Mits blushes, rubbing behind her head.

"Appreciate that, Joe.  Yes.  I researched it carefully.  Short term, just the founding members signing an agreement to join some agency would be simple enough.  Long term..?

"It's worth the up-front work on my part to ensure that not only will we be near untouchable by crippling lawsuits, we'll also be free from micro-managed by some agency.

"But what I've been trying to make clear is that there's a downside.  This independence and freedom risks anti-heroes taking advantage of our umbrella to get away with murder.

"Sooo...  On top of fragmenting into smaller fire station sized clubs, I was going to pile on even more up-front work by creating our own 'Internal Affairs' of sorts.  What I found out in my research is that legitimate organizations remain independent because they work hard at cleaning up after themselves.

"For example: Suppose some greedo joins the Red Cross and starts leeching money from the donations.  Feds eventually figure him out.  But since he got away with it for so long, and the Red Cross didn't catch him, the charity's own reputation suffers.  But in reality the Red Cross has their own Internal Affairs that will check the books every month.  They found him out fast.  He got fired and handed over to the police before he could even buy a new computer with the stolen money.  Everyone wins.

"That's the nitty-gritty.  To sum it up: No matter how much good or bad there is around you, and no matter how good or bad your group is, it is very very important to appear good.  I'll be doing the legwork to make that happen without having to attach us an agency.  You guys don't really need to sign anything yet.  I just wanted to make sure no one objected to me turning down the offers I've been getting in favor of the more independent approach."

Angel gives a skeptical look. "Are we even big enough for an internal affairs?"

Emerald asks, "And how do we keep people from giving us grief about our selection of who watches us?"

Liberty says, "I don't speak legalese. Just point me at the bad guys and I'll punch 'em. Beyond that, I'd sooner ask my mom and dad before signing documents I don't even understand."

Timothius says, "Smart. Granted, we'll be getting people smarter than our parents on these matters to look things over."

  "Honestly I'm not expecting anything so convenient to work out, even with all the effort involved.  But it would be nice if it did, thanks for the heads up Mittens."

Mits grins and blushes.  "Eheh...  Yes, and I don't know.  Our Citizen's Patrol is nation wide with a chapter in dozens of American cities.  But there's a gazillion copy-cat C.P.s out there that make ours a global movement with thousands of individual groups in dozens of countries.  So yeah.  We're kinda overdue for some oversight.

"Ooh!  One idea to keep the griping to a minimum.  After emulating long-standing global charities such as the Red Cross.  When people gripe, we can embarrass them by saying stuff like,  'Then you object to the Red Cross too.  Because our oversight legalese is word-for-word identical to theirs.'  Stuff like that.  The rest I'll leave in the very capable hands of Angel.

"Don't worry about having to sign anything.  At worst, you'll simply be given the option to quit the team if you strongly object to our becoming more Red Cross-ish in our legalese."

She gives Joe a thumbs-up and smile.  Her attempt at cupcake in one bite ends in a frosting mustache on her lip.

Angel shrugs. "Dunno how capable my hands are. Thankfully, money can buy competence."

Liberty looks to still be lightly grumpy until Timothius stuffs a cupcake in her mouth and makes her blush and giggle.

Emerald says, "Is there anything else you need, Mittens? Or are you ready to race me?" She has the race car videogame turned on.

Eli hasn't said a thing about all this, but he was paying attention.

  We'd better hope Angel is allowed to use her feet too then, apparently those can get a bullseye-wait are we mixing up which angels are pro archers again?

  "Ah yes, mutually assured destruction legal.  The most entertaining of legals outside of reading about comedicly stupid trials."

  He offers Mittens napkins.

Mits winks and thumbs-ups at Angel, "I trust you to be competent in spending it well."

Nathan giggles as well, happy to have a break from the confusing serious talk.  Then Emmy made things even better by changing the focus to gaming!  To Eli, he passes a note, smirking impishly.

Then he says, "Me too!" and opens his mouth for Timothius.

Mits chuckles and accepts the napkins to wipe her face clean.  "Thanks, Joe!"

She pulls up Weird Al's "I'll Sue Ya" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeXQBHLIPcw on her phone, snatches a controller, and hops on the couch with a smile and tail-wag.

