Why was everyone putting out some smoldering papers??!?!? There was a dark wizard on the floor....

"Incarcerous!" Herod said, flicking his wand as rope unfurled and headed towards Mr. Thatcher.

Brett groaned and rolled to his side as the spell missed him by a mere inch. But his wand wasn't in his hand - it was a few feet away and he began crawling towards it.

His hand touched his wand just as the rope wrapped around his feet and let out a low growl. He pointed it at the ropes. "Diffindo!"

The ropes fell away and Brett immediately put up a Shield Charm for protection. He glanced around frantically and his eyes grew wide as he spotted his only exit - the entrance to the level. And it happened to be on the other side of the room.

He kept his Shield Charm up as he slowly rose to his feet.

Herod saw the perpatrator's plan to escape and nipped it in the butt.

"Duro!" he yelled, turning the shut door into solid stone. He then ran in front of the door so that not only the solid door, but he too blocked the dark wizard's path.

Herod looked the man in the face and yelled "Stupefy!". He then pointed his wand at the light above the man's head and yelled "Reducto!", shattering it to bits. Shards of glass fell ominously towards the man's head.

Alina had run from the Conference room, only to see Tom's desk engulfed in flames. Poor Tom, he and the Gobstones division had been looking as if they done a lot of research and organising recently. She cast aguamenti, with the hope of extinguishing the flames and salvaging some of the documents.

All the while she kept a watchful eye on Mr. Thatcher, ready incase he turned on her personally once more.

Alina was just about to switch to a drying spell to ensure any papers she had saved from flames didn't just go into a soggy mush when she realised the Brett Thatcher who had started to look pretty immobile had got his wand back and was on the move once more. The last of the water drizzled from her wand, as Alina glanced round the room.

At the moment, Thatcher was on the wrong side of the room for the exit. So they had time on their side...
"Careful Herod!" Alina shouted, realising what he had just done. Now Thatcher couldn't escape. But they couldn't either. And Herod was stood right in front of the mad inventor. Oh dear. Alina didn't see that ending well. Especially since she was pretty sure she'd seen the wand movement for a shield charm.

Though...if the shield was held in front, as most people tended to focus their energies on, that would mean Thatcher's back was unprotected. Problem. His back was away from her. She risked moving an experimental few steps around the edge of the room. Either Herod would serve as the distraction, and Alina could try and stun Thatcher, or Alina's movement would give one of the others enough time to hit his back.

Maybe?

It was of course possible that she was over thinking it, being a former Ravenclaw and all. Not everything was clear cut and logical, afterall.

Herod saw Alina move out of the confrence rrom. She needed to get to the other side. If they couldn't outflank him, then they had no hope....Herod had to distract or at least occupy most off Mr. Thatcher's attention on himself. Another idea hit him.

"Glacius!" he yelled. The floor inbetween himself and the mad inventor was frozen. The ice crept up to three feet from Mr. Thatcher. If the inventor moved, he would slip and fall.

Herod then decided that outright dueling would be most distracting, so he moved his wand over his head and sent a purple arrow flying towads his head. Herdo was quick in his wrirsts and sent a flurry of Stunning Spells and Disarming Charms in the direction of the mad man.

Dominic needed to be here. Present. There were spells flying around the office and he had LITTLE clue where they came from. All he knew was that sitting in his cubicle, dozing off from nine to five, was not getting the job done.

He needed to take an active role. To be present. To get paid for what he was getting paid for. He needed air. But first he needed to figure out WHO that guy was and what was his intentions?

Observe first, then act. That was his personal mantra, after all.

Rex was furious as he entered the work area. There was FIRE and the only exit was now blocked. Did they not realize that the fire needed to be put out and that the inventor had barely moved three inches? Now his LIGHT FIXTURES were being destroyed by an employee.

"Are you CRAZY?" he shouted and immediately pointed his wand at the door. "Finite!" A light shot out of his wand and the spell that had turned the door into stone was ended. He repeated the process and the ice vanished from the floor.

"USE YOUR BRAINS AND PUT OUT THE FIRE!" Rex commanded everyone.

"Now let me contact Law Enforcement to take care of the inventor," he grumbled loudly and waved his wand.

A silvery shape resembling a full-grown African lion emerged from the department head's wand and roared as it ran out of the work areas. Now that the message had been sent, there was only one more thing that they could do.


"If you're not dousing the flames with water, then keep your wands trained on the inventor but do not use any spells against the insane man!" Rex ordered.

Its always one step forward and two steps back.........

Thge crazy man was firing spell after spell at well, just about everyone on the floor and we weren't supposed to fire any spells at him??!?!? and to make matters worse, Rex basically gave the man his escape route back. The long established goal of keeping him on Level 7 was out the window.

Even though he was quite sure that the man would escape, he listened to his Department Head and did not fire another spell, but when the man escaped and he was right....he may (or may not) refrain from gloating.

