Maggie shrank back as Mustache approached, and nearly fell into Sideburns. She shrank back from him too, but now both of them were violating in her personal space, so she just folded into her cloak. The machine gun delivery was still going, a dizzying torrent of inane babble and bizarre suggestions from all sides. As soon as Maggie thought she figured out where she ought to look, they suddenly changed the pattern and she was lost again. Nonetheless, Maggie showed an impressive dedication to making stupid decisions under social pressure. She sputtered things like, "Um... Um, I guess so... I do have money, I guess..." Some small part of her brain noticed that both of them lit up at that last part, and they joined arms over her shoulders.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">From the scene at western Mt. Moon, this is Lily reporting for PNP,</span>said that same part of her brain.<span style="font-style: italic">The body has been identified as one Hex Maniac Maggie...</span><br/><br/>The men pranced onto a side path, and with their arms around her, Maggie had to shuffle along with them. Well, actually, it would have been pretty easy to escape, but they were still talking and Maggie had no idea about what.<br/><br/>"Onward and upwards!"<br/><br/>"Mind the gap."<br/><br/>"Ow."<br/><br/>At least some part of her kept its wits. As Maggie was manhandled down a dark, uninhabited stretch of forest by two strange men, her ever-loyal Misdreavus quietly emerged from her Pokeball, from where it had been surreptitiously dropped behind them. Dream was actually rather proud of being so quiet. By all rights, she should be rolling on the ground in laughter. This whole Maggie-being-too-shy-to-deal-with-fast-talkers thing was amazing, and Dream didn't even have to set it up this time. Still, business before pleasure. She slipped into the trees around the path, silent and unseen as only a ghost could be. The strange men's shadows stretched behind them, still long in the morning sun, and between them darted the small shadow of something that wasn't there. For the moment - as long as they behaved - it too kept its distance.<br/><br/>Maggie, meanwhile, had drawn her wallet, in part to make them go away, and in part because she wasn't entirely sure she wasn't being mugged.<br/><br/>"1500 pd..." she muttered as she withdrew the appropriate sum. It was everything she'd got from the trainers since starting in Viridian City, and a sizable chunk of her allowance on top. She meekly offered it to Mustache as though the money were radioactive.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">And she was never heard from again,</span>her brain concluded.