keep trying to shake the things before they could latch on. "Please, quick," he hissed, trying to pull her towards the door while keeping her in front of him and bathed in light. Given the injury that was hampering her ability to walk, that was one hell of a trick, and one that involved him holstering his gun. He was going to have to depend on Shannon to shoot anything that got close to his neck or anything, if she had the presence of mind to look, and he simply put his attention into holding her upright and keeping the light on her. This was a mess.

"Fucking FUCK!" she yelled again, throwing her weight up as Rafael began to pull her. She was about to get dragged if she didn't try to stand, and her arm nearly rotated out of socket as she lost her balance, trying to contort herself in a position that would allow her to stand. She aimed at one that was crawling across the floor towards her and blasted its head clean off, and then looked at Rafael, a panicked expression on her face.

"I CAN'T FUCKING HELP BUT THINK WE'VE BEEN AMBUSHED!" she announced, swiping a kick out with her good leg to try and thump another away. They needed to get to the door, NOW. With him dragging her along, and her trying to hop and not smash her face on the floor, it was a lengthy procedure. She was trying to fire against the onslaught of goblins that were swarming them, but it didn't take long before she was out of ammunition.

Without a second thought, she reached across Rafael's side to where his gun was, brushing his stomach and un-clipping it. Right as she did so, a goblin jumped on him from - God, it had to have been somewhere high, because she refused to believe they had that much leverage - and prepared to latch onto his head. She felt terrible about firing so completely next to his ears, but what else could she do?

BANG!

Now her ears were ringing - she couldn't hear a goddamn thing. She mentally reminded herself to bring flash-bang grenades the next time they were going to work with goblins, though, and as they hit the door and spilled out into the street, she broke away from him and was already hopping to the car, bleeding everywhere.

"I want a fucking can of gas and some matches!" she roared, unable to hear how truly loud she was, which of course was in part to firing a gun right by her own face. She pounded on the trunk of the car, biting her lip to seize back waves of pain. She would not cry, she would not cry, she would not cry..

Whether or not Rafael was going to be eaten slowly, one bite at a time, over the course of their painstaking exit from the building seemed up for debate, but he didn't complain. If Shannon had the time to pay attention, she'd have noticed flinches and hisses on his part between him trying to help her along and shake attackers, but he didn't yell and he didn't curse. Not yet.

Fortunately, most of the things didn't get as far as his head. They bit and scratched at his arms, legs and back, but he mostly managed to knock them away (or Shannon shot them and splattered goblin gore all over him) before they got any further. He honestly didn't have any clue how he ended up with one latching onto his head, but he would have sworn that it was like the one gremlin that grew wings and learned how to fly. It definitely dropped on him from an upward angle, and THAT was the one that got a reaction from him. He couldn't do a whole lot without shifting the light off of Shannon, but he tried ducking into his shoulder to protect his face. It worked, somewhat, but he was still getting scratched up and chewed on enough that he hardly even noticed the way his muscles twitched at Shannon brushing against him to get at his gun. What he noticed as the explosion right next to his head as the goblin was blown to bits.

He also noticed that he couldn't hear a damn thing over the ringing in his ears after that, and so when they finally burst out into the glare of a nearby streetlight, he didn't even hear her screaming and complaining. He shook another goblin off and delighted in watching it writhe in the light, but he couldn't even really hear it over the ringing.

"Stop," he told her, far too loudly, but it didn't matter to him. Just as she couldn't really tell how loud she was being, he hadn't the slightest idea. He sure as hell didn't want her limping all over the place, though. "Get in the car."

He was bleeding, covered in gore, and sore all over the damn place, but he set to work wrapping up her arm and ankle before he did anything else. His intention was to get her settled in the car, then go deal with the infestation that had supposedly already been dealt with. Ilyana was so going to get an earful after this, and he didn't even care if she got pissed at him for it. He had no doubt whatsoever that she'd known that this was still a hot zone, and she'd deliberately chosen not to tell him about it. Fucking BITCH.

He finished wrapping Shannon's wounds up nice and tight, then offered her a smile that probably wasn't all that reassuring with the blood and gore, but it was there nonetheless. "I'll be right back," he told her, and he found he could hear a little better by then. The ringing was going down a little, but he'd be hearing it for hours. It was like touching an electric fence, in all actuality. You'd shake for hours.

It only took a few minutes of rummaging around in the trunk, and when he came back around to Shannon's side of the car, he showed her the phosphorus grenade he'd pulled out. It wasn't something he'd been about to use from the start, just because it wasn't supposed to be a live infestation, but now that they knew there were so many of the little creeps in there? "Phosphorus grenade. It'll fry their little asses, but the problem with it is that they're only going to come out of hiding if there's something tasty waiting for them. We weren't expecting them to be alive, so I don't have anything too 'tasty' on hand, but we're going to work with what we have. For future reference, do NOT set one of these off with your eyes open, or you will be hating yourself," he warned her, reaching into the visor over his side of the car for his sunglasses and shooting her another grin.

