Room 322, Saturday Morning

[not_every_mage]

It was a lazy morning in 322, and Anders spent it leaning against his headboard and scrolling through the game he was playing for Deadpool's class. (Well, it had started for Deadpool's class. Then he got addicted.)

"Looks like there's a monster we don't have yet near Groovy Tunes," he informed his roommate. "Should we go try to catch it?'

Dante	"You wanna get up and go chasing fake monsters?" Dante asked, dubiously. His eyes were also glued to the screen, but it was for a vastly superior reason: Netflix.
Ringo	Well, then they were sure to welcome an interruption, right? Ringo was knocking on the door to their room. With quite a bit more urgency than she usually used when she knocked.
Anders	"As opposed to sit here all afternoon and watch you watch Cake Wars?" Anders answered -- Dante, not the door. "Yes." To the door, he called, "Come in. Entertain us."
Dante	"Nothing wrong with Cake Wars," Dante argued, glancing idly at the door.
Ringo	Ringo opened the door and looked back and forth between the two of them. She was glad they were both here. It would, hopefully, be easier to tell them both at the same time. She took a deep breath, trying to figure out how to word things, but before she could really figure it out her mouth was open and she was talking. "We're going to LA to find Kathy." Because that totally made it perfectly clear what was going on.
Anders	"What?" Anders said, frowning at the intruder. "No. What?" He was going to need some context here before he could even start to decide how he felt about Ringo's announcement.
Dante	"... Why the fuck would you do that?" Dante said, after a beat. "She's a corpse."
Ringo	"We've got a way to bring her back." Look how helpfully light on relevant details Ringo could be!
Anders	"What, to bury her?" Anders asked, dubiously. "I appreciate the thought, but it seems morbid. Morbid and dangerous."
Dante	"And like a great way for everybody else to get killed," Dante said. Very fake-chipper, that.
Ringo	"No, no, no," Ringo said, shaking her head. "A way to, um, cure her." If that was the right way to describe dealing with zombies.
Anders	"Go on," Anders said, cautious. He had no intention of going to LA on whatever rescue mission Ringo had in mind, but he wanted to at least know what the plan was.
Dante	"Cure her from being dead?" Dante said dubiously. (He might have missed at least part of this memo.)
Ringo	Ringo winced at Dante's question because it did sound kind of ridiculous. "Raven's back." In case they didn't know. "And she knows where they left Kathy's, uh, body. Mr. Hardison can get us a portal to LA. So all we have to do is go pick up her up and bring her back. And, um, someone here will take care of the rest." She glanced over at Anders before adding. "Nanika."
Anders	"Absolutely not," Anders said immediately, new tension tightening his every muscle. "That is -- we'd get killed getting to her, and then we're bargaining with a demon on top of it? I miss Kathy too, Ringo, but dead is dead."
Dante	Long pause. "What." ... Someone had missed another memo, too. "Who the fuck is Nanika?"
Ringo	"Don't call her a demon," Ringo snapped back angrily. Because her best source of information on Nanika was still basically Alluka, so Ringo didn't have a very good appreciation of just how dangerous Nanika was. "And," she lost a little bit of the heat in her voice. "It's kind of too late. Nanika's out, and she's agreed to fix Kathy, and she won't go away until she does." Which didn't even come close to answering Dante's question, but probably told Anders quite a bit.
Anders	"Nanika is the spirit in Alluka's head," Anders explained to Dante. "According to Alluka, they're friends. According to everyone else, Nanika is terrifying. And she grants wishes. Some moron must have wished Kathy would come back." He glanced back to Ringo. "And we all have to go to Los Angeles? I don't know if you heard, but there's a little bit of a problem with zombies there. Can't we chuck Nanika through a portal and let her sort it out? Or ... not." He loved Alluka, of course. But he wasn't inclined to do anything because someone trying to make a demon happy told him to.
Dante	"I just-- wait. What," Dante said again, "Alluka's got a demon in her head?!" Nobody had told him this. ... and he was kinda opposed to chucking Alluka into a bunch of zombies, but not so opposed to doing that to a demon, and this was hurting his head already.
Ringo	"Yeah," Ringo admitted a little bit quietly. "Some moron did wish Kathy was still alive." Not on purpose, but she was kind of hoping to avoid that conversation for the moment. Because maybe no one would ask who? Sure. Super-likely. "And she's not a demon," Ringo insisted. "Though she is kinda, um, weird?" Creepy, Ringo. You were looking for "creepy" there. Back to Anders. "I don't think Nanika can find Kathy on her own. It's like, uh, someone would have to bring them together. And I'm not about to take Alluka into LA." Much better to take everyone else!
Anders	"She grants wishes, and can't be talked out of granting them if they turn out to be bad ideas," Anders argued. "And she hurts people to pay for the wishes. You can say she's not a demon all you want, but it's close enough for me." His foot was twitching nervously, tapping a rhythm against the floor as he thought. "I suppose we have a better chance of seeing Alluka again if Nanika has an escort," he admitted. Grudgingly.
Dante	"Shitting hell," Dante muttered, rubbing at his face. (He was more inclined to take Anders' word for it on demons than Ringo's, for some strange reason.) "So she can't come back until she reaches Kathy?" Shiiiiiiiitting hell.
Ringo	Ringo nodded uncomfortably. "Yeah. At least, I don't think there's another way. She just, uh, keeps saying she has to touch Kathy over and over."
Anders	"That's not disturbing at all," Anders observed. "But say we go -- what will we do if we get there and Kathy isn't where Raven thinks she is?" He was ignoring the tiny seed of hope in his chest that this crazy plan could work. Letting himself hope wouldn't bring anything good.
Dante	Dante frowned. He looked back at Ringo. "Can we even get outta there?"
Ringo	"Mr. Hardison says he can open as many portals as we need, so we should be able to get back the same way as we get there." Ringo glanced over at Anders. "And, um, we have to at least look, right?"
Anders	A petty part of Anders wanted to argue they didn't have to do anything. But he already knew that the petty part wasn't going to win. He was going to jump into this fight, like he had so many times already. (He needed less danger-prone friends.) "I guess we do," he said instead, and told himself it was for Alluka, not for Kathy. "When?"
Dante	"This is insane," Dante muttered. If it wasn't for Alluka, he wouldn't even bother. And after that, he'd need explanations from Alluka, not whatever Anders and Ringo were spouting here.
Ringo	Ringo didn't disagree with Dante. This was insane. But it sounded like they were going to do it anyway. "Now," she said in answer to Anders' question, her eyes serious. "Or, well, as soon as possible. Like, today if we can."
Anders	"Better to get it over with, then," Anders said, as he went to find his shoes. "Things won't get better if we wait." He wasn't sure things would get better if they didn't wait, either, but action seemed like the better route.

[For broadcast, but NFI. Many thanks to rebelseekspizza, soniaroadsqueen, and not_every_mage.]