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Lilian Rook <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook transmits over an immense amount of angry shouting, chanting, and rabbling in the background, so severe her radio's noise filter can't even scrub it all, "I don't usually do this, but please, for the love of god, someone else handle this so that it isn't me."
<J-IC-Scene> Ishirou says, "Lilian!? What's going on?"
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "I can't have four weeks of nothing going wrong is what."
<J-IC-Scene> Ishirou sighs, "Sounds about right.."
<J-IC-Scene> Staren says, "You don't? You seem like you'd be pretty good at delegation... err, sorry. What is it?"
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Some kind of absurd flash-. . . protest? At the Eastern Seaboard Urban Center, turned utterly ridiculous. I don't know how civil protection was so lax they let this one slip and snowball to this side, but ACPS is useless and-- this is dangerously close to becoming my job. I made the mistake of being one of very few arms-licensed Enlightened personnel who just happened to be in the city at the time and unable to ghost."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "I'm not a junior officer in training anymore. There's a very real chance I'll get the call to deal with this."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "And I . . ."
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Can't."

    Lilian was not kidding. The specifics of the Eastern Seaboard Urban Center have been revisited enough. Predictably, the disturbance has clearly begun from the Third Circle area, but has been escalated beyond 'a real problem' once it pressed in and overflowed the boundaries of the Second Circle divide. And it is not a small disturbance. This is not a square full of people holding signs and protesting in a park. The streets, plural, are packed barely leaving one room to wind through even if they want to get to the front, for blocks and blocks around. A sea of people spread around a very significant fraction of the Second Circle zoning perimeter. Thousands, at least. The noise is catastrophic to the ears.

    The press of bodies has significantly outpaced the blurry boundary where cheap and slightly ramshackle prefabs have been crammed together and built up high, strung and bolted with clotheslines and solar panels and bike racks and roof gardens, to the point that only a hesitant crowd of onlookers still linger at it, recording everything with old smartphones, as onlookers do. It's blended deep into somewhat wider and more orderly streets, with roads just wide enough to have a lane either way, regular public lighting and crossings, wired power and miniscule parks and roundabouts, bland facades bristling with cameras. A small mercy is that nobody seems to really live so close to the Third Circle without actually being in it, as the surroundings mostly seem to be made up of thriftily built warehouses, small factories, electric greenhouse buildings, subway terminals, and low-tier office blocks. Which is also, in of itself, kind of a problem.

    Of course there is a police blockade. That's how this works. It is disproportionately deep and wide for an urban area of this size, but they're still easily outnumbered five to one. Most of the work is being done by the number of surplus (and down-armed) military vehicles parked bumper to bumper, and less so by lines of shields half made of cops who look reluctant to even be there. Bricks and stones and bottles are everywhere, and still flying. Enough people are setting off crappy DIY fireworks for the sound of gunshots to ratchet tensions incredibly high. The air is still lightly smoking with spent tear gas, which seems to have no meaningful effect. Few people indeed have bothered to bring a sign instead of a bat or pipe or wrench. This is a situation that has long exceeded organized protest and boiled over into one excuse short of cathartic mass violence.
Lilian Rook     Lilian is not terribly hard to find, because she told everyone where she is, being at a nondescript intersection of a train terminal, factory floor, warehouse, and indoor greenhouse, where the blob has penetrated the furthest. She is behind the police, on the side of 'everyone else', who have come out from their Second Circle low-run workplaces to watch carefully, and from further into the city to gawk as one does. She stands out, looks aside, mostly for having nobody willing (brave enough) to stand within ten meters of her.
Ishirou Ishirou's armor comes from the nearest warp gate to close distance with the riots and of course, his friend who's likely going to be suffering if she has to deal with this.  Once he hits the ground, he detaches from the armor, and the thing folds up and recedes into his dimensional pocket.  With a breath, he tries to give Lilian a bright smile and considers the situation.  

"I see what you mean, this is a bit worse than even what I was thinking..." he considers.  He notes the lack of signs in the group, this seems to definitely be a group whipped into a frenzy...but how?  Was it coordinated, this many people would be hard to coordinate without someone knowing anything...unless this group is incidental to the situation.

He pauses, and takes a few moments, using his biohacking to try and subtly try and scan the surface thoughts of people while he waits for others to arrive.  He's looking for why they are here, why they are angry, and what got them to rioting.  Looking for any common threads so he could start deeper examinations.  

