2014-04-20 - The Essential Importance of Mochi to Fighting Evil
| Title: The Essential Importance of Mochi to Fighting Evil | |
|---|---|
| Summary: Things happen on rooftops when rooftops are masquerading as the curb outside a 7-11. | |
| Who: | |
| Where: Yamanote somewheres | |
| OOC - IC Date: 2 Jan 2014 - 04/20/14 | |
<Pose Tracker> Tuxedo Mask [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
The second day of the shining new year; it's sunset and the colors in the sky are like sherbet, spilling and reflecting off every tall glass tower and flooding the streets of Tokyo with an ambient hazy orange-gold light, fuzzing edges, making everything look something like a dream and something like a memory.
There are two figures on a rooftop overlooking the streets of a higher-income area, and one of them's actually sitting on the top ledge of a facade, long black-clad legs dangling down as he passes the bowl over.
Bowl of mochi ice cream balls, thank you very much.
The glove belonging to the hand holding the piece of gooey meltable confection is tucked in the front pocket of his white-tie dinner ensemble. "--essential part of fighting evil," he's lecturing the girl with him, counting on sitting on the edge to keep him from being pushed for his distinctly deserves-it tone. "If you don't pretend, every once in a while, that you're hanging out on the curb of a convenience store while you're actually on a roof, and eating junk food to complete the experience, then you're taking yourself too seriously. This is what American television has taught me. I watched some today."
<Pose Tracker> Mai Tokiha [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
Oh, how very much this guy deserves it. Mai Tokiha, Ohtori Student, part-time waitress, and summoner of dragons is definitely not sitting - she's standing, arms crossed, and giving the tuxedo-clad man a Look. The good news is, her rings are stationary rather than actively on fire. The bad news is that she seems to seriously be considering giving 'pushing him' a shot'.
At Tuxedo Mask's little speech, she lets out a sigh, and shifts her look from the man to his bowl of tempting treats. "You know, I have the distinct impression that this is my fault. I'm going to have to apologize to every magical girl out there, now, for unleashing this on the world." And that makes it her responsibility.
...but those treats look good. She's tempted. Sorely tempted. And again her gaze shifts back to Tuxedo Mask, and she throws him a bone. "Well, in fairness, that does sound normal. I just fear the fallout of Mikoto learning that this is a thing now." And she takes one of the ice cream mochi. One. Singular. Not the bowl, one ball, because she can have self-control.
<Pose Tracker> Cure Peace [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.
EARLIER IN THE EVENING, AS YAYOI WAS DISCUSSING BUSSINESS WITH A VETERAN MEMBER OF THE MAGIC ASSOCIATION!:
"I kinda wish I knew how to find half the people that helped us in the Bad End Kingdom....so I could at least say Thank You----everyone left so abruptly...or needed to attend to injuries and... celebrating the new year." she says forlornly. This was often the case during most major events, of course.
"Rooftops."
She blinks. "Wah?" she said as she looks towards the boy. "Rooftops. That's where you'll find half of them. At night. Just keep the moon in sight, you'll she them, /in shiloutte/."
RIGHT NOW!
Cure Peace is searching rooftops. She in fact, spent the first few hours in Tama to no luck. And is now checking out Yamanote. She jumping from rooftop, to rooftop as she kind of weirdly scans around rooftops, using the moon as a lens---aha! Two figures!
She jumps, just a little closer, as she comes down with a clink of her heels. She peers at at least Tuxedo Mask. Familar. And Mai. also familar. She ahs!----
"Ah--I finally found some of you!" she says wide eyed and winded. Though her voice doesn't sound distressed. Rather, pleased!
<Pose Tracker> Tuxedo Mask [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
"To be fair, it's only a thing inasmuch as it appears to be a thing in Teen Titans. Because that's what I was watching." There's a pause, and then blue eyes squint up at Mai from behind Tuxedo Kamen's sherbet-sunset-reflecting white mask in a 'don't judge me' glare. But it's gone immediately when he grins. "And no, thank YOU very much, just because my ~mystery~ is ruined forever for you doesn't mean it's ruined for everyone else."
The eleventh-grader in the mask and cape and tuxedo cheerfully takes the rest of the bowl of mochi ice cream back and pops another one in his mouth. This has the result of Tuxedo Mask having his mouth full when they are abruptly beset by Cure Peace--
--though it being sunset, the moon's not yet bright enough to cast the two in silhouette.
"Mhhmf?" he makes a mouth-is-full inquisitive sound.
<Pose Tracker> Mai Tokiha [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
"Not something I've had time to see, but that sounds about right." Mai contemplates the mochi a moment longer, then pops it in her mouth. One learns to eat quickly in a home containing Mikoto Minagi. And then she nearly chokes on it at his next line. After pounding her chest twice, she manages to swallow the sweet treat, and give him another Look.