"You're on, Emmy!  Prepare to have your foxy socks blown of!"

Crash!  Mits never was good at slowing down for turns.

Emerald just calmly lets up on the gas, gently applies the breaks, and takes the turn at just the right time. Look, the very song that inspired Emerald's creation was from the soundtrack to a race car anime, OK? Emmy is good at race cars.

Emerald says with a confident smile, "Huh... I'm ahead of you. But you were so much faster than me..." not trying to be a snoot. Just standard video game smack-talk banter.

Eli blushes at the contents of the note. Then when Timothius stuffs a cupcake in Nathan's mouth, Eli's face looks like it will catch fire shortly.

Angel is nodding and tapping her foot to the song. Liberty would be eye-twitching if not for still blushing from Timothius stuffing her mouth.

Also: This Angel is a pro archer.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:45, Sat 23 Apr 2016.

  "Well, the explosions was big enough to send socks flying. Does that count?"  Probably not.

Mits giggles at Emmy's teases and Joe's socks comment.  "Oh!  That reminds me!  One of the tempting offers was from the Secret Service.  Among other things, they train agents in real life stunt driving!  Sounded like so much fun!  Maybe we can find some other way to get our stunt driving lessons."

Nathan happily noms the cupcake.  When he notices Eli's reaction, he grins bashfully like a kid caught sneaking a cookie.  Not the reaction he was aiming for.  He was hoping to get a laugh from Eli.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:29, Tue 10 May 2016.

Liberty scriggly-faces. "I could learn stunt driving?"

Timothius says, "Why not? Farmer kids get to learn to drive at age 4. And if anyone could survive a car crash without real injuries, it'd be you."

Emerald says, "Liberty has a point in that if we join anyone, we should make sure the benefits are for everyone."

Angel shrugs. "They'll likely say they will teach it to her once she has a driver's license."

Liberty says, "That's forever from now. Like... years!"

  "While I'm sure they are a respectable organization, we have enough worried parents without ties to 'your job is to die for the president' incorporated."

Mits laughs from Joe's point.  "Fer reals."

Nathan isn't so jovial about the reminder about worried parents.

Mits nods to Timo.  "Maybe we should have a field trip to a farm some time.  Go mucking about ina four-wheeler."

Crash!  "Oops.  Guess hitting the boost before that ramp was overkill.  But fun!  Who's next challenging Speedy McEmerald?"

Liberty and Timothius take turns, but Emerald lets someone else play before long so she can chat it up with the grownups.

Timothius nudges Nathan's wing with his own wing, smiling. "You ever fly over the ocean since you started coming here?"

Liberty says, "Wish I could fly."

---

Angel heads to the balcony to admire the ocean.

Emerald sits on Mittens' lap and tilts her head back to look up at her, smiling.

There is a knock at the front door.

  "Well, I'm sure the way things are going these days helicopter lessons are somewhere in your future, Liberty."

  With the others otherwise off panel of holding their elders in their lap, Joe ends up the default door guy.  Though he checks the security feed that the clearly have by now (a few kidnappings will do that do you as an organization) on his way over.

Turns out Nathan is worse than even Mits at the racing game.  Steering is hard!

"I'm not allowed to fly far over the water, but yeah!  It's fun to drag your hand along the waves!  We should go the beach together some time."

Mits blushy-smiles at the adorable music fox boldly invading her space.  "Daw!  So kyoot!  Willpower... collapsing..."

Glomp cuddle!

The security camera shows that kangaroo red-head that showed up back at the recruitment drive. She is looking at a piece of paper as if double-checking she is reading it right.

Timothius nods and says, "Maybe while we still have off from the craziness, we should all get our bathing suits and enjoy the beach here."

Meanwhile, Emmy giggles and hugs back. Speaking of her music-fox status, she starts singing for Mitts.

Angel turns at the sound of knocking and seeing Joe go to check it out.

Well, Joe probably won't get kicked across the room for opening the door for her.

So Joe actually opens said door this time.  "Hello, what can I do for you?"