"Be right back," he told her, and he carried his scratched up, rank ass back up to the building.

Shannon didn't initially hear Rafael when he told her to stop - it took her the whipping motion of spinning around too fast and having to shoot her mucked up arm out to stabilize herself on the trunk before it registered that he was trying to communicate with her. Eventually, though, they were able to work out some sort of system. Specifically, it was that Shannon moved where he directed, and didn't open her mouth again. Sometimes being the trainee meant you had to sit and do nothing, but considering her physical condition, she wasn't going to bitch too much about it.

After she'd been patched up, she watched in amusement as he pulled the precise thing she'd been hoping to grab up. She brightened considerably, clapping her hands softly and giving him a thumbs up. She was ready to see some fireworks, at least. Smashing the nasties always made her feel slightly better, even considering how beat up she'd just gotten.

As he went back into the building, she posted up, leaning against the now-open car door to support her weight. No, you couldn't tell her to sit, because she wouldn't do it. She didn't leave the area, or really even move much further than that, but it was more because she couldn't rather than the lack of wanting to. She turned her head away, watching the reflection of the light burst through the broken and shoddy boarded-up windows against the other buildings around them.

It was a pity that she couldn't hear all of them flailing and screaming as they ran in circles trying not to die, though. When Rafael emerged again, her hearing was returning slightly - it reminded her of the time she'd gone to see a rock concert and had stood directly in front of the speaker. Dull thrumming and a high-pitched squeal were still ever-present in her head, but she could make out words quite a bit better than she had been able to ten minutes prior.

"Sorry about the ears," she said, voice still louder than she wanted it to be, but not announcing like she had before. "I guess there's a disadvantage to being a shapeshifter after all, huh?" She smiled - more or less because she wanted to show him that she was okay. She was, for the most part anyways. She was coming out of shock, though, and the pain would require the use of prescription medication to dim it down to a constant tolerable level.

"I don't think Ilyana likes us," she said, brows raised as he came close enough for her to be sure not to shout.

Heading back into that building really wasn't something he wanted to deal with, but it was his job. Usually, he'd have had other custodians present in a hot zone, but Ilyana's little trick had prevented that. He could handle this, and all he really bothered with was a flashlight and the phosphorus grenades. He had his gun back where it belonged, but he wasn't planning on needing it.

He held the flashlight above him like a spotlight, trying to keep the goblins at bay until he could get further into the place, and he'd shut the front door behind him to cut off more of the light. He wanted to draw as many of them out into the biggest room of the house as he could. Considering he could hear them chattering amongst themselves and scrabbling around in the darkness around him, he figured the scent of blood on him was doing the trick. Making his rounds of the building, he decided which was the biggest area, kept swatting at the ones that were daring enough to try to knock the flashlight away from him, and finally stopped in the middle of the big room. He dropped to his knees, popped his sunglasses on, and used the flashlight to make sure he'd be able to use the grenade within seconds.

Finally, he flicked the flashlight off, and the little fuckers positively swarmed him.

He got a few new cuts in the process, but he was working blind to get that grenade working. As soon as he knew it would work, he released it to let it roll a foot or so, then dropped to his face on the floor, shielding his eyes further with his arms. He'd definitely gone with just his eyes closed once, and it worked, but it still left little floating dots in his vision. Better safe than sorry, and shielding his face helped when the shrieking and exploding started. The goblins had a total melt-down, which included pretty much bursting in a pile of ash or guts (depending on just how close they were), and general burning. By the time the light faded, the room was much quieter, but Rafael still wasn't going to assume that they were completely finished. He took another walk around with the flashlight, picking up the stragglers, and did it one more time before returning to the car outside, and Shannon.

Really, Rafael was NOT surprised that she was standing up, just as she shouldn't have been surprised that he was looking a little rougher since he'd last left her. "What?" he asked, gesturing to his ears, but he grinned to let her know he was just being a jackass.

"It's fine. Better that you blow out my eardrums than let a goblin chew my ears off," he told her, and he meant that. Not that he was really in a hurry for either, but he'd prefer the former over the latter. "It's not that much of a disadvantage. I'll sure as hell heal it all up fast enough."

Unlike her, and that was the problem he had with her being a custodian. They'd both just gotten their asses handed to them, and he'd heal up with no problem. Shannon wouldn't.

