"Seeing as how there are several other chairs, I wouldn't dream of it." Neal replied with a glance to the woman occupying a nearby chair. "Thanks. Nice boots."

With a quick look around to make sure the chair beside him wasn't already taken, the Darkling removed his black duster and draped it over the high back of the chair. Having taken a seat, he also removed his hat and balanced it on his knee.

"Terribly sorry," Mr. Quigley Earnest Dint called after the vehicle. He got up and dusted off his coat - more because it seemed proper than out of a sincere attempt to rid it of the dust from countless years in the back of the closet. "Ah! That must be the Ditto Town Mansion. I wonder how Milady is faring?" he wondered.

Mr. Quigley Earnest Dint heard a crash, a yell, and an indignant neigh. "Do be careful, Milady! I'm sure that young man was just trying to help."

"Greetings!" Mr. Quigley Earnest Dint said, bowing low to each of the people in the hall. "My name is Mr. Quigley Earnest Dint. I can't recall meeting any of you before (although it's quite possible that we have met and I simply forgot). Not many people come out my way, aside from the Squirrels."

Thankfully the sneezing lady didn't seem to notice him before he was able to duck under a young couple and continue to the mansion.

One thing that seemed much more obvious from this close up about the attendees was how everyone had dressed up in fancy (or at least fancyish) clothes. Weird, if the owners were going for a high class event, then why had they tracked him down? He literally woke up in an alley with the invitation in his lap. It even had his name and everything. Well, if they had expected him to get some more clothes, they were out of luck, he happened to like his fingerless gloves, belt, and sandals thank you very much. At least he had brushed up his fur and spent a little extra time sharpening his claws.

Finally, he made it to the door. A short creature who was definitely not a duck (he didn't know what it was, but he knew ducks didn't have fur) was checking the invitations, so pulled his own out of a pouch on his belt and flashed it to him as he passed.

Unfortunately, because he was watching the whatever it was in case he made a complaint (could it even talk?) he ran into the legs of a strange man saying something about squirrels.

"Thanks," Delia said, smirking happily and inspecting her footwear. Satisfied that they still were as good as ever, she turned back to Neal.

"Delia Death, Ghost Wrangler," she said, nodding in greeting.

"Oh, I didn't? I would have thought I had... I suppose the allergies must be affecting my memory.

"Well, I was about eight years old, and I decided to have a tea party with my invisible friends by the pond behind the manor. Mrs. Macgregor—God rest her soul, I'll never understand why Father asked her to clean the lion cage—gave me a pitcher of water for 'tea' and some dry pieces of bread to serve as cake. 100% vegan water and bread, mind you.

"I had barely a chance to pour Mr. Fudd a cup of tea before the feathered beasts had descended upon me like billed hyenas. There were hundreds of them, I tell you! Hundreds. I was very nearly mauled to death, and was confined to bed rest for the next three days. They say you can still hear my sneezes echoing in the west wing.

"Oh, yes, the invitation. Can't get in without that, now can we? Lisette, be a dear and go give it to the nice... ducky thing. I am afraid that I will sneeze in his face, and I imagine that would only draw the most disadvantageous attention from this... somewhat... estimable crowd."

"Ah, yes!" Mr. Quigley Earnest Dint exclaimed. "The invitation - quite right..." He fumbled in his pockets for a moment before sensing something small and furry bump into him.

Mr. Quigley Earnest Dint turned and bowed especially low. "Pleased to meet you, my fine feline friend! An estimable company, indeed."

Anna straightened a non-existent wrinkle in her dress and surveyed her reflection in the less-than-spectacular bathroom mirror. There was just enough room in the dingy, not-recently-renovated room for a twirl that made the dress swirl just enough to make Anna feel like a princess. So what if the dress was from the creepy secondhand store run by Mr. Solomon "For the Last Time, I am NOT a VAMPIRE!" Stine. It was pretty and sparkly and a lovely shade of deep blue that worked nicely with her complexion.

