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Lilian Rook     Apparently, hassling and harassing the seasalts to expand their wardrobe beyond those godawful Organization hoodie-robe-jimmy-jams had turned into an Outing. Everyone knows that Outings involving The Popular Girls eventually grow out of control, if not become borderline mobile parties with the less reserved of them. A shopping day is a shopping day is a shopping day; a universal constant by which all must cobble together as many mildly interested friends as possible to collectively waste their time spending a lot of money to show off, or else pretend to be people with enough money to spend it to show off.

    Pretty much just like the other time, they're taken to the nicest place in the city that is casually accessible (by important people) on short notice, so exclusive and luxurious as to even be mostly made of stone buildings, the dating effectively a sign of being able to set up where no Antegent has ever touched, as much as the prestige of historical appeal.

    All trace of city planning more modern than the historical buildings it had been built around has come and gone with time, rambling asphalt roads for thick downtown traffic having been replaced with (apparently affordable?) discreet solar crystal, dramatically narrowed down and less frequently traveled, directed with proximity triggered holographics hidden in greenery and donated public art installations (most of them actually even good), and monitored by hundreds of cameras that are small and difficult enough to spot to make a game out of trying to pick out as many as one can (and get maybe half of them).

    There is a generalized hum of strong magic in the air, though it isn't the dense, heady incense of it in the City Waking; it stems from the colossal series of concentric wards surrounding and going over the city, shielding massive metropolitan limits on a scale that must guzzle disgusting amounts of energy, despite everything being electrically efficient otherwise. On the plus side, it's been a very long time since anything was putting fumes into the air, and there are scarcely crowds to speak of in navigating the streets. It almost feels like someone's diorama model for 'the city of the future', with the slightly creepy overtone of cameras, overpowered defenses, and the niggling knowledge that there's all this space because so many people died not all that long ago.

    Whatever though! Shopping! Despite all the old construction, no one is using this space for banks and government and city hall anymore; all that stuff has been offloaded to secret enclaves, so now this space serves the purpose of catering to big money coming out of pockets instead of taxes. Extensive effort has gone into setting up signs and storefronts and window displays in a sort of 'authentic' turn of the century style, certainly with no shortage of competition for tailors, boutiques, jewelers, galleries, restaurants, etc. but surprisingly encompassing establishments having set up designer electronics like Brand, especially fancy-looking pharmacy equivalents, book stores, and dealers in unidentifiable weird bullshit.

    It's surprsingly not far away from one of the smaller Warpgates around, well outside the main cluster terminal, which has only helped it out more with new traffic. It does, however, also mean trios or quads of police standing around on corners every so often, and it seems Great Britain gave up on the bobby hats and truncheons a long time ago given their state of equipment, even in relaxed posture.
Lilian Rook     Either way, it's not a long walk from where Lilian has called them up to meet, across the street from the kind of cafe that only exists in urban fantasy wish fulfillment novels, on a corner with a tree that's legitimately too big and old for being here, alongside an art installation of a wire frame constellation of broken mirror pieces all arranged to reflect in such a way that the viewer sees themself from the same angle from all positions (as long as they stand in front of the slightly pretentious plaque that says it was someone's effort in 'broadening perceptions about the place we occupy in space'), and directly in front of a row of four adjacent clothing stores.

    The first is quite obviously all women's fashion, though very much a trendy spring lineup sort of deal, mostly 'oh yeah this is totally what I look like on a casual outing teehee' in effect without involving much in the way of dresses and heels. The second is a sort of mixed case of formal wear sitting below the black tie threshold, presentable for nice restaurants, weekly board meetings, having guests over, fancy dates, or stupid rich people sports for either sex.

    The third is technically athletic wear, but is only making pretenses at being for 'outdoorsy types', with the inherent romance of 'leaving a city and coming back in one piece'; it's genuinely top end materials and cuts for physical exercise with a 10,000% markup for looking sporty and something one could wear from non-stupid rich people athletics to a respectable movie theatre, probably popular with highschoolers.

    The last is predominantly 'fireside fashion', leaning on dark colours and old styles evocative of what someone would be wearing in a big, historical, slightly ominous manner. If the previous has all the hypothetical hoodie potential, this is the one with all the the dress and robe potential, pretty much the target case for attaching fancy insignia or family crests to.

    Directly across the street on the opposite corner is a jewelry store that oddly has tinted windows after the front row of displays, which contrary to expectations, are not piles and piles of african blood diamonds certified to have come from the suffering of impoverished children, but oddly rather sober affairs, with a lot of Christian, pagan, and genuinely occult stylings strangely cohabitating in piece. Around the corner is an aforementioned Brand Electronics store, mostly for tiny computers, smart devices, AR uplinks, designer software packages for VR interactions, etc. basically set up like Gucci Comp ltd.
Gilgamesh      To most people this is luxurious.

     To the King of Heroes this is 'pretty decent.'

     He makes this known, of course, as he walks through to the meeting spot. He doesn't verbally shout it, but there's no need to. His body language says it all. His slightly-raised, perfect chin; his red eyes looking down his nose at these places of unbelievable luxury; his is a stance of supreme ego, of perfect awareness of every inch of what it means to be *lavish*, and of an uncompromising god-king who absolutely does not, under any circumstances, bend his standards.

     The other thing that Gilgamesh oozes, besides confidence to the point of arrogance, is wealth. Just walking down the street it's easy to tell that he's the richest person for miles around. He's wearing his 'King of Denmark' outfit, a high-quality three piece suit with a golden jacket, a golden tie, a white overshirt, and a red dress shirt, and while anything he wears normally looks ludicrously overtailored and gorgeous, this exudes *kingliness* and *foreign dignitary* with every step. On anyone else it would probably be gaudy. On the King it...well, it just reinforces that he is, indeed, the King.

     He sits down on a bench near to Lilian like he owns the place (as far as he's concerned, he does), spreading his arms out on it as if it was a throne, and looks over the stores with the critical eye of a fashion designer, a Ludicrously Rich Person With High-End Tastes, and a King all at once. He doesn't say anything, though, not yet.

     He'll save *that* for when they get to look at the apparel closely.
Doctor Strange      Doctor Stephen Strange is not one for shopping, really. Not anymore. He lives alone, in a mansion, full of priceless artifacts, with the ability to conjure food seemingly from nothing. Should he ever need clothes more fancy than casualwear or his classic tunic-and-cloak combo, he has only the limits of illusion magic and his own imagination to hold him back.

     As such, he figures there's no harm in taking the long way to the meeting point. He takes in the sights, and does some window shopping. As one might expect, it's the 'unidentifiable weird bullshit' which catches his eye. He looks like he's too poor to be here, and not nearly 'arcane' enough to be perusing the aforementioned bullshit. The Sorcerer Supreme is dressed in a white tee, jeans, beat-up sneakers, and a loose grey hoodie. The only unusual thing on his person is a two-finger ring--the Sling Ring.

     After annoying shopkeepers with his clear lack of intent to make any purchases, he opens a portal and steps through it, without improving his clothes, and without manipulating time to arrive in any sort of punctual fashion. A wizard is never late, and all that shit.

     His wardrobe seems specifically chosen to display contempt for the concept of wealth, as all of it, upon closer inspection, is almost as worn-down as the sneakers. His lips are turned up ever so slightly at the corners when he sees that Gilgamesh did exactly what he thought he would. "Hiya," says the sorcerer to everyone present with a wave of his scarred hand.
Roxas Roxas doesn't actually understand the meaning of /stone buildings/ here well enough to appreciate how fancy this is locally. To him, it's just... one of the many ways that a building can be made! Unfortunately until they find something that he adequately likes (or that somebody forces him to wear and he doesn't care enough to decline) he's still clad in his long black coat. Judging by occasional flashes of pastel blue underneath, he is in fact /literally/ wearing pajamas underneath today.

On the upside, his budget is actually absurd. Roxas has split the money they got from that bizarre super-rich kingdom up into thirds. A third was set aside for Axel, even though he hadn't really asked for that at all.

In all, that means that Xion and Roxas came here with several thousand credits.

So far, he has taken an interest in... a hoodie. A black hoodie with a checkerboard pattern along the sleeves, specifically. It's the only thing he's gone out of his way to buy, and for the most part he's just looked... confused.

"This seems really complicated." He eventually decides, somewhere between a simple statement and complaint.

This is only to be expected from somebody whose wardrobe has literally been 'the same outfit' and 'literally pajamas'.

"Xion, does this make sense to you?" He wonders, right before Doctor Strange turns up with casual greetings.

Roxas waves back to Strange with a jovial, "Hey."
Tomoe After the merc job the day before, Tomoe could use a day to relax and unwind really and this seemed like to be a great way to do it really. She has the paycheck from the job at least. Though if she's being honest? It's not going to survive this shopping trip in all likelihood, but she's all right with that. Once again she's rather awed at the city itself. The public art caught her attention here and there but thankfully she doesn't just pull out her phone and start snapping pictures. She does spot a camera or two as well and suspects there are more.

She's also not clad in armour as she knows that would be not a suitable thing to do for a day like this. She's in fairly casual but clearly not rich clothing with a Gate Crashers Union jacket on. That of affairs is likely to by the end of the day be no longer the case. Which is half the fun here to her really. The police presence is noted but considered sensible to Tomoe given who knows what might pop out of a warp gate at any given day.

She debates over the stores the third one is one she'll pass on she's pretty well stocked for that sort of thing, thus she makes a plan she's going to head the second store is the first target she needs some nicer clothing for when dealing with clients or semi-formal affairs. After all not all her clients just post a sword wanted job to some adventure guild hall or even the Syndicate Board, this is also a chance on her part to go be social.

Her plans will wait a bit as she too joins the rapidly gathering group. She pauses as the King of Heroes makes himself known and arrives to join up with Lilian and everyone else.

"King of Heroes, Lilian. Thank you for the invite to this!"

Gilgamesh is a bit of a paradox to her but still, she does think he deserves a good level of respect and Lilian well is the reason why she's even being able to get on this trip. The Salamander looks to be pretty happy too from the look on her face even as Doctor Strange arrives as well who gets a wave, it seems she holds no bad blood over the sword incident.
Haguro         Haguro hasn't really spoken with the members of the Organization much beyond missions and fighting, but today will change that! That's her hope, anyway, as she arrives at the location designated by Lilian with a fat wallet and a unfashionable gray trench coat that's actually comically oversized. It doesn't so much as hide her gut-tail as it just makes it look like someone that's very bad at hiding stuff they've just stolen in a barely closed coat, albeit one that's moving on its own every now and then.

    That, or a very pregnant albino. The Abyssal really needs a better outfit while she's looking like this.

     The first and fourth stores both draw her attention, although her brief sightseeing halts when she sees a certain golden king sitting right there.

     He wouldn't make a scene here of all places, right? Fighting the urge to turn around, Haguro steps forward slowly while raising her free hand in a slow wave towards Gilgamesh, Roxas, and the underdressed sorceror that doesn't look like a sorceror.

     Also she has no idea who Strange is yet. "G... Good evening, everyone. You're here because of the.. Um. Invitation, too?"
Septette Arcubielle      For someone on a shopping trip, Septette is doing alarmingly little shopping. Instead, she's playing a game. The game is to see how many books she can lightning-read and memorize before getting forcibly ejected from a bookstore. Present scores: 172, 83, and 45. They're onto her.

     When she shows up to the 'clothing district' with the rest of the group, Septette does so in terribly simple apparel for such a prime social-signaling opportunity- just a slightly-mottled purple shawl and headband, frayed around the edges by catching claws and decades of wear, and a brass brooch in the shape of a leaf.

     There are two kinds of being underdressed: by those who cannot meet expectations, and by those demonstrating they feel no obligation to. This doesn't feel like either of those, though it superficially resembles Strange's Diogenesque approach- she returns his wave with an air of quiet solidarity. Instead, she radiates an air of austere mystery: why's that stuff important enough to wear to a place like this?

     "Just pick something that's comfy and practical to wear," she says to Roxas, wholly unsolicited. "Or maybe something that resonates with you on a personal level. Does that hoodie you're holding mean anything?"
Aranea Highwind     An excuse to hang out between various contracts and the more dreaded military work is always a good excuse, and so it takes exactly zero effort to convince an Aranea to go shopping.

    It's probably not much of a surprise that Aranea wears leather casually; a black leather coat, worn over a clean red dress shirt, tucked into black leather pants themselves tucked into brown, slightly heeled boots. There's a golden necklacke around her neck, resting over her chest, showing a spearpoint (pointed down) with a glowing red gem inlaid in it.

    She immediatly beans Gilgamesh on the shoulder.

    "Underdressed for tests of might, overdressed for an evening in town, huh? Betting that outfit is worth more than everything in my wardrobe. You actually have holes in your wardrobe you need to fill, O King, or is this just an excuse to mingle with the lesser folk?"

    Roxas calls fashion complicated. Aranea laughs. "Oh, it is. What's in and what's out changes every season, just about. You're better off picking something you like and not worrying about trends. Having a work uniform might not be high fashion, but it sure is convenient."

    "Yeah," she asides to Haguro. She raises her hand to wave idly at Strange and Haguro, since she's not met either. "Aranea."
Ereshkigal      Ereshkigal hasn't very much poked her nose into things, but if there is one thing that a (not)-useless goddess sibling of Ishtar is good for, it's for an eye of fashion. However, this is one thing here she disagrees with... and that is that black is bad. She's very fond of back, is the five-pointed black tiara on her head is indication, marked with red-ribboned twintails, a gold upper arm circle, and a black dress held at her lower hip with a black flower ribbon.

