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Date: September 19, 2015 Taylor hadn't exactly given Elis all that much choice really. Oh, she'd promised that it was a nice, normal meeting with nice, normal people who just happened to have super powers. Other than that it was just a barbecue with friends who happened to be super parents, at least that was what she'd conveyed on the phone. In Taylor's defense, she really did feel that it was important for the relatively new super hero to have something like a support network. She certainly would have appreciated having had more of a network when she'd first started. Also, her definition for 'normal' might have gotten steadily skewed over the years. After all, Stesha was the most normal person that Taylor still knew - she just happened to be a goddess running her own nature planet preserve these days. Taylor's lack of sympathy for any attempts to cry off might have also been in part in her expectation that it took some strong arming to get people to attend parties. Jack certainly wasn't ecstatic about Taylor's 'we're all going as a family to this barbecue on Stesha's planet before dark hits. No, really. It's important to me' explanation for why everyone was being rousted on a Saturday, side dish in tow. With a soft 'pop' of displaced air, Taylor showed up in Ellis' living room. Huang had his after school job to keep him busy and Taylor didn't think that he'd enjoy a barbecue with mostly adults and the under ten crowd in attendance. Jack and JJ had already been dropped off with Jack entrusted with delivering the side dishes of potato salad and a cooler full of steaks for the barbecue. That she showed up inside the house rather than on the porch was in difference to Ellis secret identity but he might not see it that way. Except for the sudden appearance, Taylor looked normal enough - at least she wasn't in costume. With her hair pulled up in a bun and in a light shirt and denim shorts she could have been any fresh-faced college student. Well, except for the fact that she was still translucent.

Taylor had been stretched to the breaking point and then some. After some terse words exchanged with Jack (and perhaps a chair or two thrown), she'd been forced back onto yet another emergency but something had tickled in the back of her mind. Had been tickling in the back of her mind so this time, after the emergency, she'd waited around and spent some time doing some serious scrying and spell casting to check her suspicions. What she'd found left her more coldly furious than Taylor had ever thought she could be. Normally, her return to the library was soundless as she filtered in from one reality to another but this time, Phantom ripped time and space asunder, leaving bolts of eldritch energy flashing and crackling through the windows and a fell wind knocking over papers and sending them whipping around the room. She seemed unaware or uncaring of the magical storm she was causing in the library as she tore through it, tossing priceless volumes aside in some sort of personal quest.

Since early November, Erin had been called much less to watch little JJ and with a good deal more forewarning for normal things like 'date nights' or an afternoon of extra work, rather than several days a week. The Faretti's themselves had seemed happier and getting handed over JJ's care by Taylor had grown a lot more common. The house that Erin provided directions too led them first through the palatial estates of North Bay, each more grand than the last. It was one of the oldest and wealthiest parts of Freedom City and the drive took them down a street that began winding its way up the hill. The estate that they came too was... a little different from the rest of the environs. It was old, certainly, and expensive but the entire thing was surrounded by a large stone wall with a large wrought iron gate that opened without Erin having to buzz in. She'd called ahead, thankfully, so they were expected. Once the gate shut, the lawns looked a little overgrown and the manor itself was old and with gothic stylings. Behind the house there was even a graveyard to complete the spooky environment with cracked tombstones and even a mausoleum. The drive, however, was well kept gravel. The front door was thick and heavy, with an overly elaborate knocker attached to it.

Date: August 18th, 2010. Evening. Freedom City was no stranger to flying people in its skies. One such figure, carrying a black doctor's bag, was flying east, from the ultra-tech sector of Hanover to the posh Old World neighborhoods of North Bay. "Jack? Taylor?," Archeville's rich tenor voice called out as he touched down in their front yard. "Sorry I am a bit late; dings got a bit... messy at de laboratory." Doktor Archeville had been by many times since the birth of Avenger & Phantom's child, in part because he knew how stretched everyone's schedule got to be.

Phantom dropped into the mansion, feeling more like one of the ghosts in it rather than a flesh and blood woman. She was back to not knowing what day or time it was in Prime. She had to check both the clock and calendar as that last 'quick jaunt' had turned into days and days. "Jack... honey?" She called as she floated through the house, peeling off her mask. The laceration on her face healed as she phased through walls, looking into the rooms her family usually occupied. "JJ...? Hello?" Eventually, she found the note. From the baby sitter. Her shoulders slumped and after looking at herself in the mirror, she gestured, changing her cloak and cowl into a faded sweater and jeans before blipping to the park, where she squinted in the day light like she was the creature of the night. Eventually she spotted Erin and her son out on a picnic blanket and headed over. It took her longer than usual to fade into existence, almost as if she was forgetting how.

"I just want to be able to go out for a night and not worry that the baby's going to turn the babysitter into a nighttime snack!" These are the sort of topics of discussion in the Faretti household these days. To be fair, little Jack Jr. was still a long way from being able to drain a whole human accidentally but Taylor was starting to grow worried for his little cousins. It was a long term view, really, but it didn't make her less adamant. After exhausting a few avenues of contacts, she'd remembered Claremont and after some spousal debate, a rather odd notice when up on the summer job board at the school: Babysitter wanted for occasional afternoons and weekends. Combat reflexes a plus. Will pay for infant cpr certification. Hazard pay provided. There was a number at the bottom to tear away and when Taylor had received a few phone calls, she arranged for interviews to occur in one of the empty classrooms. When each student arrived they'd see two chairs behind the desk but only one of them filled. Taylor was casually dressed in a tank top and jeans over boots. A battered jacket and fedora discarded in one corner and the only real oddity in her appearance the glittering amulet at her throat.