"Ben! I'm hungry!" Oliver proclaimed as he threw the front door of the house wide open, Ruby rolled her eyes as she pushed past him and headed for the kitchen. They'd need to have their usual debrief before they could go and do any other work, Ruby was just a little worried about the impending homework load that had been foreshadowed throughout the day.

"Cook your own f*cking food, I'm not your mother." Came the reply from down the corridor, Ruby shook her head as she dumped her bag on the counter before heading to the fridge. For teen sized bodies they typically consumed a lot of food in a week, though Ruby supposed that it was similar to shifter children. They could consume a lot more than the average teenager and on top of that, they had to buy their own food.

There was always an upside to being immortal and that was the money earned and also the interest on top of that. The protector role was and had never been a paid job so during assignments and 'off' times protectors were allowed to take up mundane jobs, Ruby had been everything from a data analyst to a pig farmer. The money earned went straight into a bank account that collected interest for her, many humans weren't aware that there was another side to their banks.

Many of the major banks around the world also catered to the magical folk, logos were still the same in the magical realm.

"No, but you're our father so you might as well start acting like it," Ruby said as she swung the refrigerator door opened and groaned. There was no food in it, the fridge looked as if it had just been purchased.

"Benedict seriously?! We need food, we can't just live on fresh air. Hurry up, we're going on our first family outing to the supermarket." Ruby could see that Ben didn't want to go, he was stubbornly set against venturing out into the human world as much as possible.

"F*ck it all, fine! But I'm waiting in the car." Ruby smiled again, she tried to keep it in but ended up laughing at the way in which Benedict was throwing his silent hissy fit.

"Sorry dad, but you're coming into the store with us! When was the last time you played at being a father? You actually need to show some interest in having kids, besides. Didn't you volunteer for this role? You'd think someone your age would have done his homework." Uh-oh, Oliver was always careless with his words but it seemed to do the truck as the fight left Benedict when he realized just what he'd gotten himself into with volunteering.

Oliver probably wasn't aware that Ben had been a father once, a few hundred years ago. But that was a whole other story that Ruby was too hungry to think about as she rummaged through her bag for her wallet and phone, she was still trying to figure out how one used a cell phone efficiently.

"What do kids these days eat anyway?" Ruby heard Benedict mumble later as they walked through the first aisle, they'd already gotten their fruit and vegetables but were now getting into foreign territory with snack foods and such.

Ruby wasn't really a picky eater, she'd eat whatever was put in front of her but occasionally someone cooked a weird meal that had her questioning that persons cooking ability...and taste buds.

"I don't know? T.V dinners and soda? Ohhh! What about these things? Can we get 'em please dad?" Ruby laughed when Oliver held up a bright pink bag of marshmallows, there was no way she'd eat any of that stuff. Benedict frowned and pushed past Oliver as he made his way down the aisle, adding whatever he felt like.

"Just throw it in the cart and see what he says, come on just add whatever. It's not like Ben is poor anyway." Ruby added as she began adding random items to their card, a box of condoms, a bag of prunes and old lady smelling perfume were just a few of the things that Ruby added in. Oliver too was adding odd things in as well and by the time they got to the checkout Benedict had begun doing the same thing.

"You two are a bad influence on my wallet," Benedict muttered as they exited the supermarket with the cart full of unnecessary food items.

All three laughed however as packed the groceries into Ben's car before heading home.

"Oh hey Ben, can you get me a car this week? Something small, not too outlandish. I'll have the money transferred to your account or pay you back. Don't ask what happened to the last car I drove." It still gave Ruby nightmares, that stupid truck that had been way too big for her to handle. But her best friend had insisted on her buying it, so she had and had crashed it not long after.

"Yeah, no worries. Just let me know when you need it and I'll look for something, you know you can have it ordered in? Just get in contact with head office and they'll have something shipped out to you and that way I don't have to deal with money or people." Ruby rolled her eyes again, there weren't Benedict trying to get out of venturing out into the human world again.

"No you do it, it'll be here faster. Besides, there's a dealership just down the road from our house." The rest of Ruby's sentence died off as they pulled into their street, she had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach that only grew worse the closer to home they came.

Though when they pulled into their driveway she began howling with laughter, Oliver and Ben were a little confused.

Someone had decided to throw eggs at their house and toilet-paper it, the only problem was they'd gotten the next door neighbours home instead! Climbing out of the car, Ruby wondered how someone could make such a monumental mistake but figured it spoke volumes of what Jude was capable of.

"They got the wrong house!" Ruby laughed as she headed inside, she left Benedict and Oliver to unpack the car.

"I swear to god you get lazier every assignment," Oliver grumbled as put a half dozen bags down on the ground before heading out to retrieve more bags. Ruby didn't comment, he wouldn't be complaining when she started cooking something.

When the flash of red and blue lights appeared on the street outside Ruby wondered how far this would go, would Jude end up in jail? Would he be reprimanded by anyone or would he continue to do as he pleased?

"Turns out the neighbour has a camera installed somewhere so they'll catch whoever did it. Oh yes!" Oliver's attention was suddenly taken by the food that Ruby was cooking, it wasn't anything fancy but it'd tide them over until Benedict's parenting kicked in and hopefully he began taking an interest in teenage welfare and not how he was going to avoid going out into the human world.