     "Make sure it is effective for what you are trying to portray." She says, gravely. "Visuals are everything." She distinctly glances at both Strange and Gilgamesh as she walks past, glancing at the athletic gear, arms crossing under her chest.

     "Marvelous. So this is window-shopping."
Xion THE QUEST TO PURGE AWAY THE JIMMY JAMS, is a somber occasion.

One with gravitas. One not undertaken lightly. It will be not just a battle, but a war. A war on the senses, a war on every front.

EARLIER
Larxene snaps a metal pointer to a large whiteboard filled with doodles and words and pictures of various articles of clothing (in a white room with white walls and white floors and only the vaguest shadows in the sharp corners of the room to give an impression of a cube and not a white void). "And remember. Fashion is fighting. Looking your best is an attack, an act of dominance.

Xion studiously takes notes. "Mmhmm. Fashion... is fighting."

NOW
"Fashion is fighting, Roxas." Xion repeats, like a koan. She seems to be in her element, even though she hasn't actually changed out of or tried anything on different from her black-on-black-with-black original outfit. "This is a battlefield, and we're gonna win!"

A tight-clenched raised fist and a severe, serious expression combine to show her true, DEFINITELY A FEELING feelings on the matter. "But that hoodie looks nice."

Congruous with her serious expression and her serious fist is a near-vibrating jazzhand to wave at everyone - especially Strange! - as they notice and greet the pair.

Instantly distracted from all previous by Gilgamesh, Xion flits over to him. "Wowwwww! Is your tie... gold? Actual gold? I love the black pattern on it. Does it mean something? Do you like wearing that? No? Yes?"

Xion considers. "Nnnno?"
Axel Despite Roxas and Xion needing nicer clothes more than he thinks he does, Axel's come along too, deciding to get some new Multiverse digs and blend in with the crowd better - at least, some crowds, seeing how expensive all of this is. The Concord would probably appreciate one of their agents looking nice if he ever has to come to something formal, at the very least.

Which means, right now, the spiky redhead is in his black coat, hood down, and when he arrives, ends up immediately joining to Roxas and Xion (though Haguro gets a nod of recognition and maybe respect) because they're familiar and safe. "That's why I don't bother. Coat works well enough, but might as well have something nice for the new job, is what I'm thinking."

If Axel was given his 'cut' of a mission he wasn't even at, he's surprised but as grateful as he can be, with a solid 'Thanks, Roxas, Xion'. He brought his own money, though - Concord signing bonus turns out to be pretty nice.

And as he crosses through the stores, two outfits speak to him. A nice, not too stuffy 'formal outfit' of a nice suit top and slacks, and then something casual he can wear whenever. Black jacket, 'jeans', shoes, probably as close to punk fashion as he can actually get at stores like these.

Too bad there's almost certainly no t-shirts. That'd be easiest for him, but they were taken to FANCY SHOPPING so they need to buy fancy things.
Gilgamesh      Strange's approach draws a smirk from the King. Or maybe that's just his resting expression; it's hard to tell. "I had heard that modernity much undervalued their healers, but this is really disappointing, Doctor," Gilgamesh says. He nods at Tomoe and Septette; when Aranea punches him, he chuckles. "My wardrobe is as perfect as I am. But that doesn't mean there mightn't be something to catch my fancy. And I always enjoy spending the day with beautiful women while..."

     He cuts himself off and looks up at the sky.

     Notably, he is not acknowledging Haguro. This might be some kind of kindness from him; after all, he hasn't exactly made his opinion on the Abyssal secret. It's also probably laws of hospitality - if the monster was invited then he isn't allowed to destroy her. That would be a breach of etiquette.

     Especially, you know, in front of a goddess. That's just asking for trouble.

     Septette says 'just pick something comfy and practical.'

     At this, the King stands. Xion flits over to him, and he answers her questions as he walks towards Roxas. "It is real gold, yes. So is the jacket. The emblem is the writing on my most prized possession. I do, indeed, enjoy wearing this. It shows that I am better than other people in an extremely visceral manner. It tells them that I am the King, that they should know that I am better than them. It establishes dominance."

     He strides forward and puts a hand on Roxas's shoulder. "You. You don't wear something *comfortable and practical* out. You wear a statement. What you wear tells others about you. Your statement may be,"

     He sweeps his hand at Strange, "'It does not matter what you think, I am secure in my own place in the world, as all philosophers ought to be,'"

     He gestures at himself, "'That I stand astride the world and none shall ever match me,'"

     He gestures at one of the athletics outfits, "'That I am fit and enjoy exercise,'"

     He gestures at Axel, "'That I am poor and lazy.'"

     "Your clothing," he says, draping an arm around Roxas's shoulder and Septette's, "Is a statement of fact about you as a person. And, yes, you can say as much or as little as you please, but you should know always what you are saying when you are saying it."
Septette Arcubielle      Septette tries to put her arm around Gil's shoulders, too, but fails to do so. She (un)subtly stands up on tippy-toes and does something with the joints of her legs to tack on a few extra inches, and then successfully reciprocates- her skeletal arm feels like it weighs two hundred pounds. "And yet all of these things stem from practicality, I would hope! You've decided that you're best suited by projecting intimidation, Gilgamesh, because it serves your goals."

     One- and only one of her eyes- swivels to focus on Roxas, like she's a chameleon tracking a fly. "So what's important to you, guy? When you can define your win condition, you'll know how to reach it."
Lilian Rook     Strange screwing about the streets in a hoodie and sneakers draws Looks. Not 'ew look at that hobo' looks, or 'haha he's poor' looks, but genuine 'do you think that guy is a terrorist?' looks. When he starts peeking into a store that looks practically like a greenhouse on the inside, save that, amongst other things, a row of dried roots certainly looks like a bunch of petrified fetuses, a duo of police officers pat him on the shoulder and politely demand to see his ID in the way that police officers politely demand things. They actually scan the card to make sure it's legit, in some amount of disbelief, before wishing him a pleasant day.

    Showing up opposite of Gilgamesh, Lilian takes one look at one of them, then one look at the other, pushes her hands down her legs to her knees, and then says "I get the impression you two would be the absolute worst kind of chaperone, for totally opposite reasons. You look like you're here to menace the kids." She says that, and then snaps a selfie anyways.

    The realities of #yggdroidlife set off just about every camera on Septette's way through, apparently geared for more than just running gait recognition. It seems she's a bit better known than Strange though, probably both for her one of a kind appearance, and for the ridiculous nonsense on her ID. It makes people slightly more hesitant than usual to ask her to please buy something or find a library instead when she starts scanning through piles of books on economics, history, self-help, feng shui, healthy living, and about twice as many foreign language texts filled with arcane symbology.

    It's probably a good thing that they're all converging on someone who roughly amounts to 'government worker', because Haguro is *definitely* being followed by armed officers in dark grey tactical fatigues by the time she ends up with the big blob of Multiversals, along with a bunch of obvious Teens With Attitude maliciously wearing hoods --hoods so dangerous that certain other police departments are obligated to shoot you multiple times in the back for posessing one near a gated community.

    Getting up from her bench, she 'waves off' the officers in the 'this is a good-day-to-you wave but you really know it's an I've-got-it-from-here wave', she turns around on her toes, puts her hands on her hips, and points to Gilgamesh. "That's right! That's exactly right! This is why you three especially-" she points to Axel, Roxas, and Xion "-are here today! You're here to find the statement you want to make, and then make it with your appearance! You may claim to fight Nobodies, but while wearing something that depressing and anonymizing, you *are* a nobody!" It's said with the passion of a drill Sergeant that was allowed to present the new iPhone.

    "You need two things at least! One is something to wear on the streets! You can't go everywhere looking like a cultist! You're in the prime of your youth! Enjoy society's adoration! Another is something to wear when it's important! You're on the cusp of adulthood! Show everyone the men and woman you're going to become!" Lilian swivels her finger to point at Aranea. "Even something like that is fine! It has attitude!" Then to Strange and Haguro. "That is *not* fine! Never do that! You'll be mistaken for a vagrant or a drug dealer! You're better than that!"
Roxas "I'm here because my clothes are terrible, I think." Roxas replies to Haguro, with a faint shrug. His attention snaps towards Septette when she asks him about the meaning behind his Single Chosen Garment. He frowns a little, seeming to concentrate very hard on the idea before he answers, "I guess I just sort of like it? I wear black all the time, but the stuff I do with magic is usually white. So something that's black-and-white, I guess it just feels right to me?"

Both Septette and Aranea tell him to just wear what's comfortable, which is contrary to why he's here in the first place. Roxas scratches the back of his head, "But I already have that... I'm supposed to be filling out my wardrobe so I don't look so weird all the time."

"... Trying... to portray?" He blinks uncomprehendingly at Ereshkigal. Roxas barely knows what he likes, and doesn't understand what she's attempting to communicate.

Finally, Xion makes an alarming statement. Roxas gestures at her, "But... but I'm good at fighting, and bad at this!"

His exchange with Axel is more-or-less uncomprehending of Axel's surprise. Apparently Roxas just thirds everything in his head, and assumes that Axel is entitled to /some/ of it if he needs it, and this is the sort of situation where he needs it.

A little unexpectedly, Gilgamesh moves over to him and offers him advice. Roxas blinks at the hand on his shoulder, looking up questioningly-- and then following his gestures here and there.

Roxas flashes an apologetic smile towards Axel in response to the description attributed to /him/, and successfully suppresses a light laugh fighting to come up.

Then he returns to Gilgamesh's advice.

"So..." He points to himself, "I guess the point of a uniform is /not/ to be making an individual statement."

Yes, Roxas only literally just comprehended that in this exact moment.

He holds up his hoodie and stares at it.

It's a visible struggle to try to come up with an answer, though.

"I guess... the most that I can really try to say about me, is that a part of this is the people I'm friends with, and the rest of it is 'me'. If I was going with something like that, then..."

"I need something silver." He decides.

Which is where Lilian comes in. Her entire spiel gets a slightly alarmed look out of Roxas, who glances towards Axel and Xion before deciding that Lilian probably doesn't actually know what she just said, and nods slowly.

"So... this is probably okay for a 'street' outfit," Roxas waves his hoodie lightly, "but I need to finish it with a 'statement' and get something more like hers--"

He points at Aranea, and then to Gilgamesh, "Or his?"
Gilgamesh      Gilgamesh shifts only mildly to accomodate the new weight, a subtle shift that only Septette is likely to pick up on. "That isn't wrong, I suppose. Too many people believe you should dress *practically* in the sense that the clothing itself should be 'practical', as if 'practicality' is a virtue of the clothing and not the outfit."

     Lilian backs him up. Roxas asks if he should buy something like Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh laughs at him.

     "No one in this group could afford this outfit."
Haguro Aranea's outfit gives Haguro some ideas for her own! Sort of. She had heard of monochrome being a potential look she could use, and adding some red to it could work...

"Haguro. It's nice to meet you, Miss Aranea. " She bows briefly before wrapping her hands around her front, peering into her coat to stare at the tails hidden inside. After making sure they're not wriggling around too much, she turns her attention back to Aranea and Roxas.

"Fashion trends can be strange. I know I saw someone wearing a peacock-like outfit a few years ago on a runway, and people were clapping for some reason." She mulls over that for a good while before taking note of Gilgamesh's appraisal of several of their outfits.

Yep, she needs to find something better to go outside with. Those officers tailing herself and Septette don't go unnoticed, and she looks their way briefly with a meek wave before turning right back to the group and trying very hard not to look behind her again. It's certainly not the behavior of someone that's afraid they've gotten caught stealing something!

Luckily, Lilian's there to wave them off. Her relief is short-lived, though, when her and the hobo supreme are lumped together for. "D-drug dealer?! I'd never...! I mean, m-maybe he looks like one right now, but I don't..."

The Abyssal starts shrinking inwards, her voice getting ever quieter. This isn't proper hero behavior at all! "Do I? Mmn. Then..." She bites her lip, then turns to Roxas with a sudden burst of confidence in her stance and tone. "Then let's get clothes that aren't terrible!"

A beat, and then she peers at Roxas closely. "Maybe... You could get a haircut, too? Evening it out, brushing it back a little, a hat for when it gets cold..."
Doctor Strange      Getting stopped by two police officers is like crack to the sorcerer. He /so/ proudly provides his ID--his Paladin ID, his smile that infuriating sort of turned-down at the corners, his brow raised ever so slightly, his head inclined in prime 'fuck with me' mode. When the clear him, it's as if they've given him the key to the city.

     Strange points affably at Gilgamesh upon the King's appraisal of his attire. He gets it. So, too, apparently, does Septette. Nice.

     "Counterpoint," says Strange in contradiction of Lilian. "It's worth it just for the baffled, barely hidden disappointment you just saw on those guys' faces."
Tomoe When it comes to Tomoe's own fashion at least for today it screams maybe low end but clean and obviously she gives enough of a damn to make sure everything's in working order but it's a very simple combo of boots pants, shirt and leather jacket which just lets her slip into a crowd at least on a modern world.

