"I'm not a vampire!" Sofiya whined, although she didn't oppose Tabs taking her around the waist, "she is and it's crimping my style. I'm one-hundred-percent perfectly-" Sultana coughed loudly, "-entirely completely-" another cough, louder than before "-<em>pretty much</em>human. It's her," she pointed at Sultana, "trying to act like she's a million years old that makes people think I'm at least some kind of half-vampire."<br/><br/>"Dhampir," Sultana corrected helpfully, "the position of Queen of the Netherworld does carry with it certain expectations of behavior, as I've explained many times before." She leaned in and stage-whispered to Tabs, "also it's fun."<br/><br/>Sofiya harrumphed, "I'll go with you if we get to show them, show them all. And I<em>could</em>use the ad revenue."<br/><br/>---<br/><br/>"Sixteen," Auxilia said, "the Maltese drinking age is sixteen. There was a lot of scuttlebutt about how Stormwatch chose it so they could be on hand when junior superteams went and-"<br/><br/>"Yes,<em>yes</em>," Silvia said, tucking Auxilia under one arm and (if she could) Ace under another, stretching a third to pump a fist into the air. "What I heard was, we're going swimsuit shopping!"<br/><br/>"Wait! We need to go and get-"<br/><br/>"They can catch up! Silver Spider needs retail therapy badly! Siri-<em>Auxi</em>, where's the nearest mall?"<br/><br/>...huh, Silvia could really book it when motivated. So motivated she didn't even stop to think that Ace carrying everyone (or stopping to get Kanina's ship) might be faster...<br/><br/>---<br/><br/>"Kanina," one of the Auxilias that neither Darclight nor Silvia had commandeered (she was suddenly becoming a locally scarce commodity) met her as she went outside, "Ace and Silvia and I have gone to buy swimsuits? I was wondering if you'd like to come with us."<br/><br/>---<br/><br/>The four Auxis that accompanied Darclight were more than happy to hang on his arm through the tour of Stormwatch Headquarters, regardless of the damage that time, hippies, cultists and unleashed vampire countesses had wreaked on it. (In fact, the signs of recent renovation were fairly common as he threaded his way through the halls.)<br/><br/>She listened attentively to his story, even if a couple of her raised eyebrows at particular parts of his tale.<br/><br/>"Darc," she said when he had finished, "this is going to sound bad, but... how have you not gone crazy? I know that if I had been stuck inside an armor suit for all that time I would've at least installed..." she stopped in mid-sentence, a little smile crossing her face, "well, never mind about that. But I had assumed that if you were secretly human you spent time outside in your secret identity. Don't you have,<em>you know</em>, all those needs a human has?"