It is likely, that right now people are unlikely to talk...and escalating things is likely to be the wrong solution to this.  He has to keep a cool head and try and work out a path.  
Rita Ma      Rita, as always, dresses to blend in with 'the people': if their clothes are drab and worn, so are hers; if they're modern but plain, so are hers. She arrives among the piled-up shanties where the onlookers gawk, a distinctly troubled expression on her face despite the plucky bravery of her tone on the radio.

     I told Ms. Rook I'd help. Maybe I can. But the way I can help... I'm not sure she'll like it. If people are this angry, there's got to be a reason, right? Isn't the best way to stop the riot just to give them everything they want?

     Finding the nearest person with a camera, she interrogates them with that wide-eyed hapless innocence she's so good at projecting. "Excuse me, mister? What's going on? Why are people so angry? Why are the police fighting them?"

     Once that conversation's concluded, she smiles warmly and waves goodbye- "thank you, mister! Stay safe!"- before leaping onto the side of a building, kicking off with a wall-jump to land on the roof of another several stories up, and traversing the clogged city by platforming across the rooftops at harrowing speed.

     I chose to be 'a monster that protects humans'. If I can't take the side of the people... then I'm not making good on that, am I?

     Mid-leap, she fishes the cellphone from her satchel and dials a number that shouldn't connect to anything. It goes through to the Watch network. They must have good informants here, right, with this level of civil unrest? What can they tell her about the people's grievances, and why the authorities would rather suppress them violently rather than hand it over?

     I hope I can find a way to stay true to the people without making her upset. ... I always thought that, when me and Ms. Rook fought, it'd be because I'm a monster. But so far it's always been about trying to be a decent human.
Staren     Staren strides into the area from the warpgate aaaand *balks* before coming out into the open as she picks up news coverage showing what she's about to walk out into (she can hear it, too, but the video and audio both drive home the scale of the thing. With a crowd like this even just being *seen* on one side or the other of that police line is going to shape public opinion so fast that there is no way she'll get a chance to talk to anyone. But Lilian is there... Perhaps that's why she can't do this, though. Is opinion already against her? ...It's nothing against you. Thoughts of dire socio-political consequences for making a choice without knowing its significance do kind of run along in the background of the thoughts she begins to direct apologetically towards Lilian. If I go over there, I lose my chance to talk too, right? If someone standing by you in support is what you need, I can, you've sacrificed so much for humanity these people don't even *know*, but I suspect you'd rather it be someone else.

    Tasking her AI to crawl social media and news sites and collate information about what this is all about, and leaving a few camera drones out of sight for now, Staren turns into a cat and looks for a path across the police line. With the press of bodies, 'between people's feet' might be problematic, but there may well be trees, balconies, roofs, and such that can be used to kitty-parkour over there. Then she can try striking up a conversation, squeaky cat-sized voice and all, with someone in the crowd who looks less threatening than those around them. "Hi there! What is all this about?"
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Help the cops contain this

    No.

>Arthur: No?

    Yeah, sorry, Arthur's just not feeling it.

>Arthur: Okay, help the rioters, I guess?

    Arthur Lowell can't do that! The current ALLEGIANCE GRID doesn't allow Arthur to act against Lilian's interests.

>Arthur: Okay, well what the fuck CAN you do?

    Arthur Lowell arrives somewhere near Lilian, simply Gating his way straight into the spot she has carved out. He's moving with intent and purpose, but not a specific goal yet. "Alright, real talk. After that shit with Acton and the Bazaar, I'm not going to shed blood for the fucking cops. You tell me what you want done, you tell me the *specific priority*, and I'm gonna get it done. Gotta have at least a *little* goodwill left from the Bazaar hoodlums after the last time, maybe I can get this shit to cool off, but probably not. You tell me what *specific places* need not burning or what *specific people* need not lynchin' and I'm your dude."

    He's going take off pretty quick after that. If it's not to a particular objective of Lilian's, he's going to head for the Bazaar area, try to find any familiar faces at all, and rally up some intel about how to cool this for a minute -- or, what the hottest point of contention is that could slake the bloodlust precisely and without collateral damage.
Kale Hearthward Kale, briefly, gets a birds eye view as he arrives, not just of the protest - he quickly glances through architecture, layout, and notable features. He also pulls down what publicly available city data there is, and quickly glances through that, too.

This is a lot of extrapolation done fairly quickly, and - honestly, using a fair bit of loose and subjective reasoning. It's knowledge that was earned indirectly by months of pulling weeds and running demeaning errands for demanding citizens - not learned by doing that, but he certainly put in the work to earn the lessons. The skills employed are a hodgepodge of demographic science, urban sociology, microeconomics, anthropology, urban planning, architecture, and a lot of other things that Kale isn't strictly qualified in, but - knows just enough about to make work to get a look at the bigger picture.

