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January 2, 2018 On the last day of Raina Sanderson's last day of Christmas vacation at Claremont Academy, she got a text from her monkey. Merlin had been increasingly agitated over the last few days, for reasons that he swore had nothing to do with the monkey-sized Christmas sweater that he'd gotten from the floor Christmas present pool. It couldn't have anything to do with the temperature - Cathy was off on a date, or some sort of mystery, with Phaedra, which had left him master of the room while Raina was outside. The text said FOUND BIG THING. TROUBLE. With only three emojis, all of them from the "Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, See No Evil" series, this was an unusually restrained message. NEED TO SHOW YOU.

January 2, 2018 North Hanover January 2 - the last day of vacation for the students of Claremont Academy. It's a good day to wrap things up, and indeed between one thing and another, all of Phae and Cathy's friends are busy tonight. That's okay, it means more time for them. After duty is finished. Auld Reekie has been one of Scotland's most notorious supervillains since before Cathy was born, and no wonder! With his armored, ornately-carved body, he looks a bit like a steampunk robot - though he claims to be the spirit of a demon of pollution bound inside a golem crafted from cold iron. He's notorious in Scotland for attacking windfarms, recycling centers, and other places and peoples trying to pull Scotland into a green, clean 21st century. And as of last report (via friends in the Vanguard who'd rather talk to a Scottish superheroine than an American team), he's recently arrived in Freedom City from Edinburgh, and is holed up in a warehouse somewhere in North Hanover near the Jameson Airport. He's a notorious criminal (albeit not violent enough to be a major priority for the Freedom League) and bringing him in would be a fine feather in the cap of Frostbyte. The warehouses here are new and clean - though rather dull. As far as Frostbyte and Ardent can tell from their rooftop perch, it's all low steel and brick warehouses from here to the chainlink fence that marks the edges of the airport proper. Luckily it's cold enough and dark enough that nobody seems to be trying to spot them above the brightly glowing yellow streetlights here. And one of them has her own means of finding demons.

January 2, 2018 Ashton and Grenville The advertisement at the music store had been well-presented enough - musicians wanted for a Holiday Concert at Club G4118. They were paying in both cash and exposure, with promises of out-of-town label agents in the audience. That sort of thing was a little outside of Fred and Matt's scope these days, but the money was nice, as was the opportunity to perform before a crowd that didn't involve anybody they knew. They were a little new to this public performance thing, after all. And so on the evening of January 2, 2018, they were making their way to Club G4118, a private club built into a converted home on the edge of Ashton. They were at the extreme edge of the neighborhood here, so far to one side that on the other side of the street was a vacant lot that itself segued into Wharton State Forest. It was a cold evening, with a light coating of snow on the ground, as they surveyed a neighborhood that looked like light suburban commercial development - a strip mall here, a chain restaurant there, and the looming shape of Club G4118 nearby. It looked to have been an older house before its conversion, perhaps one of the 19th century homes that had stood on this spot when Ashton was technically an independent town. Before consolidation had meant the murder of much of the town's history in the name of progress. From somewhere, distant Christmas music played, probably a tune from one of the stores in the stripmall. But Christmas was over now too - this was the last day of their last Christmas holiday.