She looks over to Haguro with a concerned look "Are you recovering from yesterday all right Haguro? You did a heck of a job tanking all that firepower." Haguro had tanked a lot of firepowers the day before and Tomoe did seem concerned for her wellbeing. She might be a spirit of a warship but she clearly does know what pain is and can be hurt. Roxas and his friend Xion is noted as new people and she hears very true words spoken by him about fashion.

"Fashion is pretty complicated and the multiverse makes it even more so, but it's also more interesting now."

Aranea comments has Tomoe grin

"Better to do your own thing than just be stuck chasing the trend of the moment. At least at shops like these, you should be getting pretty good quality stuff here for you and your friend sir."

She also looks over to Axel as he shows up and he gets a wave.

"Nice job working with you yesterday."

She notes and then comments back to Gilgamesh.

"I can't argue with your sense of style and honestly, things are never boring when you are around."

She's perhaps come about around a bit more to the King of Heroes as of late she also seems to nod at Septette's advice which is fairly solid for an Elite who goes romping about the multiverse.

, Either way, it's time to get going on the fashion train, right?

"That's a good point if one goes about looking like a cultist all the time? It could lead to some bad misunderstandings."

She looks over to Ereshkigal with a bit of a grin.

"A little bit of window shopping but I intend to pick up a few things myself!"

She doesn't know her or that she's a goddess though if she's here she's clearly someone worth taking note of like everyone else present tonight. She's ready to get going and looks to Haguro again.

"You do deserve better than what you got right now Haguro."
Haguro      Haguro nods towards Tomoe. Luckily for the Cruiser, her shitty coat is covering up all the bandages and things covering up her wounds from the previous night. "Y-yes, thank you. I should really invest in better armor some day, but that sort of expense... It'd be more efficient to spend it on someone else's gear."

    That part hasn't changed, at least.
Septette Arcubielle      'Being tracked by cameras' is not a novel experience for Sept. Every now and then, she bends down with her hands on her knees to peer at one and slightly adjusts it to give it a better-angled view of the area, where wind or minor maladjustments might've knocked it a few millimeters off-angle. 'I see you' plus 'I'm here to help', in a little honest signal.

     "Something silver, huh? Let's make it... matte-ish, probably, so it doesn't look gaudy with your hair," she says, framing Roxas with a finger-rectangle as if visualizing him in a photo. "Maybe a nice jacket? Or did you have anything more specific in mind?"
Xion Xion, as Gilgamesh answers her, stares at the tie. The writing on the tie. the black relief in an ocean of gold. "I see, I see."

Her eyes glimmer with some hidden understanding, 'feeling' the gold with her eyes, tasting the cloth in a similar way. Then he's up! And Xion follows along after him, meandering in his wake as a Teenager Without Attitude But A Dark Hoodie And Weird Vibes that the police probably are calling in extra backup for. Gilgamesh gets 'chummy' with Roxas, as Septette becomes his other shoulder devil, but this is fine! This is definitely fine.

These are not people with agendas! They smile and are nice, and so they are friends!

Lilian engages the party with her slick moves and excellent manners, easily defusing the situation, but Xion catches a wind - or, rather, wanders off while people are gathering around Roxas, to find Haguro's tactical team, or one of the wads of NICE POLICEMEN, to reach into her coat and draw---

Her own nice ID Card! From the testing! "Hello, Policemen! Did you want to see my card? Here it is!"

Xion is very proud of her card, and will in fact actively hunt down the tactical team to SHOW THEM IT.
Ereshkigal      Some radio byplay distracts Ereshkigal, before she side-eyes her 'nephew' as he laughs. She then nods to Tomoe slightly, before her golden heels clicker-clack across the floor as she practically circles Xion like a shark.

     "Blue eyes, black hair. Lovely. Perhaps stick with black - it is classic, after all. Or a blue, to match your eyes... silver accents, to match him, perhaps?" She glances at Roxas. "Or something more... feminine, perhaps - white colors?"
Aranea Highwind     "Making a point's not a bad outlook," Aranea confirms for Roxas, placing a hand on her hip idly. "And yeah, uniforms don't usually make a point, though some are made to intimidate. Armor more than uniforms, but you get the idea. It's good you think your uniform's comfortable, but you gotta separate business-you from you-you or you'll go mad."

    A sly smirk at Lilian, then. "Well, good to know I'm 'fine', thanks!" The tone is not actually offended. It's very much accepting a compliment of a sort.

    Then back to Roxas: "Not sure I'd go for leather if I were you, kid," as a direct reply for having 'something like her'. "She's not wrong, though," she adds, jerking back towards Lilian. "Those robes don't fit in. Makes you stand out in a crowd, and not in a good way. Attention's not always bad, but it's the kind that makes it harder to move around and do your thing."

    Then to Haguro: "Like her. Notice how the cops are following her like she's got bombs strapped to her chest and is threatening to blow up the whole square? It's not useful."
Axel Axel actually laughs slightly delayed when he's given an unflattering description, lightly, taking it in stride. "Hey, I'm not poor." Roxas gets a hmm, and then a glance towards Aranea. "Something more like hers than his, I'd say. Something like his draws attention. If you want that, go for it, but I imagine you don't."

Lilian's broad overview gets a squint from the redhead, a brief thought over her weird choice of words, and then letting it pass and shrugging. "That's what I was going for, yeah. But for formal, I don't really want stuffy. Like, who needs a tie in this day and age?"

Tomoe gets a nod, and Aranea ends up getting approached. "So, you get to go on super fancy clothing runs often? I can't imagine that's the norm for someone in your line of work." Just his attempt at making some chitchat. While he's doing so, he watches Xion and the policemen, just to make sure nothing dangerous happens. If the cops move to draw their own weapons, he'll quickly start moving in that direction to try and make sure Xion doesn't get in a huge fight. That'd be nasty.
Roxas "Well... yeah, your tie is made of gold. But it's still a good example, even if I can't match it. Or... I assume it's a good example." Roxas replies to Gilgamesh, /apparently/ having comprehended that, too. His apparent awareness of things in general is so all-over-the-place.

"Can't you buy drugs in a convenience store?" He wonders, quietly. Case in point.

"Uh..." He surveys Haguro's enthusiasm with a lot more confusion than Xion's. Roxas at least understands where Xion's enthusiasm comes from-- he doesn't know why Haguro is so fired up. Then she points out his hair.

Roxas crosses his arms over his chest obstinately, "I /like/ my hair."

"... But I guess I wouldn't mind a hat?"

"Oh, er..." He is immediately distracted by Septette. Roxas thinks about it, then nods towards Aranea, "Maybe a shirt like hers?"

"H-hey, Xion..." Roxas moves out from underneath Gilgamesh's arm to pursue her, "Xion, you don't have t--"

But she seems to be having so much fun getting ID'd that he stops midway through and just lets her carry on. Roxas asks Ereshkigal, "Are we... /supposed/ to match?"

Then back to Aranea, "Why not? I already wear a lot of it, but... maybe it's just too same-y?

"Oh! Yeah, cops follow us all the time when they notice us."

"Hey, Axel--" Roxas calls as the older Nobody goes meandering after Xion, "should I avoid leather, or go with leather. Should I match Xion? ... Should /you/ match /us/?"
Lilian Rook     Lilian doesn't seem to look even slightly less excited at Roxas' reply. "Black and white! Colour coordinating around your magic! Perfect!" This results in being directed to the second and fourth stores, insisting on grabbing Roxas a few pretty normal white shirts, running the white collar to v-neck gamut, for universal baby's first coordination with anything black over it, then trying to restrain herself and going for the simplest stuff that's still generally respectable, giving up on anything with a tie and instead going for designer jeans (which aren't skinny in this era, thank god), some basic dress shoes, then expensive black athletics shoes, and demanding he pick from a handful of blazers and respectable sweaters (one even with another checker band!), attempting black and white 'good boy charm', though at least there are bottoms, shoes, and an undershirt to go with the checker hood.

    Silver comes down into trying to persuade him into some sort of necklace or pin, on top of making sure all the buttons and links are silver, though if 'silver grey' qualifies, there's a jacket in it too. She also insists to anyone who picks up on the brainless option that you can get a black suit goddamn anywhere. Anything he particularly declines to buy, she puts on her card and stuffs into his arms anyways.

    She's so distracted with this that she notices Xion walking up and reaching into her robe a little too late. "Just one minute." she says to Roxas, irony probably unintentional, before--
                -----[stop]-----
    Lilian sighs at poor, young, naive Xion, jogging the length of the street and grabbing her shoulder, clapping her other hand over the one that's dived into her coat.
                -----[start]-----

    --appearing with her hands on Xion, arresting her hand for just a second as the officers visibly tense with 'about ready to yell at her to get on her knees' attitude, and then letting her produce the card *after* she finishes obliviously blurting about it. Lilian shoots the officers a slightly apologetic smile and says "Sorry, she's just *very* proud. It was her first year and all." and they seem to accept it, waving her along, whereupon Lilian ends up trying to drag Xion into store numero uno, inviting Tomoe along especially.

    The lineup for spring seems to involve a lot of greens, silvers, white, brown, and lighter end blues, which she insists work well enough for the either of them. She also insists that Xion's shoes and her robe cut actually work decently well, and so goes hunting for soft boots with similar heels, as well as at least one '''casual''' jacket with roughly the same neckline and a little less bulky sleeve profile, specifically looking for stuff trimmed in around the waist (demanding Xion take advantage of her figure). She basically has her choice whether she wants to base around green or blue with the suggestions Lilian foists on her, but she won't let her stick to monochrome like Roxas, and ends up leaning on 'stuff that looks good with your jacket zipped open', sporty springtime skirts and leggings and/or clean cut pants that actually look good with boots instead of like basic white girl hot garbage, and a pair of leather gloves. Also at least one comfy high neck sweater with big sleeves, because she insists it'll be adorable.
Lilian Rook     She lets Tomoe have free-er reign of the place, expecting she's a girl who dresses herself and thus is competent at this. When Haguro shows her enthusiasm though, Lilian takes one look down at her belly region, and says "How do you expect to fit anything with *that*? Get rid of it already." quite rudely and unsympathetically.

    Axel already at least has some ideas, but Lilian seems to insist on seeing him in a suit vest --the kind with the sleeves you can pin up-- because she dictates that he has the build for it. The few clothes she specifically foists on him tend towards stuff that's either of the looser, simpler kind, relatively plain or simply patterned long sleeves that do the loose cuffs but tight across the chest profile, though she especially demands he get some robust shoes and a decent leather jacket, specifically not black "Because he seems like the type."

    To Gilgamesh's eye, it's all 'good quality', but nothing that'll stand out especially to him. It's the jewelry and accessories across the street that seem like they might be interesting. Rather than just featuring religious/occult iconography for trendy hot topic reasons, a great number of them are actually using the correct sacred geometry/metals/gemstones to be properly meaningful for various purposes, and a couple of them are actually genuinely faithful reproductions of Babylonion icons of power, though a larger number have attempted to be so and just become knockoffs with such a time gulf. The stuff up front isn't *too* assuming, but they claim to have pieces 'for the discerning customer' in the back.
Aranea Highwind     "Being a mercenary doesn't mean I don't wear clothes, handsome," Aranea replies to Axel, in that awkward tone between teasing and flirting. "Though usually it's just me. A few colleagues, every once in a while. You probably know how that is, since you've clearly made the effort to get something other than those robes already," she adds.

    Then to Roxas: "Leather's the go-to 'look at me I'm cool' material. You ever see biker gangs roaming the streets all wearing leather coats?" Not entirely unlike hers, but hers is far more formal and less... well, less biker gang-y. "If that's the message you want to send, go for it. Guess I'm just not getting that vibe from you. From him, though?" She motions towards Axel. "He's absolutely the cowboy leather type."

    Lilian proves her point swiftly.

    
Axel All in all, shopping is fun. It reminds Axel of when he was younger. Aranea gets a reply, "Sure, but have you seen these price tags? I'm not sure I'm the target here." His tone is laid-back, casual, taking her own awkward tone fine. "I've done this before, though not in a long time. We'd mostly window-shop, though, or buy something cheap with a band logo on it."

"Do you /want/ to wear leather?" Axel replies to Roxas as he starts to move. "It can get pretty hot, but I've always been a fan. Matching, though...I don't think casual clothes need to match too much. Not clash, sure, but it's good to express our individuality."

"Formal clothes, though, those might be nicer if we're all on the same footing, in case we ever have to go to a fancy party or something. Same general colors and style, at least." Axel seems to be pretty solid about his opinion. He's not a fashion expert like Larxene, though. He just wears what he likes.

After a blur, though, the Xion problem is solved! So Axel goes back to clothes shopping, even though he's suspicious of Lilian's rapid movement. He grabs himself some basic shirts, since that's important, and then just seems to follow along with the others. He accepts the suit vest recommendation well enough, though he frowns when he's told the leather jacket can't be black (he goes with brown).
Doctor Strange      "And in a pharmacy, if a doctor says it's okay," says Strange to Roxas dryly. He clears his throat, and mutters conspiratorially towards the Nobody. "But. Seriously. Don't sweat the clothes. Either you get it, or you don't. Not the end of the world if you don't. Not everyone needs a 'brand.'" His brows twitch in distaste at the utterance of that last word, then he leans away.