"I'd say it was Jude, he's stupid enough to get the wrong house." It was all guesswork but they'd see by tomorrow who was responsible for egging the wrong house.

After dinner the trio sat at the kitchen bench to go over a few things, Ruby had a feeling that she would eventually be leading this assignment. Benedict just seemed a little off, she'd never seen him act so disorganized and blase about an assignment before.

"Okay so I did a bit of scoping while you guys were occupied with school, we've been assigned extra people for this so I'm assuming the council of elders is expecting this 'thing' to be a lot bigger than was initially expected. Because of that, they've reassigned Ruby to be the new team leader, sorry Rubes but this is all on you now." Well, that explained why Benedict had suddenly become less interested in the tasks assigned to a leader because he'd been undercut yet again by people higher up.

"Sorry Ben, I didn't realize they'd do that. So who are the extra protectors coming into town and do we have profiles for them?" Benedict gave Ruby a sympathetic smile, the gravity of her upcoming workload was too much to comprehend at that moment so Ruby chose to focus on the now.

"So far there will be us three, they've also added Camden, Fio, Jonah, Farf, Catrice, Yeva...and Salix. No profiles yet and no news on when most of them will be showing up though I have a feeling Jonah is already in town and Farf might also be here. I think she's been in town for the last year or so quietly buying properties for absolutely no reason at all." That didn't sound like Farf, she was a goblin and their nature was not to splurge on properties in a small town she likely would never visit again once this assignment was done.

"Wait, did you say Yeva AND Salix? Jesus this is going to suck." Ruby muttered as she buried her face in hands, she could handle Yeva easily but she hadn't seen Salix for well over fifty years. Their parting had been a mystery that she seemed unable to solve but she was sure it had something to do with the event that landed Yeva in hot water fifty years ago.

"Yeah, Salix. You know if it's going to be that much of an issue you can ask for him to be reassigned, from all accounts he's a little f*cked up anyway." Ruby had heard the rumours, they were hard to keep quiet with such a small group of protectors but she had chosen not to believe them.

Marriage to a human was largely frowned upon, she guessed they were a little more relaxed with their rules down in Australia but she didn't know that he also ended up in that country. She'd wait to see him and find out what had happened and see where he'd actually ended up, Australia seemed like such a weird decision.

"Those are all rumours that we can figure out once everyone is here and settled, have you found out anything else? How is Farf here already? She's the most junior out of everyone, why would they send her here ahead of everyone else? Do you know where Jonah is? I also have a feeling the local shifter pack isn't going to be that welcoming, so we need to also manage them and their interactions a little better in the future. Ben you may need to come to the school and find a reason to get friendly with the alpha. He's the local history buff, gives off a really weird vibe and I'm positive he's a time walker so Jonah needs to be informed sooner rather than later." Ben and Oliver sat there absorbing all the information, one thing Ruby was good at doing was picking people and their abilities.

Though someone like Fysher seemed more than willing to showcase his abilities, if he were a bonafide time walker then chances were he'd been to a warlock to have spells imprinted in the tattoos he wore over his body. Ruby had spied the sharp corner of one tattoo peeking out near his collar and another on his forearm, so she guessed somewhere would be tattooed a timepiece to signify his ability.

"Apparently Farf was sent ahead to buy up small, inconspicuous properties for whoever would need them now. She brought this home and a few other smaller buildings. Whatever this prophecy is, it has the council sh*t scared enough to pull out all stops. I just don't understand how they know it's going to start kicking off now, ya know? And I think Jonah works in a small body shop on the other side of town, I can go and check tomorrow sometime. Farf will probably want a brief too, but also I'll leave contacting her to you." Ruby bit back a groan, she really didn't like dealing with Farfelee. Farf was a lovable creature but she was still new to the role and totally over-enthusiastic about any and everything.

She did make a good eccentric character, especially because she was so odd looking. It took strong magic to hide her typical goblin looks but they left just enough of the wrinkly skin and hunched posture that she really did look like an older woman.

"Yeah you do that, I'll make contact with Farf this weekend. But in the meantime just continue blending in, Ben you're really going to need to interact with teachers and parents from the high school. We need to know what other creatures are in town beside the resident pack and I also need to start setting up some sort of perimeter so that once everyone is here and settled we can maintain and observe efficiently. Oliver, I'm going to give you that responsibility. I want quick exit points out of town, obvious hiding places and we need to get distances to the nearest portals and what part of the realm they pop up in. Disguise it as training for football," Ruby could see Oliver building up to some sort of excuse until she gave him that answer, he'd be running a lot of he had to do all of that. But, all being part of the role he'd need to embrace it even if he despised running.

"So that should be everything, we'll meet again in a few days. I'll help you with the boundary this week Oli, I'm getting a little restless already." Oliver and Benedict nodded, they knew what Ruby was talking about even if she didn't say it in so many words. One's abilities became a little muted once they got too comfortable in areas, being a teenage girl didn't mean training was on pause.

"Okay, better get ready for school tomorrow." Ruby headed up to her room soon after, leaving the guys to wash her mountain of dishes she had created with dinner.

A whole week of school and classes to look forward to, by Saturday Ruby would be sprinting around town looking for the best perimeter to set up...she just hoped this mission wasn't going to be as long as she feared.