And then Mai just facepalms. "Your '~mystery~'? Really? I might have to make sure you don't corrupt my still-more-serious-than-you little brother, at this rate." She looks up again, though it's plain to see the glower is fading into a grin-
A NEW CHALLENGER HAS ARRIVED.
Mai ignores her choking companion to turn to this new visitor. "Found some of-" She blinks. "-wait, weren't you at..."
<Pose Tracker> Cure Peace [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.
Cure Peace would had just been using the big ol' setting sun then instead of the Moon, regardless, she stares like a deer in headlights for a short moment with a wide eyed face for a moment, Guy.. Girl... Mochi.
Blink...
Then she's throwing her hands up in front of her.. "Ah!!!!?? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrupet anything!" she exclaims. "Ah--I'm just--ah! Wanted to thank everyone for helping in the Bad End Kingdom---I..uh! Will come back later--- ah! I didn't meant to interrupt a date!" she says as she she begins to clamber to the right. Then she trips over herself.
Yeah, she's throughly embarassed.
<Pose Tracker> Tuxedo Mask [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
Well. He wasn't choking -yet-, just making inquisitive sounds with his mouth full-- but at Cure Peace's reaction, yes, he does. And then he's laughing at the same time, and still has his mouth full of ice cream, and is coughing and covering his hand and nose with his mouth, going into little convulsions as he tries desperately not to get ice cream on his magic tuxedo.
And he's shaking his head really hard!
He pushes the bowl of ice cream mochi at Mai and gestures frantically for her to offer the other girl some, because man, okay, he's a little busy right now.
<Pose Tracker> Mai Tokiha [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
Tick, tick, tick...ding. The appearance of the situation hits Mai, and she recoils away from Mamoru in a fraction of a second. There might have been a brief flaming contrail. "What?! No, not a date, not interrupting, nothing like that! This- just-" Sunset's light is red, which is certainly the reason her face looks tinted that colour. Surely.
Cure Peace says a few other words that help Mai place the connection, and the HiME raises a finger to begin to address them- and then winces as the other girl trips. She glances to Mamoru, who seems to be choking on his ice cream - karma, right there - and uses her rings to fly down to Cure Peace. "Seriously! It's not a date, just something something eat ice cream while patrolling for monsters, come have some." Somewhere between 'helping her up' and 'just taking her to the tuxedo-clad confection-provider', one could file Mai's subsequent actions.
<Pose Tracker> Cure Peace [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.
Cure Peace just kinda trips up. She doesn't quite fall. But it's mostly due to her awkward haste to leave what she suddenly sees as a private situation alone. She watches as Tuxedo Mask chokes but tries to react and convey something, which bewilds her for a moment, until Mai speaks.
She gives that blink again.
"Ahh! I'm..even more sorry now---!" she says, somehow, EVEN MORE embarassed. "Ah--sorry! Just--ah!" she says all embarassed now. It kinda looks she might die from it.
Luckily, being flush in the face never deprived anyone of enough blood to pass out. She does approach, if hestiatantly because she's now kind of worried. She peeks at the ice cream. "Um..thanks." she says with a little bit of a warm smile, kind of calming down now. She leans out to grab one of the Ice Cream balls....
Then a fuzzy cream colored puff leaps over and begins to try to dive headfirst into the bucket/bowl.
"Candy love Ice Cream! ~kuru~"
She freaks again and grabs her before this can happen! "Ah--C--Candy you can't just...dive into...ice cream..." she says as if this was a thing she just had to say to someone.
<Pose Tracker> Tuxedo Mask [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
Finally getting over his Food Issues, Tuxedo Mask thumps his chest a couple of times and then clears his throat, before reaching up under the mask to wipe his eyes. "Kuh," he says, swinging his super long legs back over the facade onto the rooftop, then standing up. All bajillionty feet of him.
"It's okay, you two can have the rest," he says, stifling another cough. "Thank me? I got everything I wanted for one split second of time, who else can say that?"
Yeah, it must be the setting sun. And, well, despite the ambient silliness, something has dragged him straight back into having an expression best described as 'a gentle-eyed smile framed by soft focus and shoujo bubbles'. And he's looking in the direction of the dim white rising moon at the other end of the sky.
<Pose Tracker> Mai Tokiha [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
"Just...try not to worry about it." Mai backs off once Cure Peace is on her feet and aimed at Tuxedo Mask, so she can recover from that misconception. She's about to say something else - some explanation, some encouragment - but then there's a giant cream puff diving for the ice cream. "What." Yup, Mai's just openly staring and also not helping.