     Now that he's been cleared by the cops, Strange has his pick of which shops to go to. And, like Gilgamesh, nothing in the clothing store really seems to interest him. Why purchase when he could imitate, and why imitate when he could create wholly original, albeit illusory, clothes? He points the Sling Ring forward and cuts a hole in reality, heading back to the Bullshit Store.

     The portal opens in front of it, because he wants to hear that satisfying 'ding-a-ding' of the little bell. Or the 'beep-boop,' if it's that kind of store. "Heyo," says Strange, giving the shopkeeper of the greenhouse-looking place a brisk wave of one heavily scarred hand. He points a gnarled, trembling finger at the dried roots which look like petrified fetuses.

     "Mandragora?"
Septette Arcubielle      Septette wanders on over to the jewelry store, and takes a while to peruse the pieces on display. Nothing there quite seems to fit what she's looking for, but after a short chat with someone behind the counter, she picks out a small-yet-intricate butterfly pin made from blue and green opaque stones. After affixing it to her headband, she slips an elbow-length white evening glove on only her left hand and heads back out to rejoin the group.

     "Brown looks better on you than black anyway," she offers to Axel, sipping genteelly from a somehow-smuggled cup of tea. "Goes better with the red hair, right? Try on some cowboy boots too, maybe."
Roxas "P-perfect?"

Roxas follows Lilian's directions without complaint, looking somewhere between alarmed and perplexed through the entire experience. Apart from the suggestion that he might cut his hair earlier, he doesn't especially object to any advice given to him-- he's not particularly disinterested in 'simply accessorizing' silver, but he does cede that silver grey qualifies.

He picks a black blazer, evidently just out of habit, but beelines for the checker banded sweater. There are a few things -- extra sweaters, mostly -- that he's very lukewarm on, and ends up holding in spite of that with an even more bewildered look on his face when Lilian decides she needs to handle the issue of Xion.

"H-hey, isn't that too much..." He mumbles into the wind.

"... But thanks."

Perhaps not particularly oddly, Roxas ends up trailing into the first store. He disappears briefly -- apparently to change -- and re-emerges wearing the new jeans, hoodie, undershirt, and athletic shoes.

When he returns it's to hover around as Xion is given the same treatment. All told, he's actually /way/ more interested than a boy of his age typically is, in that he doesn't wander off to find someplace to sit down or start playing on a phone.

When Aranea explains the statement of a lot of leather, understanding quickly dawns on Roxas's face. He nods, "I don't entirely get it, but... I don't feel like that's me, now that you've said so. Those guys are usually kind of a pain anyway. But... you don't seem to be, and Axel really isn't."

This is the part where you should start questioning his judgement.

"I guess not," he says to Axel, "and I think that my formal clothes... that's what the blazer was for, right? I think those go with just about anything anybody else would wear."

Roxas straightens up with his armfull of bags when Strange comes over. His expression changes a little, at first imperceptibly and strangely, and then finally settling into a mild smile. He says, "I guess... I don't really feel a lot of pressure to be a 'brand', even though I'm going along with it. But... it's true that we're pretty suspicious, the way we usually dress. And, um... I guess it's not that big a deal to anybody else, but..."

"It's sort of nice," Roxas says, "to dress like... you know. People dress."

There's your second alarming statement of the last six minutes.
Gilgamesh      Indeed, Gilgamesh gets bored with the clothes about halfway through. Hanging out with beautiful women is always pleasant but hanging out in a clothing store that's merely 'nice' instead of 'overwhelmingly decadent' gets dull after a while. So he does what he usually does - he buys at least three copies of everything in the store, drops likely more money than the poor bewildered cashier has ever seen, flirts a bit, and then just tosses it over his shoulder into the Gate without a care. Then, with that done, he heads over to the jewelry store.

     He looks only slightly irritated by one of the Babylonian icons, lifting it up and inspecting it. Then he puts it down with a flicker of frustration across his perfect features and continues to look through the jewelry before, again, basically buying everything in the store (except that specific icon for some reason) and tossing it into the Gate. He never asks how much these things are, though he does tell them to 'also give him everything in the back,' and when the cashier again undoubtedly protests, he just dumps a load of gold on the table and gives them a look of utter boredom before saying that the King dislikes repeating himself.

     That done, he comes back to rejoin the group, notably having put on some of the nicer pieces of ruby, gold, and diamond, particularly a pair of earrings and a few rings. He looks over Roxas's purchases with a discerning eye.

     "You paid too much for these," he says, as if he didn't just buy two entire stores with a wave of his hand.
Roxas "Lilian insisted on some of it," Roxas replies to Gilgamesh, "and I don't know what's fair to pay for some of these things... or where else I would get them. If it was potions or something I could just find a mog shop, but I don't think I've ever seen one selling clothes. I wonder if they could get some if I asked..."
Xion Xion's arm reaching for her card is mildly arrested by Lilian just showing up out of the blue, giving her a big confusion with the conflicting 'feelings' in the air.

Lilian probably saves a bunch of nonsense and certainly a lot of shouting. Axel comes up a little short - but he's there in spirit! Thankfully, TIME CONTROL being abused to stop people from being too moronic in the Observational Police State works out just fine. Herded back after showing her card off to the nice policemen, Xion is subjected to Fashion with an empty sort of acquiescance.

While she almost-but-not-quite petulantly drifts towards blacks, she accepts readily the help and settles more and more on 'oh? okay' to most inputs.

Except the sweater. For some reason, Xion is extra happy about the sweater, rubbing her cheek on the material and agreeing with uninhibited cheer that it will 'definitely feel great!' and starts tugging it on over her head - and her coat - before rapidly being stopped. Thankfully, she's not a dumpster fire and can be guided. Her attitude absorbs teaching readily, but there's a question that lingers in her eyes and eventually makes its way to her lips.

"Isn't this too much, though? I don't mind, but..."

Roxas says some strange things (to Strange!), which she nods to. "Well, it is nice. But if people want me to look a certain way, I can just do that. Should I? Is that what I should do? It's fine, but I don't think I get it entirely."

With the tone of an afterthought. "The sky blue is fine, though."
Tomoe Tomoe looks back to Haguro and it's true she can't see the injuries and doesn't know ship spirits well enough to keep pressing on that, at least for right now. "Hey hey don't sell yourself short. Haguro and your worth kitting out. Now let's get you not looking like a hobo."

Ereshkigal seems to be taking an interest in helping Xion, okay that's one issue handled she is unaware of what Lilian needed to do, to prevent an incident but would be thankful if she knew about it.

Shat she does know however is some misunderstanding was stopped which was good and Xion is pulled into store number one. She sees she's invited along following after Lilian and Xion. She's got an invite? She can change the order of the places she intended to go.

This was going to be fun Tomoe will check her funds first and then get to looking about the store. she will also need any advice that she's given too. Given she spent three years more worried about getting out of a death game than being a normal teenager.

She does have some idea of how not to be a total disaster. She slots to get two outfits in mind for herself it seems the first one is fairly casual boots, well-cut pants, jacket and a good soft coloured shirt to go with that. The next well is far more interesting and calls back to her setup in SAO. Skirt, leggings good boots, she does seem to have a love for boots in general, a different top and a different jacket to go with it.

She even finds a scarf she likes well and thusly adds it to her planned purchases. She certainly owes Lilian one for helping her get access to stores like this. She's also clearly having fun too from the looks of it while she also keeps an eye out for helping Haguro once she's done with her own things here.
Aranea Highwind     "Yeah, this doesn't seem to be your average person's shop," Aranea agrees with Axel with regards to the price. "Not usually a big spender myself, got other things to worry about paying first. But a bit of indulging every now and again is great for morale, you know?"

    What's the point of living if you're not enjoying yourself? Or something like that, surely.

    "Oh, you just think that because you haven't been around me enough," she laughs at Roxas, though on the matter of Axel simply offers a glance at the spiky-haired, flaming Nobody before casting a slight glance of doubt Roxas' way.

    And then 'dress like people'.

    That's an odd way to look at it.

    She is immediatly distracted by Gilgamesh buying an entire store though. Or maybe horrified. Or maybe jealous. Probably all of these at once.

    "Did you... actually need all of that?" she questions.
Gilgamesh      "No," Gilgamesh replies to Aranea, "But I wanted it, so I bought it. Money is no object to the King of Heroes."

     He looks back at Roxas. "Oh, the selection is good. I'd simply have paid less in your situation."

     Implying that 'your situation' is having less than functionally infinite money.
Ereshkigal      Ereshkigal says to Aranea, quietly, "My-- well, he asked me not to call him that, so I suppose I won't- dear family member gets what he wants, and he has no fears about telling people or things he doesn't want them. It's made history, after all." Her own red eyes are sparkling mischeviously.

     She then steps into the jewelry store to buy the one thing he did not.

     On the way, she calls over her shoulder to Xion, "Perhaps a nice hairband - or barettes?"
Lilian Rook     Theres a little bell. A little brass one. Of course there is. Itd be wrong if there isnt. Strange addresses a woman who looks to be getting on into her fifties behind a stained oak counter, working with thick gloves on a row of divided plots suspended over mineral water, who looks up at him, looks at his clothes, glances to the object of his pointing, and then glances back. "Yes." she confirms, in a faintly wary tone. "We dont do samples. If youre running errands, thats fine, but we do sales only; no barters, no refunds, no soliciting." Inside the shop, equal parts dim, spotlit, hot, and humid, he can see shelves and bowls dedicated to all the classic herbs and roots, as well as a few more special ones hell recognize, but also boxes, racks, and vials of strangely coloured plant . . . like things he hasnt seen before.

    Relative to the amount of time spent in freeform shopping and socializing, not many other people go by. The streets are 'lightly populated', and the occasional self-driving vehicle goes by, but for the most part, three friends walking obnoxiously abreast would rarely have to step aside for anyone. For the most part, the people who come through here are dressed in the rough ballpark of what's in the windows, or else wearing what are clearly high-tier work dress codes, the latter of which is usually in some sort of menu or on a headset as they walk.

    It makes the large gaggle of young people that shows up eventually stand out more. There are a couple of adults between them, enough to believably be supervisors or chaperones, but most of the crowd is middle school to college aged, with a few younger tagalongs, making it a weird sort of trip clearly not family nor school. Maybe eighteen of them in all. They draw a little bit of attention as they go, in the way that they'd draw less if they were all being loud and chatty, but they seem to fit the economic class of the area well enough.

    If one cares to examine, the thematic similarity appears to be that they all have bags, backpacks, or what amount to carry-on cases, like they're headed to the airport for a vacation or foreign exchange or something. This more or less checks out, given that they're going directly down the street to the Warpgate everyone here had come from. They're briefly stopped by the two officers Xion had approached, but the two adults with the group and the three college-aged kids provide IDs one at a time and are waved on. Lilian keeps squinting at them anyways, pausing in her outfit assault.

    When they walk past Septette on her way out of the jewelry store, theres the loud crack of splitting glass, and almost the whole group freezes, some making the poor decision of looking back at a highschooler wearing somewhat poorly coordinated baggy clothes, who appears to be clutching his breast pocket with a white-faced look of quietly sweating panic. The police turn his way. One of them mouths something into a headset radio.
Lilian Rook     Once again, Lilian asks to be excused for a moment, telling people to enjoy their shopping and practically skipping towards the group.

    Seeing her approach, one of the two adults (so to speak, being a blonde man who barely looks like his 25th birthday is behind him and just happens to be the tallest) steps in the way, starting with "Excuse me miss, but if you need something, we can't stop to chat. We have to be on our way, or we're going to miss our time slot." Lilian doesn't slow her pace, walking towards him in a way primed to get right up in his face, producing and flashing her black and platinum ID card and saying "Oh, don't worry. You'll make time." Now the rest of the entourage starts to look as frozen up as the teen.

    Before he can mouth much more than a "Hey-!", Lilian has managed to slap his hand aside, reach into his shirt pocket, and pull out a thumb-sized black glass sphere in a silver cage that immediately crumbles to pieces between her fingers. "You broke it! Are you going to pay-" starts the kid, sounding pointedly like he's saying what he was told to say, before Lilian interrupts with the kind of tone of a cat playing with a mouse. "Oh I assure you I didn't. This is a pretty cheap model, so I'm afraid it fractured and blew out when getting in such close proximity to our friend Septette here. She has a leaky magical core, you see."

    "Of course, that should be obvious. For an item meant to detect magic for people who can't feel it, of a quality this cobbled together, to break when overexposed is just common sense. I do wonder why you would even bring one here. This is a district that deals in class C arcane materials, so obviously only citizens versed in the bare basics of mysticism would be permitted commercial entry. Furthermore, I wonder why you would happen to have one this cheap and . . . I don't see a serial, come to think of it. Surely even that poorly chosen jacket would cover the cost of a decent augur."

    It is the tone of a dickass police officer screwing with a kid they just pulled over that reeks of weed.

    "It's his from when he was a little kid. It's got sentimental value. He didn't want to leave it behind." interjects one of the older boys. "Oh? So then if he's been allowed to keep it this long, surely he has class D arcane items certification. I'm sure he went to the right school and everything." Lilian says. Looking transparently relieved, like she'd just asked the question he was hoping for, he replies "Of course. Max, show the miss." With equal measures of 'might just be fine' writ on his face, the younger boy produces his own card, in silver with black trim, which Lilian takes. She turns it over in her fingers, causing the little crystal circuits in it to flash as she runs magic through it.