"Aquamenti!" he said, pointing his wand at the papers. Then to keep from being killed by the lunitic running rampid on their floor, he said, "Protego!" to protect himself.

He still stood between the man and the door. Herod would not let this man escape, especially after taking so much time to research him and painstakingly take notes, look up patents, and collect data.

Nodding gratefully to the woman who had jumped to save her desk, Destiny watched with growing fear as her coworkers blocked the door and turned a part of the floor into ice. She did feel, however, that putting out the fire had been the best possible move she could do. After all, all of the important information was kept here - without it, the department would crumble into chaos. Can't really have a fire raging around burnin-

As their boss, Mr. Vindictus, burst out of his office and undid the charms that the coworker had placed against the crazy guy, Dessie squared her shoulders. Okay, so she had put out the fire because of the parchments that were burning and not for their general safety, but how does he know that? She was STILL putting out the fires.

Well, maybe he was just really stressed, which made sense, considering the fact that there was a mad person loose on their floor. Finishing up with the burning desk, Dessie turned and pointed her wand in the general direction of Mr. Crazy while she muttered the incantation for a shield charm under her breath.

Brett was still keeping his Shield Charm up as he watched the actions of everyone on the level. One of the employees went beserk and was firing spells at him, but the man stopped when the gruff man in charge told him to stop. Now here's my chance.

Slowly, he inched towards the doorway but he didn't get far - there was an overturned file cabinet blocking his way. He sat there and thought about his next move and kept his Shield Charm up.

What was with all the noise? Did these people have no work ethic? Skander thought in frustration, since he hadn't actually looked up from his work before, more concerned about the fact that he was just alerted that one of his primary suspects was no longer in the country. Great.

But now he was looking up, with the intention to yell at every single one of them if he did not get some peace and quiet now. Or at least that would have been the plan if not for the fact that things were on FIRE and there was apparently a lunatic in their midst.

Sneaking out from his office Skander maneuvered his way around different employees and behind the man that was apparently responsible for all the disruption. Training his wand at the back of the man's head he said quite steadily, "Even think about moving and I will hex you into oblivion, no matter what Rex says." maybe his boss wouldn't be too happy about that but Skander was not in a good mood and he would do whatever necessary to get back his peace and quiet.

Herod kept his wand up and his SHield Charm activated. He decided to try the new spell he fiound last week in the Patent library.


"Haud presencia!" he said, sending a slow trickle of sparkles in the air around the inventor. "Its ok guys, my spell will negate any simple to moderate spells that he casts. Its the No Effect Charm." He didn't want a sinlge of his co-workers to be caught in the cross-fire.

He re-applied his shield charm and waited, where were these Law Enforcment people Rex hd called???

Rex was getting a bit furious. "Undo that spell now! The man isn't casting spells, so give it a rest!" he yelled. "Only cast WHEN you're being attacked!"

He sucked in a deep breath when he heard sounds coming from the corridor.

"At last!"

Erik ran down to the seventh floor as he received yet another notice to come down. What was it about today? Something in the water? If he received one more notice he was going to...well he wasn't sure what he was going to but he could guarantee SOMEONE, wouldn't like it when it happened. Stopping just outside of the office to catch his breath he peaked around and then pushed open the door. Looking around his eyes landed on a guy surrounded by pretty sparkly things? At least the last office had the common sense to just tie the guy up and take his wand. "What is that? This isn't New Years knock off the sparklers." Like that weak spell would hold anything anyway. He looked around and spotted Rex with a nod as he took out his wand, "What's going on here?" Looking around at the people he spotted someone behind the man and nodded taking in the situation.

"Ye there make him move ta that chair over there." His eyes looked around and spotted Mr. Sparkles and he frowned, "Ye, Mr. Sparkles, tie him ta the chair." Yup that was his new name. Pointing his wand at the man he gave him a smirk that could be best described as, don't mess with me. "Ye drop yer wand and kick it over here or I'll make ye." And with his day he'd be more than happy to get physical.

"Wh-what?" stammered Brett as heard a man's voice coming from behind him. He turned his head and his eyes nearly popped out - there was a wand pointed directly at him.

Snapping his head back around, he was wondering how he got himself into this mess considering his plan combusted like one of those stacks of files he turned into ashes all the while staring at a man shooting sparks into the air.


Uh oh. It was law enforcement.

Brett tossed his wand towards the man with a shaky hand and then raised them above his head. "D-d-don't hurt me!" he wailed and tried to act confused. "It w-w-was s-self d-defense. T-these p-p-p-people attacked me!"

Rosabelle slowly revoloved arouns the work area putting out what fires were still left but continued to listen in upon the conversations taking place. SLEF DEFENSE! Thatcher tried to destroy this entire area. That wasn't self defense. She finally ame to her desk and placed out the fire and sighed. After all this there would have to be some major cleaning involved. She continued to go around and finish putting them out.