"The dress is stupid and I hate parties. Why are we going again?" a voice in the back of her head queried.

"Because it's exciting. All the most interesting people in Ditto Town will be there. Maybe even Jedi or a Transformer. Well, probably not a Transformer. They're a bit big, even to fit in the Mansion," Anna said. "Don't you like meeting new people, Anna?"

"No. I don't like people. I barely tolerate you as it is and we share a body. Why would I want to listen to you yammer at dopey space monks who will be too busy fighting rock monsters tomorrow to remember your name?"

"Oh, hush. You'll have a great time!"

Anna rushed out of the room and then out of her apartment, hesitating only to snatch up her purse. The stairs creaked alarmingly as she hurried down all 297 of them and then out of the apartment building entrance into one of the less nice areas of Ditto Town. Anna didn't remember anymore which incident had been responsible for this part of the town getting trashed; it might have been when the goddess who worked at the bookstore downtown had fought off angry star beavers who wanted to take her back to their homeworld and force her to regrow their forests. Or it might have been the time the living asteroid with narcolepsy fell asleep while passing overhead. The rent was cheap and that was all the mattered. Even in a town as weird as Ditto Town, Anna had trouble holding down a job.

The walk to the Mansion was a quick one and she hesitated at the entrance to take in the sight of all the other guests entering. Despite her upbeat words earlier, she was very nervous about this evening.

"Are you going to go inside or what, Anna? I can feel the damage these shoes are causing our feet. It's making me cranky."

"I'm going, I'm going," Anna said and then cringed, hoping no one heard her appearing to talk to herself. Her unique situation was a bit difficult to summarize for light party small talk.

"Oh, yes, the invitation. Can't get in without that, now can we? Lisette, be a dear and go give it to the nice... ducky thing. I am afraid that I will sneeze in his face, and I imagine that would only draw the most disadvantageous attention from this... somewhat... estimable crowd."

Lisette gave a properly shallow curtsey that bespoke eagerness to follow directions. She minced up to the furry duck - which truly did smell appalingly of fur and possibly fish - and presented it the card. "Ms. Ridley's invitation, if you please. And she begs to know," because Lisette knew she would, "if you have removed all the silk pillows from her sleeping chamber, and replaced them with cotton?"

On recieving a negative reply, Lisette sighed and shook her head. This was a task she would do herself, then. Of course, it also meant she could get a decent look around the old manor house, carrying the pillows down to the linen wash room.

The furry duck waved her elegantly inside - elegantly for a duck-billed, somewhat rotund furry animal - and she turned back to her mistress. Standing between the duck and Cynthia, she made herself into a sort of shield against sneezing, and the two women passed inside.

By all accounts the Baxters were pretty ordinary people from a perfectly ordinary world. That is, people did the talking where they came from, and animals…didn’t.

So imagine their surprise when they arrived at the entrance to the Mansion to find a platypus checking invitations! To be sure, the creature did not talk, but there was no mistaking the intelligence in its eyes.

And it may be counted to the Baxters’ credit that they didn’t freak out when, in addition to the expected group of well-dressed people, they saw a variety of talking creatures in the Mansion.

“I think we have some time to mingle,” Angie said, heading for the nearest group of people – er, attendees.

"Neal Decker, Shadow Hunter." he said with a nonchalant wave of his hand. It was an old title bestowed upon him by... someone, he couldn't remember who now. Admittedly, it wasn't his occupation at the present time but it worked well enough as a title for social interactions.

----------

"Blast it all... why does she have to be here??" Lawrence bemoaned as a familiar whining echoed from the front door to the where he and his companion were standing.

"Who?"

"Ms. Ridley. The equivalent of your grandmother at a social outing, with all the bad traits of such a interaction intact." Malcom grimaced as he turned his back to the crowd hoping beyond hope that the woman in question wouldn't recognize him.

"Sounds... fun." Selena remarked with a mischievous grin. "My Gran wasn't all that bad. Actually a pretty cool lady, from what I remember."