    "Mhm. Mhm. I see. year three in Silbermont. Crimson Jewel. A year ahead. Place of residence . . . oh I see, you're moving." Lilian says, before promptly snapping the card in half between her fingers with a sparking crack.

    "This is fake. The only reason you'd be carrying that toolshop piece of crap around is if someone built it for you to warn you when a magic-user is around. Now you're all going to wait right here and you're all going to show me an ID and what's in your case."
Haguro Haguro tenses up anxiously as Xion scurries off to show the officers her ID card that would definitely not have been misunderstood whatsoever, only relaxing after Lilian does that weird teleporting... Thing that she does to keep things under control.

Another thing to look into one of these days. Too many mysteries yet to be solved, and Haguro hasn't so much as stepped foot into a single store yet! She freezes again when Aranea mentions theoretical bombs, though, and she hunches over further as the anxiety kicks in once more. "Why would I...? Th-that'd be completely wasteful even if it was me doing it!"

Wait. That might sound wrong. ROLL IT BACK. "Not that I would do that kind of thing! Um. This is neutral territory, and it's got lots of useful things here! If anything, this would be a better place to...!"

Finally, Haguro realizes that perhaps it would be better to just shut up. No, definitely better. Clearing her throat, she turns rigidly towards Axel, looking him over briefly before frowning slightly. "A tie might not work as well as a... Haircut?" She suggests, looking between Axel and Roxas a few times. With Roxas shooting down that idea in favor of just the hat half...

"Or not. Uhm. A stylish hat could work!" Haguro chuckles awkwardly, quieting down after a few moments and barely saying a word as Lilian objects to her fancy/terrible tailheads that literally have guns where their eyes should be. "I can't just... GEt rid of this. I-it appeared when I woke up!"

Her trench coat's belly region writhes in response, and Haguro keeps her arms firmly around said belly region as she starts browsing shop one's wares in a weak attempt to not look even more suspicious. She's veering towards the silvers and blues, although it's clear after the first minute that she doesn't quite seem to have an eye for what matches her all-white color palette.

Or she's still shopping for a darker color.
Xion Xion's eyes follow Gilgamesh as soon as he re-enters the store, snapping up to him - that she could tell when he was present, even if she wasn't paying attention or even 'plugged in' otherwise (beyond being a sponge for various suggestions or impositions of fashion).

But Ereshkigal suggests hairpieces, and Xion seems to take this more seriously than most. "Okay. I'll try that, then."

"I'll go... change."

With her heap of clothing, she disappears into the changing room - one of the stalls with a door. The lock clicks, and there's the natural shuffle of cloth and susuration of zippers.

When 'Xion' comes out of the changing room, she's taller.
And blond.

Her hair comes down in two bangs that frame her face past a lightly pointed chin, the main length of it tied up in a braided bun, with a silk ribbon around the back and a quirky lock arced over the fore of her brow in furious determination of being cowed by comb or braid. Her almond-shaped face with high and noble cheekbones is similar to the more boyish features and rounded chin of Xion, but seperated by an air of regalness that Xion simply did not possess.

She dresses in the sporty skirt and black leggings that Lilian had picked out for her, showing just a touch of thigh between the ends of the two, and her light blue shirt is matched by a light black jacket-top. Each ear is pierced by a single gold stud that cradles a glimmering lapis lazuli earring.

It's not even Xion's voice that rings out, but a softer and cleaner speech with a hint of English bent. "Where did Dame Rook go?"
Gilgamesh      Gilgamesh rubs his chin thoughtfully.

     He points at Xion.

     "This is better. I like this more."
Haguro A stranger appears! One that's familiar with Lilian, apparently. Haguro glances around briefly before pointing out Lilian on her approach, not quite realizing that the stranger is Xion right away.

Once Gilgamesh speaks, though, the dots are connected, and Haguro looks... Pleased? Her spirits seem raised, strangely enough, as she hurries over to where Xion is. "Did you just.. Change as well? How did you do that? Do you feel any different?" She even sounds excited!
Roxas "Oh." Roxas looks down at his purchases again. After a moment he decides, "I think I'm okay with it. It's not like I spend money that often. Mostly on ice cream."

This probably explains a lot.

To Aranea, he replies, "I don't know... I know a lot of difficult people, and maybe you're one of them sometimes. But you don't seem all that bad to me."

He is in the middle of observing Lilian conducting her shake-down when Xion emerges from the dressing room. Roxas moves in closer to examine her earrings, and then backs up again, his lips curled into a playful grin.

"I guess Lilian knows what she's talking about. That outfit suits you. Um, I didn't know your ears were pierced. Or did you just-- huh? Oh..."

He gestures out towards the street, "I think she had to go take care of somebody with some kind of illegal gadget? I dunno."
Gilgamesh      Gilgamesh is still considering this aloud. "It's the hair," he says finally, "And the accent. Also the face. It's better."

     "In general."

     "I feel like a bow tie would also work very well here," he gestures to just above his breast, "Something white. Or maybe blue, if you switched the rest of the top to white."
Septette Arcubielle      Something peculiar comes over Septette from the moment that the glass-shattering noise reaches her ears. Her kinetics and and body language as she slips around the backpacked gaggle are esoterically exacting, like she's angling herself in accordance with some opaque feng shui.

     Assume they're carrying some kind of explosive devices as a worst-case scenario. Figure out the likely shrapnel trajectories for varying blast sizes and origins; lay out a three-dimensional heat map for the concussive blastwaves. Optimize primarily to block damage to nearby people with your body, secondarily to block damage to your body via posture and positioning, tertiarily to intervene with rapid response in case Lilian alone can't.

     Given they're headed towards the Warpgate, it's more likely by far that they're smuggling valuables... but in that case, Lilian likely has it under control. Septette's eyes lock with the Extinguisher's, if she's able to catch her attention silently. They flicker in Morse code too quickly to be intelligible to ordinary people, then repeat to give Lilian a chance to catch it.

     " B O M B ? "
Ereshkigal      "Gilgamesh..." Ereshkigal says, not sure herself if her tone is amused or annoyed.

     She does look after Lillian, and steps after her, pausing as she steps up behind her, her red eyes piercing as she gazes at the group. She's mostly here to provide charismatic backup. "I'd really just tell her now..." She advises.
Gilgamesh      "And if it was a blue pencil skirt and white leggings," Gilgamesh adds, apparently uninterested in the apparent bomb/smuggling/whatever is going on over there.
Tomoe Tomoe has been doing pretty well on her shopping trip she's got some good outfits so far an she's pleased with them she will move to go pay for them now and then once that is done she will pop the bags into her inventory rather than carrying them around. Which might startle the clerk as her menu appears she taps on it with the bags vanishing into it shortly afterwards. Something else is going on she's noticed Lilian pausing in her fashion assault here and heading outside.

She'll look over to Roxas and Haguro for a moment.

"Well things seem to be going better here I think."

She glances over her shoulder out on to the street. She knows Lilian is with the local law more or less and something seems to be up. Then Xion makes her grand entrance and Tomoe just kinda of Jawdrops, that's one heck of a change there.

"I thinks this works well for you! She seemed to have some business outside."

The King of heroes knows many ways to fight even with Fashion as he offers Xion some advice and she says.

"Humm I think that could work King Gilgamesh."

the things relly seem to be staring to heat up outside too.
Axel Axel ends up trying on his new leather jacket, jeans, and pretty robust shoes, deciding to wear it out. All the other clothes, once paid for, just sort of disappeared in the changing room. He actually looks pretty nice in it, even if the teardrop markings and spiky bright red hair also mean he sits out like a sore thumb. When he heads back towards Xion and her new outfit, he takes a moment to appraise her.

"Looking good, Xion!"

If he has an opinion of her sudden change, he isn't reacting to it at all, instead just moving to show off his jacket. "How do I look? Don't say 'like a cowboy'."

And then there's something happening outside. Overhearing it...some sort of illegal ID and gadget? That could be bad. He tenses up slightly, preparing for any possible danger, though he doesn't seem /worried/. More just keeping himself prepared. His chakram hand is itchy, and he starts positioning himself near the door and front windows, so that he could react with horrible offense the minute something goes down.

"Think we'll still get harassed by the cops like this, Roxas?" It's meant more as a 'we look good, don't we' than anything, really, with a toothy grin as part of it. If Lilian alone can solve this, that's better for everyone's good fun shopping trip, right?
Xion Blond-English Xion nods affirmatively-appreciatively towards Gilgamesh, adding a deferential. "King of Heroes."

Roxas and Axel's reactions gets a more warm smile. "Pierced?" She asks, a hand moving up to touch her studded earlobes in a moment of quiet confusion. "Oh. When did I...?"

The rest of the thought dies, among Gilgamesh's appreciations, as Roxas fills her in on the situation. "Ah. She's in peril, then? We should hasten to her aid. I appreciate you tarrying for me, but..."

Haguro asks her if she can 'change'. "Ah. I can, 'change'. Did I not say I was? I don't feel different, though. Perchance taller?"

Asking Xion if she 'feels' different is still an odd kettle of fish, even if she looks like a dozen-and-a-half different heroes of legend and not a handful of plot device girls.

"Come, King of Heroes, Goddess of Kur. You may offer your advice as to my wardrobe while we assist Dame Rook."

With a stride of purpose and confidence, she steps around the racks and aisles to the door, pushing it open with a deliberate shove as Lilian calls for those who lie and decieve to stand and be counted.

"Dame Rook! Do you need assistance in corralling those ruffians?"
Gilgamesh      "Black shoes," Gilgamesh says, just sort of walking behind Xion like he didn't even hear Ereshkigal's statement, "With a buckle. A buckle would compliment that well. On second thought, not a pencil skirt, something longer. Around your knees."
Haguro It takes a good few bit of time for Haguro to realize that Lilian's gone, only truly noticing when Roxas gestures outside towards the commotion. Her natural busybody gets the better of her, and the Cruiser hurries out of the store shortly behind Xion and Gilgamesh to check out the situation!

If there's one thing she's still semi-confident about, it's about handling misguided teenagers. She lowers her voice, putting on a practiced smile even as the front of her coat wriggles briefly. "Is someone making you do this? Are they following you?" She pauses, then glances around once before turning to the teenagers again. "Do you need help?"
Xion 'Is someone making you do "this"?'
"Yes." Blond Xion replies.

'Are they following you?'
Blond Xion turns her head to check if Gilgamesh is still following - he is, continuing to give fashion advice.
"Yes." Blond Xion replies again.

'Do you need help?'
Blond Xion's eyes narrow and tense in confusion. "I do not believe so. Should I?"
Tomoe Tomoe seeing others exist the store she follows just after Haguro starts to leave. Given the others who have headed outside hints something major might be up, she seems concerned too from the look on her face as she comes up on the site of the strange group of people which Lillian has stopped along with Septette.

"Just what's up here?"
Roxas "I like the black better," Roxas admits on the subject of Xion, "but I'm sort of biased, I think."

That is, until the reactions around him carry on. Roxas looks towards Axel, and then back towards Xion not in confusion but in sudden clarity. After a moment or two more he heaves an incredibly exasperated sigh.

It's not like Xion hasn't made it abundantly clear that she's not quite normal, but he isn't certain it's his place to simply blurt out what's going on. The more seconds tick by, the more certain he is that it /isn't/.

But...

But, how is she going to feel about people going crazy about somebody she /isn't/? They're not praising or giving advice to the real Xion.

"Um..." Roxas cleaves close to Xion as they head out towards Lilian, "I think you look pretty cool, Axel-- but I always thought you looked pretty cool. So I guess... maybe you look more like somebody we'd run into out and about than you usually do? And it fits your... 'statement', I think."

"And uh... well..."

"Mostly, no..." He doesn't admit to what he thinks /might/ get them looked at in public.

Which is to say, Axel's tattoos.
Lilian Rook     When Septette's obscene magical radiation problems break the crappy ghetto 'augur' and the yggdroid adopts a Pose, Lilian glances back, takes a split second to figure out the morse code, and then replies with "Oh I almost wish. That'd make my day." The crowd seem confused, but mostly upset, the couple of younger kids just looking scared while the adults and near-adults are getting angry.

    "No and no. I know my rights! I don't have to submit to a stop and search to anyone but an on-duty civil officer, not an off-tour military--"

                -----[stop]-----
    Lilian sighs, reaches into the blonde man's pocket, rifles around for his ID card, and drops it on the ground right in front of her feet.
                -----[start]-----

    "--branch Antegent response officer --it's in civil code C-14-" "Oh noooo, look at that. You dropped your ID." Lilian cuts him off, as flat and transparently sarcastic as possible, immediately reaching down to scoop it off the ground, then taking two steps back as he swings out to grab it. "Oh look, apparently you're supposed to be almost my rank. What a joke. Who made these? Or is it your fault for setting up fake IDs you can't play the part of. I could spot you just by the dreadful fashion." she says. "Give that back! You have no right to search and seize personal possessions!" he yells. "Oh but you *dropped* it, remember?" Lilian replies, crushing the next ID in her hands. The officers on the corner are already approaching from behind to assess the situation. There are other figures coming from the far end of the same street, from the direction of the warpgate, tiny in the distance, but clearly running.

    "You did that!" "Prove it." "That's not how it works!" "Well surely you would be able to if you were who your card claims you to be. Show me the suitcase." "I do not consent to a search!"