He doesn't like what he sees in the bigger picture.

<J-IC-Scene> Kale Hearthward says, "... It's - *looking* like general economic pressure. Not enough jobs, not enough living space, not enough mobility or redress. There'a whole lot of ramshackle areas."
<J-IC-Scene> Kale Hearthward says, "As in, if you're looking for a silver bullet here to change everything and make everything better - tough luck."

With that done - he heads to the front lines of the barricade, making sure his 'looks human' illusion is intact and implied as he does so. He can handle incoming abuse and improvised missiles a bit better than the locals, he figures, so he'll start by shoring things up there.
Trudy Grimm     Lilian Rook's own shadow deepens, then extends. From it rises a certain witch in green and black and white, charms clicking against one another as they dangle, the Grimoire bound firmly and hanging from the cook of her arm by its strap. Eyes closed, Trudy Grimm lifts one hand in a gesture, "Goodness but you must be a scary lady if nobody wants to stand anywhere near you. I guess this wretched creature will just have to keep you company."

    That same hand tips inward, touching splayed fingers to her cheek just by the corner of her mouth, "I'll leave my cute friends where they are for now. That'd only make things worse. This isn't the same as Staten by a long shot, hmm~." Stepping out of the taller woman's shadow, Trudy hums to herself while tucking her hands behind her back, "If de-escalation is necessary, I might have a curse or two up my sleeve. But..." Pausing, she glances sidelong towards Arthur, "...I'd be rather indescriminate with it. I simply wouldn't want to turn this into a bloodbath." Eyes closing again, she bobs her head from side to side, "Ahh, but if I started casting a spell, that might be taken as an act of aggression no matter my intentions... Troublesome, troublesome..."

    The Grimoire jerks unnaturally near her hip, as if trying to escape its binding. She glances at it, placing a hand on the cover until the tome goes still.
Lilian Rook     I4's bioscan of people's brains, en masse and on the surface level, detects nothing abnormal. That's not much of a surprise; if it were plausible for an Antegent incursion to get in and get this widespread, things would be very different-- and so would the response. While he sees that a good deal of them are here on purpose, with deliberate goal in mind, the vast bulk are simply carried away with flash in the pan excitement; frustration boiling over and seeing an opportunity where a critical mass of people had already started. Of course. It'd be pretty much impossible to hide this many people coordinating anything under all that panopticon scrutiny.

    Rita is excessively Normal and thus earns a sad smile and doting patience from a middle-aged man who seems too wary to be anywhere near that clash, but perhaps a little wistful that he isn't. He perhaps does his best to dumb it down a little more than is actually helpful. But what stands out most is the words 'Same as always'.

    He defines this entire social class as 'the people who got here late, and the children they raised', and pins the grievance on 'tired of being useless, given nothing 'cause they're useless, and given no way to be useful'. That a lot of them are in some outrageous level of debt. That these people in particular are working for 'the fair neighbours', which he pronounces like an old-fashioned slur and clearly means a class of people, and that they don't get anything back for it. He seems to think the specifics are too complicated for Rita, but he does grumble something about 'won't move the walls, won't build any place to live, so they'll always be unwanted extra, and they can make them do anything'.

    His opinions on the police are simple: They stand in the way or they join the crowd getting stepped on. Policing is a steady job. Why there are people ordering them to do it: 'Because if they can't contain their own mess, the fair neighbours are gonna take it into their own hands', and they're more scared of above than they are below.

    Rita clambering up onto the rooftop discovers additional Problems. Not a lot, but enough to be concerning. Teams of two in blue-black, with binoculars and radio, and long rifles, surveying the crowd. There aren't nearly enough and they aren't positioned properly to actually open fire into the crowd. Their utility is questionable to say the least.

    Staren attempts to talk to someone in the guise of a cat, and this backfires tremendously. Even the least threatening person recoils at the talking animal, apparently having no reason to suspect 'Multiversal' first, and screams 'Fuck off you fucking bedsheet twat!' and attempts to kick her. An uproar starts around her, and someone manages to squeeze out with an old snub nose revolver, firing a few shots at Staren that are lost in the noise.
Lilian Rook     "Pick someone else's shadow to pop out of." Lilian says to Trudy irritably. "Look around. Now you're officially with me. I'm sure everyone thinks you're a demonic servant now." Indeed, glancing around at the crowd giving Lilian a wide berth, they are now filming Trudy with looks of variable fascination and horror, backing up even further.

