Welcome to Gaia! ::

"...Alright, let's see what I can turn into pajamas for now." Adrian said after a few moments of just staring at the ceiling. "I admit, there may been some bachelor living going on, if only to cut back on what I had to wash. I doubt you want to see me in the boxers just yet." he half muttered as he went to the drawer he just finished putting clothes away in.

"I feel like some douchey Abercrombie model. For some new mutate campaign." Adrian joked, now wearing some loose, gray pants while carefully pulling his shirt off his wings after getting it over his head. He still had the numerous scars left on him from his time in the arena, as well as a few new ones here and there.

"They may be douchey, but they're hot." Amaya argued with a smirk as she turned down the covers on the bed. She had shadows rise up in all the other rooms to lock the front door and turn off the lights and tv. Once the was done, she climbed in bed, yawning as she pulled her part of the covers over herself.

A plane touched down on one of the secondary runways at Dulles International and, a short while later, began disgorging its passengers into the baggage claim area. Most of them were human, a few Mutates mixed in with the bunch as had become common over the past five years. A trio of security guards at the incoming scanner booth pulled the Mutates aside as a group while the humans came through.

Of the two hundred passengers on the plane, fifteen were Mutates. Two were a married couple, both humanoid half-animals. Five of them were part of a travelling Mutate circus troupe, come to DC for a meeting with an American sponsor, who passed a floating sphere between themselves while they waited. Another three were simply tourists of various descriptions and abilities in to see DC. Four were the entourage of the last, all of them human save for the metallic sheen of their skin. The final was a being whose appearance shifted by the second.

A guard walked over to the groups and began processing them, starting with the couple. Each group was taken into a small room and, presumably, asked a few polite questions before going on their way. Before too long it was the turn of the four stoneskins and the shapeshifter. The shapeshifter walked into the room first, followed by his four bodyguards. They stood at the corners of the room, leaving the rather unpleasant airport security officers to the interrogation of their boss.

"So, Mutie. You're in the States on... you said 'business matters,' yeah?"

The shapeshifter's voice was steady, a pleasant baritone, tinged with a faint German accent. "Yes. There is a problem?"

The guard leaned back and grinned in anticipation of a rich haul. The shapeshifter could afford bodyguards, therefore he was probably rich. "Well, see, there's a new policy. All you Muties need to pay an extra processing fee, to compensate the airport for the extra security risk. The fee stands at a thousand dollars a head, USD only."

The shapeshifter's features suddenly stabilized into an almost comic caricature of Adolf Hitler, and his accent became much more pronounced. "Excuse me? You are telling me zat I have to pay you greasy little men for zer privilege of entering zis cesspool of a city? I refuse."

The guard lost his smile and leaned forward. "No, you don't, freak. You pay up or my boys take you and your help in for breaking regulations and trying to bypass security protocol."

The shapeshifter leaned forward in imitation of the guard and stared at him for several seconds. When he spoke again his voice was calm and devoid of any accent at all. "In this country there is a small area in your state of Texas that has been declared sovereign soil by your United States government. It is ruled over by Smith, the administrator of what is officially known as the City. I am his European counterpart, Amadeus. I rule over the Sanctuary in my home country directly, and oversee operations in the six other equivalents worldwide. All of the administrators are currently coming to meet Smith in his City, and must regrettably pass through your country to do so. We all, the eight of us including Smith, plus our entourages, have complete diplomatic immunity in this country."

The guard tilted his head and reached forward to grab Amadeus by the lapels. "I let you say your piece, fugly. Now pay up or I call the rest of security to drag you and your pets off to a nice cold hard concrete holding cell while you wait for the DCPD to show up."

There was a scraping sound from the four corners of the room as Amadeus' bodyguards moved away from the wall and moved their fingers down their collective arms. In the sudden silence following this, Amadeus spoke quite clearly. "In the year nineteen-hundred seventy-nine the Bavarian ambassador to the United States discovered his wife was having an affair. He shot her nine times and burned her body on a funeral pyre on the front lawn of the Bavarian embassy in full view of the local police department, FBI officials, press, other diplomats, and various civilians. He was not prosecuted, and remained the Bavarian ambassador for a further twenty years. Various foreign diplomats rake up billions of dollars each year for parking tickets alone, most of which are formally ignored by their parent nations with no ill repercussions. I can do whatever I like to you, right this instant, including skinning you alive in front of your President, and the worst that would happen would be my temporary expulsion from the country. At worst, I would have to ask Smith to lend me his pet teleporter. Take. Your. Hands. Off. Me."

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Two minutes and seven seconds later, Amadeus and his guards walked onto their transfer flight to DFW.

((I got the idea for this entrance after actually reading about the Bavarian ambassador murder case a few days ago. This actually happened, though I altered the date and how long he remained ambassador after the incident. He wasn't removed from the position because of the murder, though. The parking ticket statistic is fairly accurate, as well. 150,000 individual tickets were given to diplomat-tagged vehicles last year in NYC alone. They can pretty much get away with anything.))

"Agreed." Amaya yawned, now turning off the lights in the room. "But I'd say the four years was worth it." She said with a small smile as she flipped onto her stomach and cuddled her head into her pillow.

Amaya was up early the next morning, though she left the room in silence so she wouldn't disturb Adrian, making some coffee to try and wake up a bit before training for the day. While she was aware she no longer had to fight, Amaya knew there were still times she needed to, and on those rare occasions, she wanted to be ready, so she needed to train, just like she had been everyday since being rescued four years ago.

"Yes?" Amaya asked, having just gotten out of the shower. She had managed to train and shower by the time Adrian woke up, and she was dressed, but she was still toweling off her hair a bit. "I thought you'd just keep sleeping through to the New Year at the rate you were sleeping." She teased, sitting down on the bed.