Tuxedo Mask stands, and offers Peace and Candy the remaining ice cream. Mai chimes in. "Yeah, I've had my fill - " One bite, but it's Mai, so this is truth. " - so it's all yours." She looks up to the standing Tuxedo Mask, puzzled. "One second? What did you get that-"
damn it all stop being so gorgeous after being such a goof how do you keep doing that
By the time Mai's able to avert her gaze from the handsome abyss, the hungry fairy situation has probably been resolved one way or another. So in a blatant attempt to change the subject, Mai inquires. "The Bad End Kingdom - you mean the whole New Year, stolen gem, wolf and troll business, right?"
<Pose Tracker> Cure Peace [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.
Cure Peace sighhhhs and merely plops Candy in the bowl and takes it. "Kuru~!" comes from the bowl as she looks so utterly defeated in this endeavour to keep Candy from Ice Cream.. "Sorry---Candy is eager sometimes around sweets." she says with a sighhhh.
Her eyes open again. "Yea---Yeah! The Jewel of New Beginings." she smiles. "You two were there! I came to say thanks--- um..that would had been way much more than me and my friends could had handled on our own." she nods. "The Bad End Kingdom is where most of the fairy tale villians live. They want to give all the worlds 'The Worst End'" she says in a matter of fact, semi-serious tone. "They were trying to bring a Bad End to the New Year, before it began..." she says with a curt nod.
She glances over to Tuxedo Mask. She might be too young to pick up on 'gorgeous' but he is 'handsome', admittedly-----
She looks back to Mai who's transfixed for that moment, before she smiles. "Um...oh---"
She raises her fingers in pece signs. "I'm... Cure Peace!" she says gently, finally offering a name.
<Pose Tracker> Tuxedo Mask [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
"Tuxedo Kamen," the teenaged boy says, sweeping a dramatic stage bow, complete with cape-in-hands action. When he straightens, he's all friendly business; his voice is even and mild. "I'm glad there's someone watching after the world from that end of it. Thank you for doing what you do, and for knowing when to ask for help."
He says extremely seriously, deliberately not looking at Mai, "Anyone who would dare to use cookies in such a violently non-delicious manner is unforgivable. I won't stand for it. You don't need to thank me for you allowing me to help punish that creature for his evil intents."
<Pose Tracker> Mai Tokiha [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
Mai was distracted for a moment by moonrise and certain illumination, but she's shaking it off. It helps immensely to think of Tuxedo Mask grinning and talking about American cartoons, oddly enough. So she picks up on most of the explanation, though it takes her a moment to actually respond. "Right. Fairy Tale kingdom. Even having been there, it seems kind of absurd - but I'm glad we could help. I'm holding out hope for this to be a good year for something, so no regrets about foiling that scheme." A smile in response to such seriousness is probably out of place, but it's what Mai does. "Do they do this sort of thing often?"
She almost looks up at Tuxedo Mask at that comment. Almost. But for now, be polite, talk to Cure Peace, try not to laugh too hard, and avoid that trap. No time for that these days anyway. "Ah, right. Mai Tokiha." She does a polite short bow. "And like he said - thanks for watching out for those things. I mostly get Orphans - big hungry monster things." She seems a bit embarrassed by her quality of enemy.
<Pose Tracker> Cure Peace [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.
Cure Peace ahs.. "That's...right you summoned a...."
Her eyes light up, in total joy. "A really awesome huge dragon!" she says with the typical anime face you'd expect from such a statement. ^_^. "Can you summon him whenever? Do you need to feed it!? Where do you keep it!?" she asks in rapid sucession-----
She suddenly comes off down off the eager ride--"Ah---sorry, just! Even I don't see dragons a lot! We... don't really go to either Marchenland or the Bad End Kingdom a lot." she says.
She looks over to the boy and smiles. "Ah--I really don't know what was up with bridge troll..." she admits. "We usually handle the four Generals.... not the smaller flunkies like that...." she admits. "But Billy-Chan knew how to handle him so her and Pop could save the Jewel." she nods.
Candy says from the bowl. "Pop is /cool/~Kuru." she says. Also, she's lounging at the bottom of the now empty bowl with a satisifed look on her face, rubbing her tiny paws over her belly, full of ice cream.
<Pose Tracker> Tuxedo Mask [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
All of a sudden, something Cure Peace says derails Mamoru's conversational train. He instantly goes from baiting Mai to staring at nothing at all when the younger girl says
the four Generals
and he stops thinking about anything else, because he's heard that somewhere before, and it's deeply jarring on some dark gut level of the soul. Unconsciously, his hand strays to the beautiful star pocketwatch connected to his waistcoat with a matching fob; unseeing, he looks at its face, the back of which is progressing from sunset into twilight.
Tuxedo Mask starts, then looks back up and gives a quick, rakish grin. "In closing, hope and friendship win another day. Beautiful soldiers of justice, I bid you farewell!"
Legit he leaps high and away toward the roof of a much taller building, hits it, leaps again, and vanishes into the growing night.