                -----[stop]-----
    Lilian reaches out and unbuckles both clasps. She then moves on and does the same to the next person, and the next, ripping the locked ones off their fastenings.
                -----[start]-----

    Just as he says so, all of the group's luggage abruptly spills out on the pavement. "Oh no, just look at that. What terrible luck. All of your storage broke at the same time. What are the chances of that." Lilian drones. There are piles of somewhat mismatched, extremely expensive clothes, but little else to actually suggest going on a trip or vacation. On the other hand, there aren't any bags of cocaine or diamonds to suggest real smuggling. It's mostly comprised of obscene piles of 'basically the priciest things someone could buy and then pawn off later', whether jewerly, electronics, apparently valuable books, or jars and cases of reagents.

    "I wonder where you were planning on going with that too. Surely if you were looking to sell, there are plenty of places that would take a most of this off your hands with just a little background check. If you're planning on leaving, why I don't see so much as a toothbrush here. I *certainly* hope you weren't planning to skip out the Warpgate and settle down somewhere else with all this as startup funds." She keeps talking over the man desperately trying to yell civil rights and legal code over her louder and louder. One of the older girls is trying to stuff things back into the bags as if it'll matter, helped by a couple of the younger kids who aren't currently petrified and hiding behind someone.
Lilian Rook     "Let's try running facial recognition, hm?" Lilian thumbs the chip in her choker, and the little lens in the front apparently does its work. "Oh, so you used your real name on that ID. Best lies mixed with truth, right? But oh my, it says here your credit is negative four-eighty-kay. There's no *way* you could have afforded *any* of this. It looks like your parents wouldn't either, since they're dead and all. Looks like they took out a big chunk of social credit for you when they applied for a birth license. They must have had high hopes. Shame they passed that debt all off on you."

    Haguro approaching in her shady trench coat seems to make the gaggle of kids and young adults even more agitated, though when she asks 'is someone making you do this and are they following you', about three blurt out yes and two blurt out no at the same time. An eigtht grade boy runs up and clings to her coat. "We didn't do anything wrong!" he repeats, several times, increasingly shrill as Xion approaches and Ereshkigal suddenly involves herself.

    "Oh I think I'm fine for now." Lilian waves off, before suddenly double taking at Xion's new . . . self, continuing at a slower pace. "All their IDs are fake. This is a pack of low-class unenlightened attempting to illegally leave the city, by the looks of it. I don't expect they'll be much trouble." A couple of the kids realize she's still running dystopian panopticon profile checks, but turning away from her doesn't really help the cameras everywhere. "Negative two sixty, negative three ten . . . yep, none of them have paid off their social debt either. A bunch of them unemployed too. Detestable. I'm sure civil service will figure out who's credit they stole to buy all this stuff. It's all ID tagged, so I guess they planned to skip to a different world and sell it for money instead of credit."

    The only 'adult' woman of the group has had enough, and begins shouting. "I didn't *ask* for any of this! It's not like we even had a choice! How am I, any of us, supposed to deal with practically being *born* with that much social debt! How am I even supposed to pay it back?! It's *your* fault we're not allowed 'credentials' to do anything apparently valuable enough to you people to be allowed to have anything! What right do you have to tell us where we can and can't live?! I see those shopping bags! How much did all of that cost?! You'll pay that much for clothes but you want us to do the impossible to justify even being born here!"

    Lilian flatly ignores her tone. "Oh please, complain some more. Tell me how awful it is for you to have a universal basic allowance, housing, utilities, social services, and 'not being eaten alive by monsters' every day, even though you contribute nothing to society. The mana cost to expand and run the city wards for your worthless self alone is more than you deserve. You're not disabled. You quit. I can see it in your record. Are you going to spin me an abuse story now? You've leeched plenty off the people who make this city run, you owe us, and you're not only trying to run out on that debt, but you're stealing as much as you can on the way out."

    Seeing she has no chance, she turns to the Multiversals instead. "You hear that?! Where you live, is it normal to keep people trapped wherever they were stuck being born until they can pay some ridiculous debt to people who already have everything?! Surely you see how absurd it is! We don't want to cause trouble; we just want to live somewhere else! Have a new life! Look --even if not me, these are *kids*! They deserve a fair shot!"
Xion Blonde Xion looks at the gaggle of people, the children crying and the people wailing. Her impassive, regal expression breaks with a hint of both disgust and pity. There's a hollowness to her affectation, as if it is expected of her, the 'picture of what people would associate with her bearing', before she turns, extending her hand to Gilgamesh.

"King of Heroes. I humbly request you form a simple contract with me. I need..."

"... Simply your power, and nothing else. May I?"
Ereshkigal      There's a thoughtful, sad look to Ereshkigal's eyes as she looks at the woman. "Seven thousand years." She says, simply. "Seven thousand years, and I'm still not wholly free." She then turns around. "I heard that from over here, Doctor." She says idly to Strange.
Aranea Highwind     Fashion and accessorizing, and Xion suddenly looking different no less, are put on hold because of... people wanting to leave?

    Aranea crosses her arms, but watches from afar. It's not worth causing an incident and getting local authorities on her ass when she JUST got her permit to take up work here. At the same time...

    She certainly doesn't disagree with the kids' plight. If they want to leave, it's their right. And they never made the choice to incur a massive debt just to live here, and to need to pay it off before leaving.

    Reminds her of a certain other place she's not especially fond of. Not literally in the slightest, but something about the attitude.

    Well, she's not going to lift a finger for now. Query and find out facts out of curiosity, sure. Act? It's not her jurisdiction, she's not a cop, and she's not on-duty.

    She IS curious to see how Roxas and Xion choose to act, though. They seem to struggle a lot with decision-making, it should be interesting.
Roxas Roxas, who himself couldn't be older than sixteen, takes a step forward to gesture towards the group, "As long as I remember, I've been doing missions as a part of... existing. I know I'm stronger than most people, so maybe that makes it a lot less bad for me than it is for you. But I don't really see what's wrong with being expected to work for the life that I experience."

"To be honest, I'm not really all that wealthy. Some guy on a super rich world gave me his pocket money, so I split it up between Xion, Axel, and I to do... something with. But it was the first time I'd had more than a few hundred munny on me at a time."

"I guess what I'm saying is... I don't really get it." Having said that, Roxas steps back to stand next to Xion. His expression is a mixture of confusion and concern, and he isn't really certain where to aim any of it.
Gilgamesh      Gilgamesh blinks at her. "What?"

     "Oh. You're one of those fakers, like Archer." Things fall into place, especially her costume, her sudden change, et cetera. Gilgamesh's vague thoughts on her outfit fade away as a knowing look comes over his face.

     "Fine. Do what you like, so long as you aren't using *my* treasures. We'll call it gratitude. Put a blue bow in your hair, though. It'll round out the outfit."
Tomoe Well this is getting complicated /very/ fast here there is clearly something going on she knows that much. At first, it looks like thieves but it's very strange at how they dropped their things and the ID just ended up dropped. There is certainly something going on here. Rapidly new information comes up one has to apply for a licence to breed here? So these kids are on the hook for a debt they didn't take out?

It does also come out this world /does/ take care of it's poor even if some higher up have no love for them. On the other hand, kids getting saddled with debt, they may never be able to pay off.

This is a hell of a choice for her until the Multiverse came into play? This was clearly a thought out system, maybe not the kindness but you got food and didn't end up eaten by monsters. A far better fate, but now with the Multiverse as a factor an upheaval might just occur here.

"How much do the kids owe again? Depending on how possible it might be for my hunting of Argents to eventually clear their debts, so they can seek their fortunes elsewhere."

She can't save everyone maybe thought she could help some of these ones?
Lilian Rook     A fair few people ask questions on the quick using the local radio. Lilian answer the series.

    The routine is that parents who are authorized to have children put said children against their social credit; it's a guarantee they'll properly pay back society for what is set aside for the child. here's limited space, limited resources, and limited magic to go around, so anywhere smart keeps track of their population and makes sure to allocate those resources smartly; you can't afford useless people refusing to work, doing a rubbish job, or just becoming physically or mentally useless. That's why any city government pre-emptively invests in their health and education until they're of age until they can start paying it back."

    "Housing needs to be occupied, wards need to be expanded and powered, food and medical supplies need to be allocated, programs and training need to be selected and put through. If their parents can guarantee that they can cover the costs for the city, or have already done more than their fair share, great. Popping out kids left and right, letting them do whatever they please, skip school, get themselves hurt, and become a drain on society, isn't acceptable."

    Septette brings up 'being eaten by demons' and gets an emphatic 'thank you'. "Too many people and the defensive magic won't function for all of them. The mystic resources we have are stretched too thin, it attracts Antegent, and a breach happens." Then the subject of if they could pay it back at all. "By the looks of it, if they *get their act together*, most of them . . . twenty or thirty years would be fine. They don't have any conditions or disorders, and they've received perfectly adequate job training. Some of them have themselves to blame for their worse situation. Sitting on universal allowance for years, unemployed or milling out of jobs, taking out loans on stupid ideas. Now a criminal debt too."
Xion Blond Xion looks up at the King of Heroes, and her eyes shine with their own shadow of kingly determination.

But the illusion wavers. Her voice isn't quite the King of Knights'. Her stance is strong, but the way she carries herself is that of someone affecting regality, not the natural bearing of one who had lived it.

The illusion falters. In a blink, her hair darknes, blackening at the tips. In another, her determined eyes falter as she's called a 'Faker', her smile turning to a bashful, shameful 'you got me'.

Her stature diminishes. Objectively, she was always that tall. Always had that body shape. A trick of the mind, or perhaps of the light, and a little magic here and there.

"I'm sorry, King of Heroes. I wanted to... Well, I was told it was for everyone else, so... changing is what I do. Was it not... what you wanted?"

"Thank you, anyway. For not being mad. I wouldn't want to know what perfect anger felt like."

Turning, with a a flare of dark purple sparkles around her gloved hand, she reaches into her light jacket and draws out... Gemstones. Gold coins. Bills. Bits and bobs of value and magical potency in trade - which she scatters out mechanically like a sprinkler.

"How much is enough, Lilian? I know you're a nice person. I know you care. Roxas cares too, so..."

She keeps staring at Lilian while casting out more and more absurd amounts of wealth from her inside coat pocket. "How much to allow the children to decide for themself? The adults..."

Xion shakes her head. "They've made choices. But not getting the privelege of being a person yet, that's too much. How much is enough?"
Haguro Xion's modified speaking patterns also draw confused looks from Haguro. Between the completely differnt look, the change in her tone, and even the change in her size, she's not sure how to even process or approach what looks and sounds like a completely different person!

     "Should..? O-oh, I meant them. The..." She gestures at the teenagers Lilian had approached, pausing once things start inexplicably falling apart before everyone's eyes. It takes her a bit to sort it all out mentally, barely even flinching as some of those people grab onto her coat.

     Her coat, of course, has to open right at that moment as those front-tail-heads spring free. They're not biting or firing at anyone, though, although the teeth and the fact that they have guns for faces might not be very reassuring.

     "No... No, you did do some things wrong. Even if you didn't have a choice in the matter, stealing is still stealing. But..." Her gaze falls primarily on those that responded affirmatively to her questions, then the rest in passing. She hesitates for a moment, trying to gather up the willpower just to keep speaking even with Lilian taking charge of the situation. Axel gets a quick look, but she turns away just as quickly as if trying not to look at him too long.

     "... But if they want to improve things for themselves, then I'll take them into my custody." Haguro's expression remains oddly neutral even as every part of her brain is telling her this is a terrible idea. She raises a hand to her head in a salute. "Haguro, fourth of the Myoukou-class heavy cruisers, Partner of the Concord. I'll train them. Teach them to be better than thieves."

     She smiles. It's completely forced, as if she's still trying to look more confident than she actually is. "They won't be your problem anymore that way since they won't be here taking up your resources. If they don't change even after all that, then I'll take care of that part myself."

     Her plan doesn't change things that much for them at all, does it?
Axel Axel ends up following the others outside. He frowns as he overhears the situation, and as the appeal is made to the group, and he considers. He's hanging back with Roxas and Xion, and he's certainly the adult of the group, being somewhere in his mid-late 20s, but it seems he's considering what to do. After a few seconds, he makes his decision.

Axel steps over towards Lilian, giving her backup and showing his general support in her camp. "So, what do you expect 'us' to do? We're just here shopping, legally, trying to get by in life with the money we earned. What about you? Is that the same case there? Did you buy all that stuff you're taking with you?" He doesn't seem mean, though that probably makes it worse, how utterly casually he says it.

And then Xion starts bringing out insane amounts of money. Axel's not going to stop her. Besides his wide eyes, he hopes it works and solves this. The kids he can sympathize with enough, and that's who Xion's focusing on, so. Also, Haguro pitches 'taking the children and training them' and Axel just stares at her a bit. It's a weird stare. It's a weird plan. It brings back some weird thoughts.

He doesn't seem to /hate/ it, but he absolutely expects it to get rejected by all other parties.
Septette Arcubielle      Septette turns this problem over in her head, once she's got all the information to hand that's easily accessible. About a half-dozen different scenarios and putative programs run through her etheric brain- helping these people right here in front of them by throwing money at the problem is myopic; finding a more systemic solution is the only sane thing to do, assuming one isn't already to hand. It takes her an infintesimal amount of time to come up with a half-baked idea, and a few seconds more to signal that by looking thoughtful.