"Well then, congrats. You got off easy..."

"Shadow Hunter, Ghost Wrangler," Delia said, letting the words roll of her tongue. "They sound like sister occupations."

She sipped some of her drink, listening to the murmur of people entering the mansion. One particularly high voice caught her attention, and certain comments about "100% vegan water and bread, mind you," caused Delia's nose to wrinkle.

"Did you hear that?" Delia said, inspecting the last of her snack. "She only drinks vegan water. She must be such a saint. I wonder what she would think of these pigs in a blanket. They're quite delicious."

Delia popped the whole piece into her mouth, smiling and winking at Neal as she chewed the rather delightful meat and pastry combination.

"I suppose they could be... though I've never tried wrangling a ghost. Have met plenty of vamps, lycans, zombies, talking mirrors, etc in my travels but no ghosts... that I know of." Then again, how would one know if they had met a ghost unless it made its presence known? Neal shook his head and chuckled softly at the thought.

Once the high pitched voice was pointed out, he payed closer attention to what it was saying, or more precisely, babbling on about. "More food for us then." Neal replied with a mischievous smile of his own. "I'm actually more interested in how you can make vegan water..."

Delia nodded, squinting in the direction of the voice.

"Maybe...maybe it's like cucumber water. Water that vegans have soaked in. Or, maybe you grind a dried vegan into powder, and then add the powder to water to create vegan water. So, she's not really vegan, she just likes to eat vegan."

"Neither of those options sound appealing. Though the latter does have a certain morbid charm to it." Neal mused as he watched the crowd mingling in the other room.

As night settled on the Mansion, there was the sound of a rumble from far away. The sound intensified as its source came closer. Soon, a strange vehicle careened up the driveway and came to a halt. The vehicle appeared to function like a motorcycle, but it had a shape that suggested speed through air or water. A circular door popped up from the top of the vehicle, and a girl appeared, holding onto a compass and a map. The compass projected a hologram representation of the location. The compass was a gift from her mother, and it could be a screwdriver, knife, and wrench. Kai Steele jumped out of the vehicle and examined the mansion from top to bottom. Her eyes returned to her map.
"Where've we landed, where've we landed," she mumbled as she unfolded the map. "Air's breathable, so I'm not underwater or in space."
Kai pulled out her invitation. Charity ball? Ditto mansion? None of it had made sense when the invitation landed in her mailbox, back in the city of Alloyville, many years into the future. She had found out the coordinates, entered them and the time into her machine, and arrived here.
Kai noticed that the ball had already started--the orange lights glowed in the windows of the mansion, and the grand chandelier hung in the center window, reflecting all the lights with a hundred mirrors. She cast a glance at her clothes--her father had told her that balls here were grand affairs that required formal attire, and so she searched for something that would suffice. He also explained of Ditto Town, the explanation of which she did not comprehend thoroughly. She found a dark blue dress that her great grandfather, a mariner, had brought for her great grandmother on one of his voyages.
She liked the dress a lot, but it made the trip here difficult. On most of her excursions, she would wear simple canvas pants and a long-sleeved cotton shirt. She would spend her days exploring the galaxies, looking for lost cities, either in space or sunken underwater. Her parents would fund these, but they had started to press her with questions about when she would start doing "serious work." She was not going to come to the charity ball, but she came both to search for "serious work" and to escape the onslaught of questions from everyone.
She had wanted to sightsee when she passed a galaxy where one lost civilization was rumored to have found refuge in, but the dress, while hindering her, reminded her of her trip's intention.
As she made her way to the front door of the mansion, Kai slipped her compass into her dress pocket. She examined her dress for any debris, and finding none, she took a few breaths to calm down. She hoped that she would understand exactly what this place was. She glanced at her machine, parked by the sleek and tailored vehicles of the other guests, and looking as outlandish as it really was. She bit her lip and knocked on the door of the Ditto Mansion.