"No, I don't think she does," he responded, humor fading from the situation at that, but he'd be addressing it. He wouldn't delude himself into thinking he could do anything to threaten or intimidate the demon, but he was certainly going to have a word with her. It might be useless and might only make his situation worse with her, but he was going to try. "How bad do you hurt?"

In all honesty, he knew she hurt, but he wanted to know just how quickly the pain was setting in. Shock could be a wonderful thing, if he could take full advantage of it and get her to the infirmary before it wore off completely. He was already in the process of trying to get her into the car to do exactly that.

She stared at him, debating on what his reaction would be when she answered him. Honesty in situations like this, however, was always the best policy. She didn't need to say she was fine, and then find out that she had a super wicked staph infection or anything later on down the road. "Moderate," she admitted. "On the 'face' scale in the doctor's office, I'd give it a six. Shock is wearing off, and it's not really getting worse, but it's pretty constant and throbby. I wouldn't complain if we went back, now," she said, forcing out a weak laugh.

As she settled down into the car seat, she sighed a little, trying to adjust herself (with some help from Rafael eventually) in a position that didn't strain anything that had been bitten, chewed, or smashed. "At least one of us heals quickly," she said brightly. "You know, I'd like to give that bitch a piece of my mind, one of these days. I don't understand how Valentina can be her and Robert's secretary and not go insane,
she said absently. She regretted her words for an instant, though. Valentina's long-term boyfriend and one of Rafael's friends, Leon, was a little bit of a cuckoo. She realized the statement sounded a bit callous, but she figured that Rafael would know she hadn't meant it like that.

"If I ever become a super huge bad-ass, I'm going to punch her right in the grille," she said darkly, a smile of imaginary gratification spreading on her face.

As far as he was concerned, honesty was always the best policy. The only time he disagreed was when it was normal civilian humans that they were trying to talk out of believing in something supernatural. There were definitely things that people were better off not knowing, and sometimes it was just because having just enough knowledge to be afraid and not enough to do anything about it just wasn't right. They might as well run the risk of getting in trouble with their ignorance intact rather than know it's possible and worry about it their whole lives. He'd heard about civilians finding out about things, then refusing to work with the VK or believe that it wasn't real, and they had a habit of hitting various levels of insanity or going on as a rogue sort of hunter.

Sometimes both.

Seriously, he didn't want to be involved in the start of something like that, so he didn't mind telling people anything he had to in order to convince them that they hadn't seen or heard what they thought they did. Other than that, though? Yeah, he wanted the truth, and he would give it.

Thus, it was good that Shannon told him the truth about how she was feeling, and he helped her settle into the passenger seat, made sure her injuries were taken care of as well as they could be right then and there, and started driving back to the VK building. Along the way, he called in and told them that the mess had to be taken care of by someone else, because they'd dealt with the infestation that wasn't supposed to be there. Someone else would go in, and he warned them that he thought he got them all, but there may be a few stragglers that had still escaped. He wouldn't set someone else up for the same sort of problem they'd had.

"Val is a very good, special lady," he told her, not at all taking offense at what she said. He knew it wasn't how she'd meant it, so he just brushed right over it. "Robert's not bad, so all she has to do is try to keep him from slipping up and making a fool of himself. He's a nice guy, just not fully acquainted. Ilyana I'll agree with you on. She's a bitch, and I'd pay to see some supernatural badass knock her into next week, but unless an angel comes knocking, I don't see it happening," he told her honestly, with enough thinly-veiled frustration that it was obvious he was pissed by this whole mess. He still turned around and gave her a smile, though.

"You don't want my kind of quick healing, sweetheart. It comes with feathers and cracker jokes, and it's not even fast enough to stop all those scratches and bites from hurting for awhile," he assured her, and the point of that was really that it wasn't worth it. He never wanted her to think that her humanity was something that made her weak, so he was going to hit that one before it got too far, if he could.

Shannon snorted. "I don't have to be a parrot, you know. I could be something cool like a red panda or a wolf or a - a bear," she said, her eyes becoming wide with excitement. "Have we got any documented bears? That would fucking rule," she said.

She seemed momentarily subdued by the idea of being a bear, if only because she could kick the living shit out of every other training custodian at the moment. For whatever reason, a lot of the trainees were human, which was funny because a lot of the trainers were not. She moved around in her seat again, face contorting in discomfort.

"Val is a sweet lady, I agree. I feel bad for her though, still. Sometimes when I hand her paperwork, she gets this pained look on her face like she just bit her tongue really hard." She attempted to shrug, and failed.

After some passing moments of silence, Shannon turned to Rafael and perked. "So, what's the standard issue painkiller for this sort of thing?" she asked with a grin.