     Here and now, there's little to do. She demurely steps aside and lets the others deal with this particular group of absconders. Slipping around the crowd, she slides up to Lilian's side. "I might have an idea for a mutually-beneficial arrangement between worlds. Let's chat more later." Her tone is surprisingly perky, despite the stressful circumstances- maybe she's putting on a face, or maybe being viscerally confronted with human suffering just doesn't ping her much relative to abstractly knowing it's out there.
Doctor Strange      "I'll come back for this," says Strange to the shopkeeper, gesturing with a nod to a menacing-looking skull cameo.

     Moments later, Strange's frowning face appears from a hole in the ceiling of the clothing store. His arms are crossed, his hair and clothes seemingly defying gravity. The sorcerer leaps out of the ceiling, and the hole closes behind him. Gravity seems to be on good terms with him, as somehow, his body turns upside down in midair to ensure that he lands on his feet. He nods to Ereshkigal.

     Between dry, unamused laughter, he explains to the goddess, "I have to sigh, or else I'd scream."

     The sorcerer dusts off his beat up hoodie, and moves to stand between Lilian and the woman. "Alright. First of all--'Thou shalt treat thy fellow man with dignity and with value, regardless of their station. Only when a man seeks to tear down the station of another is he then without value.' That ringing a bell? They didn't ask to be born," says Strange. "And I bet you the Wand of Watoomb they didn't ask to be... hundreds of thousands of /whatevers/ in debt." He rolls his eyes, displaying contempt for the very idea. He opens his mouth to say something more, then pauses, takes a breath, and looks at Xion.

     Teachable moment! "This is an emotion called annoyance, and I'm letting it get the better of me." He closes his eyes momentarily, turning his head back towards Dame Rook and holding out two scarred palms in a 'gimme a sec' gesture.

     "Mmkay," he says, having calmed himself. "Lilian," he begins diplomatically, "Lemme apologize real quick for getting in your business. Kind ofd a...hot button issue for me, here." Strange clears his throat. "I'd like to know why this lady feels... she doesn't have the opportunities that you do to... pay off her social debt."

     Turning to the lady, he asks her. "Sorry if this is a discussion you've had a thousand times by now--but what's keeping you from the valuable work? What's keeping you from getting the credentials?"
Gilgamesh      The King turns to look Xion in the eye.

     She's making money. That's fine; he knows the Gate isn't being interfered with, and frankly he doesn't care that much. He looks at her for a long moment as she asks him if this is what he wanted, watching the money flow from her fingers.

     "Sometimes," he says after a bit, "Even the King can lose himself in a dream if it's what he's willing. I was overcome with nostalgia for something I haven't experienced. A phantasm of something I don't know."

     "A phantasm cannot satisfy my desire, but it is pleasant enough that I can overlook fakery and offer gratitude for letting me muddle through it. You are an excellent mirror. Perhaps you will find a way to reflect what you desire, too."

     Then Haguro suggests she train the kids.

     At this point, Gilgamesh actually has to Pay Attention And Do His Job. He steps forward and runs his fingers through his hair. "No."

     "You are a monster. I have made this perfectly clear. I am willing to overlook your presence because you are invited, and it would be poor manners of me to interfere with an invitation; I am not willing to allow you to walk off with children."

     "This is not negotiable."

     Gilgamesh doesn't care about social credit, but he does care about this, apparently.
Roxas There is a specific instant where Roxas goes from passive observer to actively protective. When the word 'faker' slips from Gilgamesh's lips he steps a little closer to Xion, but it isn't anything unusual. It's only when that ashamed smile appears on her face that his resolve hardens entirely. The way he expresses it is-- strange. It doesn't seem like he exactly expects to /need/ to protect Xion exactly. At first, it's fairly clear to any observer that he isn't quite certain what to do.

His expression softens as she speaks, a lightly uncomfortable noise leaving him when she asserts that not getting the privilege of being a person yet is too much. That hit a little too close to home.

Wavering between wanting to offer some kind of actual support and not knowing what to do, what Roxas /ultimately/ ends up doing is simply stepping in and seizing the hand that Xion isn't using to fountain a hilarious pile of Scrooge McDuck money out into the square.

He doesn't try to move or disrupt her, or really do anything of note. This is the support he thinks he can offer right now.

Roxas does manage to set aside his incredibly confusing array of feelings to grin at Dr. Strange's interjection -- at what in particular, it's hard to tell.
Lilian Rook     The young woman seems to blank at Ereshkigal talking about hundreds of millennia, not knowing what to say until Roxas says his piece. Despite his well-meaning attempt at simply asserting that he doesn't really understand, by the time he finishes, he's driven her to frustrated tears. "Of course you don't. You're with *them*. You got the special powers, so you can do whatever you want, tell *normal* people to stand back, and live however you like. Of course *you* wouldn't understand what's wrong with people like us spending twelve hours a day grinding out the absurd shit these people want for their 'enlightened' fucking about, knowing that if you get a word wrong and your hand melts off, ding, that's another 'debt to society'."

    "Save your breath." Lilian interjects. "These people get to do whatever they want because they have put in *hard work* and attained *skills and experience* that are *valuable to society*. They can demand a rate high enough to spend their leisure time how they wish because they can offer civilization something not everyone with a pair of hands and a pulse could do. Maybe you should have tried a little harder before failing your aptitude tests and producing nothing of note. Be grateful for the job you're given, and in enough time, you won't owe society for your existence."

    She screams back "Then what the hell is this?! The garbage you have us doing isn't worth shit to you because 'anyone could do it', but if I could run a store selling *clothes* that happen to tickle your fancy, I'm an asset to civilization?! How is that remotely fair! The credit these people make uptown in a year would be enough to pay off 'what we owe you', and you'll give it to *them* because they suck up and show you what you like!"

    "I'd almost think you were someone important in the unenlightened world from before the Onslaught to be that spoiled." Lilian says. "Disparaging talents that are in demand because you possess none of them, demanding that you should be considered the most important and given more credit than you're worth, because you're special."

    The woman seems to falter completely when Axel shows up and gives her the 'not my problem, we have every right to be here' response. It's only when Strange decides to show direct empathy in his grossy running attire that she finds the guts to stammer out "They'll tell you it's because I can't meet any standards. Because I'm not smart enough or good enough at anything, and I just can't get certification because I'm not meeting the tests. Don't believe them though. It's twisted. Unless you just happen to be a genius, the only way you'd pass those is if you had powers, if you were sponsored, or if you're willing to risk getting killed." The blonde man takes over. "Even then! I worked my ass off for medical licensing! Guess what? Being a *normal* doctor doesn't mean shit when you can just get healed by magic! Doesn't matter that it costs a fortune; people would rather be in debt to *them* than see a perfect qualified person who's just like they are!"
Lilian Rook     Lilian is apparently pissy enough about this to start making talking motions with her hands, visibly bristling when Strange comes in citing the Code of Thirteen back at her, and doubling down in exactly the way someone does when they think someone else thinks they're wrong and are willing to spin whatever it takes to be right. "I've been nothing but polite to- they've gotten more dignity than they deserve! Stealing is attacking someone else's value! They've impeded the station of whoever worked hard for the credit they used!" The man starts yelling "It's all insured anyways you-" "-be *quiet*!"

    When the two officers in fatigues catch up, Lilian takes a deep breath, smooths down her blouse, and affects an air of detached professionalism, her agitation disappearing in an instant. The senior officer comes forward from behind, saying "Sorry for interrupting your business. We should have noticed ourselves. I've already phoned this in; we'll take responsibility." A burly dude with a gun and a badge has taken a basically subservient attitude to the pissed off teen(?) girl now, making most of the cornered group look at him in disgust --even more so when the two officers look to Lilian for confirmation when Xion just starts *churning out money*.

    Lilian lofts a brow. "Are you serious? I mean, I'm not a criminal credit analyst. It's easily in the millions, but why would you even bother? What do they matter to you? They're a bunch of social malcontents leading misguided children astray with their bad example. If you really want to pay it off, I can't *stop* you, but . . . only the minors. You can pay off the criminal credit charges for the five of-age, but they still have to go in until they find out who orchestrated the identity theft and financial fraud, and whoever *that* was won't walk out because you paid for it." Even then, the entire younger three-quarters of the group are visibly relieved, and then equally visibly struck by intense guilt. One of them goes to do the obvious fake 'it was my fault' and is shushed by the woman.

    The officers from the direction of the Warpgate arrive, and they're significantly more dressed and equipped than the street corner ones were, obviously decked out for customs, and also quite notably, anti-terror, despite nothing of note having happened around a Warpgate in the time this world has been unified. There's half a dozen of them, just waiting on Lilian's say for who they can drag off and when.

    Lilian looks to Haguro only briefly. "What legal authority do you have to guarantee you can sufficiently provide for them? Just because they're worthless doesn't mean I can just hand our own citizens off to random strangers and assume they'll be fine. We still have that much of a duty to them, ungrateful as they are." She then aims a finger in Septette's direction. "Later. I'll listen, but not until we have this situation sorted out."
Haguro If it had only been Gilgamesh rejecting her idea, Haguro would have probably been okay with it. She'd smile, say something snarky and clever, then... Something good happens! Maybe.

How does everyone else make it look so easy? Has Haguro ever really been clever before? She felt pretty clever when she was saying all those things earlier, but she's not feeling so clever now that there's actual resistance to the idea.

Lilian did raise a good point, though: Haguro needs territory. A base to get things started.
Gilgamesh      Ah, the argument that the normies should have meaning.

     Gilgamesh snaps his fingers. A blade comes out of the air. It just hangs there, a flawless, beautiful, impossible artifact sticking out of thin air like a sword of Damocles. It might *be* the Sword of Damocles for all anyone knows. It hangs there above the children with a clear menace.

     "That's right," he says, leaning forward, "I could at this moment execute you. There is nothing anyone here could do to stop me. And that is not fair. That is because there is no such thing as fairness, or equity, or equality. Those are lies made by people who have no understanding of how the world works, only of how it should work."

     Gilgamesh straightens. The sword, the perfect, beautiful artifact, still hangs there. "Did you fail? Are you screaming about your failure? Fine. Humans fail. That is what they do. The difference between you, you wretched mongrel, and humankind, is that humans try again. Humans do not stop at failure. Not true humans. They learn. They grow. They try again. Then again. And again. And again. And again. And again. Hard work and courage can make up what you lack. Genius is a meaningless word that the ignorant use to cry about the talented as an excuse not to try."

     "'He is a genius. There is no chance to reach him, so why bother competing?'"

     "'He's handsome. I stand no chance competing against him, so why try?'"

     Gilgamesh's face twists in disgust. "Maybe I should execute you. If your life is such a worthless, meaningless thing, then I would be doing you a favor, wouldn't I? If you aren't even willing to *try*, then what good are you? If your only recourse is that only the *special* matter, then try harder to become special."

     "Risk your life." Gilgamesh gestures. "Take up a weapon and fight on the front lines. Earn glory. Do something worthwhile. Do you think that the solution to all things is genius? Geniuses wear out. Magic runs dry. People who can heal you with a touch are limited in number. But rather than make sure that you can be there to help people - rather than ensure that you are capable of filling in those gaps, or that with hard work you can compete with talent - you would rather scream about how unfair the world is."

     Gilgamesh throws open his arms. "I am Gilgamesh, King of Heroes. I am perfect. You will never measure up to me."

     He grabs the woman by the collar, roughly, dragging her up to his face. "Does that mean you should not try?! Is success the only metric by which you measure yourself?!"

     "Tell me! Do you want to die today?! Are you so tired of living that you would have me kill you to spare you the pain of effort?!"

     "How useless a creature are you, you worthless mud-doll?! Decide! Here and now!"

     "Struggle, or death!"
Septette Arcubielle      Septette's trust in Lilian to provide accurate information is a number with enormous error bars, but a gaggle of emotionally-strained wannabe-refugees are not exactly a more reliable source. She'd taken the butterfly pin off of her hairband and held it between her fingers, as if about to break it apart and hand it to the children- a trifle for a trifle, really- but Xion, channeling(?) Gilgamesh's enormous bling powers, seems to have totally obviated that problem anyway.

     "If they had left with debts unpaid, they'd have taken value with them. If enough people subtract value from the system, it's an existential risk," she says to nobody in particular, turning the butterfly over in her hands before fixing it back on her headband. "And this isn't how I'd administrate it. But even here there are everyone-wins scenarios. Ways to avoid their incurring further expense while they pay back what they've incurred so far."

     Gilgamesh's spectacular grandstanding earns him a distinct side-eyeing. Septette does the Subtle Posture Thing again, just in case he does follow through on the threat- but her model of his behavior places a very high certainty on the notion that he won't. If it were anyone else, she'd be scrambling.
Tomoe As good as her sword arm it's unlikely she could make a payday big enough to help with all of it. Lilian lays out the state of just how much would be owned for crimes. She's still willing to aid Xion though. The deal is hard but better than she really may have hoped for though with Xion's stuff her own offer may not be needed. She looks to Xion for a moment nodding a bit to her.

"My own offer stills stand if it's needed."
F The deal offered by Lilian? It's fair in her mind all things considered she knows pushing thing would put the fates the rest of them. Does she still hold her ground whoever did the forging? They are pretty much hosed it seems.