Herod did not put down his wand until the maniac kicked his to that Law Enformcment guy......

Oh no he didn't.... "Were you talking to me?" he asked, pointing at himself. "Cause I know I never introduced my self as...Sparkles!!" he said. But since no one else tied up the man, Herod conjured some magic reinforced rope and tied the crazy man to a chair that was slightly charred.

Erik looked at the guy as he tossed him his wand and he picked it up and held on tight to it. "I ain't goin' ta hurt ye unless ye don't listen." Or he just made him mad. Hearing the guy keep going he frowned. Sure it was self defense...it was always self defense. "What're ye doin' down here anyway?" he asked as he watched Mr. Sparkles tie up the guy.

Hearing Mr. Sparkles get indignant he smirked, "Yes I was." What are you going to do about it? He really was itching to relieve some stress...maybe he should just go home. "Yeah well I just gave ye the name so sit down and be quiet and someone please explain ta me what in Merlin's beard is goin' on here?"

Herod would have spoken up, but he had a lingering feeling that Rex would yell something about being out of line or 'its not your place', so he just went to get the file (or what remained of the file) from the Conference room. It would explain a lot to this guy who seemed to enjoy pet names way too much....

"Keep quiet you lying piece of filth!" bellowed Rex. He was not happy with the turn of events. The level was in shambles, major files were destroyed, and one of his division heads vanished at the first sign of trouble.

He watched as Herod tied up the inventor. "Nice knots, Herod."



Rex walked over to Erik and nodded at the tied up inventor. "Let's just say this man didn't like the fact his patent for an illegal dark item was denied," he said dryly. "I'll give you more details in my report, but I think this man needs a nice padded room in St. Mungo's."

Erik looked around waiting for an answer when he heard Rex speak. Ahhh so Mr. Sparkles has a name. Too bad, he liked Mr. Sparkles better. Watching as the man was tied up he looked at Rex as he came over, "Well now that wasn't very nice was it," he said to the man with a roll of his eyes. "Alright. I'll take him and he can get a nice room with those nice jackets I've heard about." Walking over the man he waved his wand and the chair lifted on it's own. "We're just goin' ta take a little jaunt up ta my offices ta fill out some paperwork. Will ye do me a favour Rex and warn Brian so I don't run into any o' his little hot heads who think they know mah job better than I do?" Leading the guy out of the office, following him, he sighed, "Why this all has ta happen on the same day is beyond me. Can't ye idiots get together and space 'em out a bit?"

"No problem, Erik. I'll stop by your office later," Rex replied and watched him leave with Brett Thatcher in tow.

The level was suddenly quiet and he turned around to face the employees with a resigned sigh. "Okay, I want all divisions to salvage what you can. Department paperwork, or what's left of it, is the priority before you start searching for personal items. Conjure boxes and make sure that you label them!"

He glanced around just as a fresh message flew into the work areas and landed at his feet. Curious, Rex retrieved the message and opened it. He frowned - it was from Tom Simpson.

"DENTON! Get over here!" he bellowed.

Herod did as Rex said and conjured boxes. He knew what he needed labeled, but had to think about other peole in his division. He labled one box each "Patents Needing to be Reviewed", "Patents Denied", and "Patents Approved". He also put "Administrative paperwork" on his last box and began to pick up papers....

Unfortunetly, the criminal was not kind enough to keep individual divisons paperwork in a specific area. So the first three files he picked up were regulations on the international gobstones tournament. He put them on a desk that he knew to be that divison's head.

"Finally!" he said, retrieving one labeled "Mini Hot Air Ballon- Make a fun time out of a party-ballon-sized magical item" which he immeditaly placed in the "To be reviewed" box even though he was pretty sure it violated the Muggle items code. He liked to give each at least one read through though...

Rosabelle watched as the lunatic was taken away and walked over to her desk. It was black mostly and most of her paper work was well, destroyed. She conjured up four boxes. "To be Reviewed", "Already Reviewed", "Denied Patents", and "Approved Patents". She tried not to laugh at the last box. There wasn't much to be approved. Have to watch out for the Muggles. She placed papers slowly into their respected boxes then came to the last one and she laughed. A patent for "Dancing Lolipops". Yeah, they muggles wouldn't find that one suspicious at all, she thought discarding it.

Oh ... the man had something to do with patents. That would explain why Dominic didn't have a blimey clue what was going on! Still observing, even as some man from Law Enforcement came and took the guy with him . . .

... He was about to resume with the paperwork or whatever his boss was rambling about salvaging, when all of sudden he heard his name. Eyes popping out, he stared. And looked around; there had to be some other Denton, right? What did he do? Okay . . . what didn't he do?

"Aye ... Pr... Mr Vindictus," Dom replied, hurrying over. "What seems to be the issue?" Something with the message, no doubt.