<strong>Valentine Marlar -- Chatter, then Scatter</strong><br/><br/>He'd barely taken two steps when a slender, deceptively strong hand wrapped around his wrist and jerked him backward. Val's first instinct was to rear back and punch whoever was grabbing him, but the idea of dealing with Shades in a fair fight -- or any fight, really -- calmed him down somewhat. (Actually, his first instinct was to scream and try to run, but they didn't really need to know that.)<br/><br/>"Lady, I think it would be in my best interest to get the hell away from you two psychos. Now get your hand off of me!" He said, eyes a little wider than normal as she<em>growled</em>at him.<br/><br/>"Sweetheart, I don't know what you felt, but I haven't felt anything but a headache since I laid eyes on you. And yeah, things have definitely changed for the worse; I just found out there are freaks like Marty Medusa over here with magic eyes who can<em>look</em>people to death! Oh, and by the way, dude, if I were you I'd get those things checked out, maybe lasik or something. Or if you really wanna play Zatoichi so bad, just get em removed," Val said, sneering a little.<br/><br/>Shades spoke and started to pull down his glasses, just enough to make Val very, very uncomfortable, and Val plastered another grin on his face. "Oh, you're a chef, are you? Gee, how interesting. Maybe I'll give my buddys at the Restaraunt Guidebook a call, send them over for a little review. I'm sure I can probably convince them to give you, oh, say, half a star, at least."<br/><br/><em>'Ha, damn straight we've got freedom of choice. And I'm exercising mine right now,'</em>Val thought silently as Sha-- ah,<em>Isaac</em>answered his phone. He turned to walk away again and called back as he moved away.<br/><br/>"Yeah, buddy. You go play with your little EZ Bake Oven. I got better things to do."