<Pose Tracker> Mai Tokiha [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
Total shock on Mai's face, and she actually seems to be getting forced back a couple of steps from the rapid succession of questions from Cure Peace. It seems like she wasn't expecting that reaction at all - but what could she have been expecting instead? But, by the time Cure Peace winds down for a moment, Mai's able to actually respond to the questions with cheer in her face to start to match. "His name's Kagutsuchi. I don't think he eats - or at least he hasn't asked me for anything - and while I can summon him, I try not to." She wags a finger, mock-admonishingly, and her earlier smirk is back. "You do have to be careful - dragons aren't always tame, you know."
The fairy gets her attention for a moment, and again Mai's left staring at how quickly she can eat. "Is that so? Well, I'm glad he didn't get eaten, then." She turns back to Cure Peace. "It sounds like you all have some reliable allies - that's great!"
And then Tuxedo Mask goes nuts and leaps away. Mai turns to stare at his departure, blinking. "...what. He just- was he planning on doing that all along?!"
<Pose Tracker> Cure Peace [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.
Cure Peace thinks about this a little.. "Ah---he called us... /beautiful/ soldiers of justice." she says just a little starryed eyed for a moment....
Blink...
"Ahaha---hehehhe~ I mean, we are--right?" she asks. She kind of looks over to Mai and nods a little.
"Oh! Well... still it is..kinda... very cool." she says with wide eyes again----but then those back up a bit. "Pop wouldn't had gotten eaten, we were there protecting him!" she nods matter of factly! "Pop's important---he's about the only thing keeping things even a tiny bit safe in Marchenland right now...." she says.
She smiles. "Do you have to go someplace too?" she asks softly. "I'm glad I was able to catch you both to say thanks." she smiles. "I'm trying to find EVERYONE who helped but..." she kind of rubs her arm a bit. "It's hard when you only know someone, like this. So you have to be lucky..." she smiles.
<Pose Tracker> Mai Tokiha [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
It takes a moment for those words of Tuxedo Mask's to sink in. Then, Mai turns red. "...right! Though he's lucky he ran away after that..." She glares after the departing tuxedo-clad dork.
...cool? Mai turns back to Cure Peace. "I guess he...kind of is. Just - not something I want to bring out all the time. I'm not sure the school would survive..." Guilt on her face a moment at Pep's importance, and she can only nod. Yup, Kagutsuchi can't be let off leash any time soon. Nope nope nope.
Mentioning the school does get Mai thinking about Mikoto, and supper plans, and she's tensing to take off when Peace makes her last comment. Again, Mai looks guilty - but this time, she can do something. Without a second thought, she takes out her phone. "I can't speak for anyone else who was there - though I can sound them out - but I can give you my phone number, at least. If there's anything big enough that you want help, or if you just want to get together for something, you can get in touch."
<Pose Tracker> Cure Peace [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.
Cure Peace ums.. "Sure!" she says.....
........
........ .oO(Oh crap!)
"Um... I..actually don't have a cellphone on me..." she says meekly.. "I wonder if..." She takes the Smile! Pact off her belt. Looks at it.
Looks at Cellphone Decor in oppsite hand. Looks at Smile Pact...
"Pretty Cure!....Smile! Charggggggggge!" she says as she shoves the Cellphone Decor into the Smile! Pact!
a moment passes nothing happens.
Cure Peace deflates as it spits out the Decor. Oh well. Guess it's really only good for the one thing it does. (Which is contact Pop.)
"Yeah---uh! No cellphone! Um---if you...gimme your number...I'll call you soon when...I get a cellphone...I can use.... as... um.. Cure Peace." she says kinda shyly..
"Sorry....ah---!"
<Pose Tracker> Mai Tokiha [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
If there's one thing Mai doesn't hide, it's giggling at embarrassment. Well, she hides it a bit, but it's pretty clear she's amused by the failure of the show to produce a cellphone - but all the same, she digs out a bit of paper and a pen from her jacket pocket. Didn't really need this receipt anyway. (Grocery store, sweet potatoes and candied chestnuts in syrup, bargain discount.)
"And...there you go. Just send me a text whenever you get the chance - just say 'Cure Peace' and that's the only name my address book will hold." She holds up her phone to demonstrate - it's a clunky old model, and doesn't even have a full caller ID function. Just numbers, and any shorthand names given. There's texts from 'Rune', 'Handsome', 'Sugiura', and 'Jerk' quickly scrolled through as a quick example.
Once the information's given over, Mai turns her phone back - and stares at the time. "And my roommate is probably about to eat the pillows again at this point. Sorry to dash - but I've got to start cooking." She grins. "Thanks for stopping by, and for all the good work you're doing!"
And with that, her rings spin into whirling flame and she flies off the edge of the building. She'll be on foot by the time she emerges from the adjacent alley, but at least it's a running start...