Mits squees and softly squeezes Emmy as she tries to sing along.  Nathan nods enthusiastically to Timo's suggestion.  He gasps and covers his mouth when Emmy starts singing, enraptured by her beautiful voice.

"Wow..." he whispers in awe.

Ariel says, "Hi... my name's Ariel. I'm here to ask for help. And my request will seem a bit... oh... off?" she looks kind of confused herself, but is trying to stay confident.

Meanwhile, Timothius is sitting in awe of the music also. As is Lib and Eli. A nice voice is a nice voice, after all.

Emerald takes advantage of Mitts singing along and harmonizes for a bit, brushing Mitt's side with her tail as she gets to a stopping point in her music and then says, "Mittens sang along. I want to hear your voices too, kids. You can learn to sing better, you know. And I know the techniques. So! One at a time... Nathan! Sing for me, please."

Timothius curiously looks towards the door, but sees Joe hasn't been impaled or electrocuted or any other indications of a bad visi-oh... what if he's being mind-controlled? He shakes off the paranoid thought, does a quick check of security and notices Joe doesn't have that "empty eyes" look people supposedly have when mind-controlled. Still only a child, this is enough for his limited paranoia and he continues to pay attention to Emerald.

  "Well, you might as well ask.  May not even be bizarre by comparison."  Meanwhile, Timothius is hardly being paranoid enough.  But we'll get him there, for his own good.

  Joe seems fine, so far as Joe ever seems fine.

Mits is all blushes from the tail brushes!  And for getting to enjoy singing along with Emmy.

Nathan is conflicted.  He's super-excited to get a private audience with his idol.  but he's also super nervous about messing up in front of her.  So he gulps and tries something simple.

♪ "Twinkle Twinkle Lii..." ♫

Nathan's voice breaks on the high note and his face turns beat red.  "...sorry."

Ariel says, "I am here to ask for help to make my parents... intelligent." her cheeks turn red. "You see... I'm not a normal mutant like you. I was born a kangaroo and became what you now see; somewhat human-looking and intelligent enough to talk. But with my parents being still normal kangas... well there's things I simply can not communicate with them being that way."

Emerald smiles and says, "You were doin' OK, Nathan. Just need more confidence. Liberty?"

Liberty has confidence to spare. "Amerrrrrica! Amerrrrrica! God shed his grace on theeeee!" but she sings loud and a little flat. Emerald says, "Good confidence. We'll work a bit on your note transition. Timothius?"

Timothius sings... sort of? He sounds OK initially, but doesn't stop to breath and sings while inhaling halfway through, "The itsy bitsy spiiider climbed up the water spout. Down came the waaater and washed the spider out." Emerald says, "For you, we need to work on how to take breaths between words... Mittens?"

  Definitely not the craziest thing for him to expect (Though the value of crazy is so skewed these days), but still not something he has a good answer for.

  "Uplifting doesn't seem to be in our organization's skillset, as far as I know.  Emerald has a good handle on languages, but offhand the only 'animal' I know she's talked to is also a mutation."  Cockroaches, easier to talk to than Kangaroos?

  "Still, you may as well come inside.  You came out here, the least we can do is get you a drink and ask around instead of saying 'Probably not, bye!'"

Mits is all kinds of curious about the talking roo.  She's been keeping up with all the news on mutant animals and this is the first she's heard of one who speaks English.  If news gets out about her there'll be a maelstrom of animal and human rights debates, demands from scientists that she be scanned and tested up one side and down the other, and a whole host of other wacky complications such as whether or not she has to school or if she's allowed to go to school without a birth certificate and human inoculations.

As for what Ariel's asking for, Mits sweatdrops.  "Wasn't that the plot for like, a bazillion horror flicks?  Either way.  Ditto to what Joe said."

Nathan really needed that tiny bit of encouragement from Emmy or he might've burst into tears.  So instead he bows his head in shame, nods, and blushes.

Mits smiles and claps for the singing children.  When her turn comes up, she taps her cheek, trying to figure what to sing.  Lightbulb!  The one about a mommy 'roo!  Mits jumps to her feet and starts hopping to the beat of the song as she sings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5s3lAr_uTA
This message was last edited by the player at 04:52, Sun 10 July 2016.