Things then get very old testament with Gilgamesh fight or die? She recalls her own time in the death game, she was not a warrior she was not anyone important she was someone who'd. Then he threatens the lives of the children and her eyes narrows as she gets ready to act in the event Gilgamesh does aim to carry out his threat to kill the kids. She's offered to help bail the kids out and she's going to stick with it even if it puts her up against the King of all Heroes.
Xion Xion moves to simply pouring forth a near-liquid stream of actually-'liquid' assets, tumbling pearls joining the fall of twinkling gold coins stamped with a strange (and weirdly penis-y, blame Xemnas) seal and glimmering jewels.

"I feel serious. I know what that feels like. It's tight where my lungs are, and my eyes feel like they're fizzy. My neck gets all tense, and my shoulders tighten up. You said a bunch of stuff about them entering the world with a debt. I've got this power, so I'm fixing it."

"It's my leisure time, and things I earned. This is what I choose."

She looks to Strange, nodding. "Annoyance. Well, that's too bad. Emotions are hard, and usually they get the worse of me. I guess like right now."

She looks down at her mid-sized scrooge mansion pile. "I can make more. Everyone should be able to be people. Aren't you nice, Lilian? You're a hero in a bunch of places, even that kingdom we were just at. A hero of destiny, with a magic sword. So, all this should be enough."

There's a smile warmer than any other she'd given that night, a rare bit of sunlight on a breezy fall day.

"I know you want to do the right things, because you're a better hero than I am. I have to look up to people like you and Roxas. So I'll spot you."
Lilian Rook     When Gilgamesh actively summons a sword on them, the whole crowd panics. Only the two adults try to stand bravely in front of him as the youngest kids try to scramble away and the ones in the middle struggle to decide if they're too old to hide or too scared to be grown up. The young woman seems completely paralyzed when he grabs her by the collar, though less so out of fear than out of that animal instinct that tells one to hold still when something capable of killing you hasn't done it yet, and isn't making any more motions to do so at the moment.

    The desire to yell 'easy for you to say' is visibly apparent in her eyes, but she's too cowed by both his magnificent kingly presence, and also the artifact sword in convenient chopping distance of a bunch of tweens she apparently feels responsible for. The awkward middleground she can bring herself to is "I'm not looking to get myself killed over this. Please let go. I'll not cause you any more trouble." in the kind of too-even tone someone uses when confronted by a mad gunman.

    The blonde man doesn't seem to want to stand idly by, crying "Don't you TOUCH HER!", shoving past to try and tackle him out of the way. Lilian's hand snaps out and grabs him by the back of the collar. "Don't even think about it. You'll be making a very big mistake if you do." She looks to Gilgamesh. "King, please put the sword away for now. I don't trust these ones not to act stupidly and force you to use it. We'll find some way for them to be useful."

    Lilian snaps her free fingers in the direction of Septette, in the kind of 'yes, that's how it is' way of a professor having just been given a better-than-minimum answer by a student during a lecture, apparently either impressed or at least pleased by her assessment of the situation. When looking at Xion though --when subjected to that heartfelt description of her concern and sincerity, when hit with her earnest reduction of the situation to its inarguably basic facets, and when stuck with that 'I believe in you' smile, though, Lilian very visibly wavers.

    She silently blinks, and the cold conviction leaks out of her eyes. Her posture slackens halfway, as if uncertain about what she's physically doing. She bites the corner of her lower lip, suddenly looking intensely introspective. Conflicted. The sociopathic cop swinging around their power persona melts partway, and takes a lot of misanthropic confidence with it. It's just like that. 'You're nice' 'You're a hero' 'I know you're good' 'You want to do the right thing' 'I believe you'll do it'. The professional mean girl cracks just a little, and finally huffs out "Fine. You're right. It's your hard-earned money and your choice. If they've appealed to you that much, they've earned that much. The ability to make people believe in you enough to help you is a skill of some sort." She looks down at Xion's shoes. "Ah, but please pick that up. You can't just hand people fistfuls of gold. You have to sign forms."
Lilian Rook     Looking back up again, Lilian seems vaguely exhausted in some faint, unquantifiable sense, waving the officers along to escort the group to a station. The blonde man slaps her hand away and makes a show of 'entering officer custody', no doubt confident in his legalese that he is now out of Lilian's off-duty hands and in the hands of the proper law, protecting and serving. "And don't touch me either." he spits, then does so quite literally at her feet, now brazen in his completely contempt.

    That makes a completely different thing happen. It's not at all subtle, but it is very, very quick --a blink and you'll miss it in Lilian's tired, sheepish, and faintly ashamed bearing. Her mannerism shifts again like quicksilver. A tension that is far different than her simple enjoyment of wielding her authority on the plebeians. A level of hostility that instantly shoots past merely 'smug and mean and full of herself' to something stormy and wild and dangerous. The split-instant look of someone genuinely unhinged and about to kill someone.

                -----[stop]-----
    Wordlessly, Lilian backhands the man across the jaw with the muted sound of cracking bone. She grabs him by the hand, laces her fingers with his, pushes magic through her arm, and bends and crushes until every one of his is broken. Keeping her grip, she puts his elbow against an arm bar, and jerks it dislocated. She punches him directly in the chest, breaking one rib, then lower, causing a fracture to the pelvis, then--

    Releases a long, seething breath. "You know better than that. You're not like that now." she says to herself. She was going to go further. She really was. "You promised your parents. You promised your sister. You promised the headmaster. You're an Immune now. Let it go." With that calming mantra, she slowly drops her hands back to her sides.

                -----[start]-----

    That look is gone as quick as if it'd never happened. Lilian looks exactly the same as before. It's the young man that is suddenly different, as he keels over off the pavement, screaming his lungs out. His jaw and elbow look dislocated. All his fingers are broken. He coughs when he runs out of air, and hacks up blood. It looks like he was clipped by a speeding car. The woman rushes over and kneels to his side as the kids begin to panic, but they're quickly pulled away by the police officers after Xion had just offered to buy their freedom. The lady screams as she's lead off "Did you see that?! Did you see it?! That's what *they're* like! Look what she did to him! You all saw it! You're the *police* for god's sake! You can't let her do *that*!"

    The senior street officer shuffles awkwardly, slowly getting out "Ma'am, I didn't *see* anything.", uncomfortably speaking the objective truth. "That's a hell of an accusation to level. Do you have any proof?" She shouts back "What?! What else could have possibly done *that* to him?!"

    "He slipped and fell off the curb." Lilian states, flat and cold. The lady starts laughing derisively. "As if! We all saw it!" The tactical officer leading her off properly grabs her around the arm and jerks her away. "Looks he slipped and fell off the curb to me ma'am." he growls. "You people need to be more careful. We'll make sure nobody else slips if you come along with us." says another.

    At that point, she seems to give up, just staring imploringly at Xion, and hatefully at Gilgamesh, as the group is lead away.
Gilgamesh      "As I thought."

     Gilgamesh snaps his fingers and the blade vanishes. "Cowards and mongrels."

     "You aren't worth my time, let alone dirtying my treasures on your worthless filth." The King turns away from the crowd. "When you've realized that your worth comes from your own efforts and nothing else, perhaps you'll begin making steps to become human and contribute to society."

     The King's in an obviously foul mood as he walks away.

     Then people start screaming that *they're* oppressive, that *they* can do whatever they want. Gilgamesh turns and puts one hand on his hip. "And what if she did?"

     "Do you think you are exempt from being punished for your disrespect? Do you think you can spit on the ground in front of someone and walk away?" Gilgamesh crosses his arms. "Would you strike a man who insulted your mother? Would you strike a man who showed such open contempt for you?"

     "Of course you would. The only difference between her and you is that she works hard and you do not."

     At that, Gilgamesh turns away. "Be glad you didn't do such a stupid thing to me. I would have killed you on the spot instead of simply threatening you to make a point."
Roxas Roxas doesn't even really try to parse what just happened, or why. He raises his free hand and calls, "Curaga!"

A shower of sparkling green particles descend upon the badly-injured man. It's not going to 'put him back to perfect', but it'll probably make his overall experience less categorically horrendeous.

It occurs to him a moment later that this will probably upset the Doctor Lady even more. Then he stops thinking about it.

He nods towards Aranea, probably permission to her to take some of the CASH MONEY that's just being left on the street as the transfer of assets has to be conducted in a more LEGAL and bureaucratic way.

Roxas assumes that just means 'they'll have to receive the money hose elsewhere'. Like a bank, or some kind of real vult.
Aranea Highwind     The appearance of Gilgamesh's blade causes Aranea to shift her stance slightly - not on guard, per se, but certainly watching the situation and minding a possible escalation. It remains, still, Not Her Problem for the time being.

    The nicer part of her is glad Strange is making those points, though, and Gilgamesh isn't exactly putting bad advice on the table either. He's right. Harsh, but right. About the working hard part, anyway. Less the execution one.

    Then things resolve. Gilgamesh leaves, Roxas nods to her, and then and only then does she move from her nice, secure location to pick a coin or three from Xion's comical, sparkling pile. They're pocketed immediatly.

    "You just let me know when and where you want to do your thing, and what you want out of it."
Tomoe For lack of a better term things are reaching their climax here, she does not know Gilgamesh well enough yet to be sure how far the King of all Heroes would go. The adults move to protect the kids and one is held back by Lilian, likely keeping him from getting cleaved in the process. Then things seem to calm down for a moment the Kids do now seem in danger of being cleaved by Gil. Thus she does relax from that change of events.

Doctor Strange had made her think and pointed out humans are indeed emotional first and rational second, the things she's seeing in her life even before the multiverse is a testament to that. She has something to do after tonight then it seems almost out of nowhere the man goes down and hurts himself pretty damn bad what the hell happened there? She hears the accusation from the woman and her eyes narrow for a moment, but she has no idea how that occurred, and she has no idea Lilian did that. Still, it's unsettling reaction to see.

She watches as the group is lead off, she might consider checking out some of the other stores but she's not sure if her mind is on shopping any longer.
Xion Xion sees the look she causes in Lilian, and the empathy - and sympathy - radiates out in kind with her smile. She knows that 'her' Lilian - that good, ideal heroic Lilian that swung the Lakeblade and stopped the evil monster and helped the king, was in there. Feelings were getting in the way, her Heart complicated things, but Xion could see Lilian's Will won out. Her goodness.

"Forms, sure." Xion agrees, as Aranea slips up to take some of the solid gold coins from her SCROOGE PILE. Xion doesn't even begin to matter, even pointedly seeming to leave a big hole in her awareness for Aranea to brazenly fill her pockets.

She sympathizes with desire.

But then there's that draw back, and Xion's face twists in sudden disgust. She understands something, and in the moments after Lilian smooths herself out she's struck dumb standing there, clutching at her head and stomach with either hand.

Physically miserable, as she's looked at pleadingly, Xion unsteadily husks out a 'made a choice', before making an 'opening' gesturing with her hand with thumbs and forefingers in a ring touching, and a dark purple pit opens up under her golds and jewels, the ground tesselating out under it like an event horizon and sucking back up the wealth.

"Roxas, Axel, let's... find something to eat. Then I've got forms to sign. Lilian, are you... Okay? Do you want to go eat? I'll pay. Doctor Strange? King of Heroes? I really want to eat something, I don't feel well at all."

Another uncertain look cast to Lilian, another 'are you ok?' mouthed out, before she staggers off to find a BOOOOUGIE CAFE to gorge on.
Lilian Rook     The would-be thief/escapees are rounded up and taken off to a police station which at least is definitely going to be pretty upscale, if not swanky, around here. Gilgamesh succeeds in making a miserable lady even more adjectly miserable, yet grinding her teeth in the way she does because she can't convincingly argue the point about talking to someone who fights horrible monsters about working hard. Roxas using Curaga seems to mostly just get a bewildered look from the young man, but with the help of the two beat police, he manages to stagger to his feet and hobble off, still goggling at him over his shoulder.

    When Xion asks Lilian if she's okay though, that mostly makes her look surprise, blinking again with a sort of blank, non-comprehending smile. "Hm? Why do you ask?" Seeing Xion's deepening concern though, some of the same emotion starts to infect Lilian's countenance as well. "Are . . . you sure *you're* okay? You don't look . . ." Her face falls into a frown, then worry, partly at Xion's condition, partly a self-conscious worry about if she'd done something wrong --the kind where one rolls around in bed for half an hour thinking about it.

    "No it's . . . after all that trouble, I should cover it, shouldn't I?" Now she just seems reluctant to let Xion leave with a bad impression, having the faint, confusing impulse to hover around in her presence and make sure nothing bad happens (or anyone talks shit about her in private). This may even entail suffering a lesser cafe. So much feels whiplash.

    She snaps her fingers one last time at Aranea though. "If you're looking for work: tomorrow. I've got something for you."
Roxas Roxas knows Xion well enough to know broadly what's going on (although he doesn't really understand, even though he KNOWS), so he doesn't question it. He remains close at hand, releasing her hand when she grasps at her head and stomach but standing close in case she needs help getting around. He doesn't expect her to -- and she doesn't -- but a moody and melancholy expression overtakes his features. This, of course, is simply something that he can't do anything about.

"I'm fine with whatever. Especially /his/ whatever." He remarks, nodding towards Gilgamesh.