    "They can tell from looking at me, obviously, that I'm Enlightened. There's no hiding it from people who've grown up here. The dress, the bearing, the atmosphere. And I never felt particularly ordinary to be around either way. And . . ." Lilian touches the thin and faded scar on her face, but doesn't finish that sentence. "I wouldn't recommend it. There'd be a lot of heat, and ideally you'd be thrown under the bus after, so nobody here would take the blame, but it wouldn't stop the violence after. Unless you can simultaneously curse . . . ten thousand people?"

    "I'm not asking you to." Lilian sighs to Arthur, irritation in her voice, but not at him. "I want to not deal with this. I can't deal with this. I can't--" A frustrated noise slips between her teeth. "I can't be what these people need, Arthur. If you can make a miracle happen, make them go home. If you can't, then if nothing else, make it a First Circle issue and not a Phantom one."

    His trip to the bazaar is actually largely uneventful. So is his arrival. The warehouse has been shut down completely. If he checks the signage and asks anyone close, they all know why; it was raided a second time after Elites already intervened, and they weren't sneaky enough about it even then. It was shut down indefinitely, and everyone there lost their jobs. The men and teens he knows from there must be scattered far and wide all over this place now. Given their attitude, some are probably in the mob.
Ishirou Think Ishirou think.  

These are people who've lived in this situation for too long, Kale calls it a failing of local government, and to be fair it likely is true.  This would be a city issue, likely not something the Immunes would deal with on a regular basis, as they're more focused on the macro level.  Their detachment from the situation is a problem, but that's a future problem.

These people need a way to get themselves out of their problems, perhaps Lilian overestimates the ways they can raise themselves up.  Okay...okay, that's a starting point.  

He hooks his head into the local internet, looking to quickly download documents and profiles.  Trying to find what the major drivers of people in the third ring is, then looking at how the laws work.  How does one pull themselves up?  He checks for fairness in the laws, trying to compare it to their woes too.

He is trying to ID the problem, is it purposeful obfuscation?  Ignorance?  Are there people trying to keep the system going because it benefits them?  
Lilian Rook     Rita's Watch contacts don't fail her. Even if this is 'Lilian's world' to her, it's not like Lilian is the only person who ever interacts with the Multiverse. This world has integrated fairly strongly, if very, very selectively, with the outside world(s), and there are other volunteers with the Paladins, numerous elites who are rubbing elbows with the Concord, and especially quite a large number of Watch cells in development, being quietly grown by veteran actors.

    The story is part familiar, but it goes deeper. She knows already that the maximum size of all urban habitation in this world is strictly limited by how much space can be adequately defended from Antegent, which can't just be done with strong walls and stronger arms; magic is absolutely required to keep human civilization safe from everything from the light of the full moon to something getting cheeky about folding space.

    These urban centers were built on old cities over a short period during a mass mobilization of 'humanity, generally', and had set parameters they were designed to actually accommodate; ever since people stopped dying by the millions, they've slowly grown to strain at the seams-- and they were already full of refugees nobody would leave out in the cold, but there has since been very little effort to 'integrate them into society' as the people originally responsible for the Urban Center project are no longer in charge.

    People here are recipients of fairly robust social welfare, but it's not free; it's tallied up on individual tabs of 'social credit' that appear to be a holdover from a strict apocalpytic wartime requisitioning system, and being deep in the hole like they are gratuitously restricts their freedoms and prospects; few places in the Multiverse really want to take them, and they generally aren't allowed to leave anyways with extensive debts unpaid, without special exemption or egregious contract. Attempting to strike out on their own, of course, never goes well.

    The most recent subject that's really pushed the boiling point is thus: There's no gainful work for these people available to even tick down their social debt. That would require an expansion to industry and infrastructure, which would require more space, which there isn't any of. In order for there to be more space, more people with magic would have to be willing to pay into the expansion of magic defenses, both in terms of the project, and regular, indefinite 'mana taxation' from then on; which they aren't; they'd much rather these people stop 'popping out babies' and go away. 'Fuck off we're full' is in full sentimental swing.

    And so economics has found a way: Third Circle citizens of extremely low desirability only have the option of 'work programs' that directly serve the magic-using class, which are overwhelmingly jobs that must be done by hand and have immense occupational hazards for normal people. Despite the fact that what they're doing is ostensibly very valuable, and the magic class would pay a small fortune for the same things for others, these people are basically put on a drip feed of social credit because their work doesn't pay back into the Urban Center itself, which is footing the bill for their existence.

    It's inevitable that Multiversal items eventually ended up here, illegal or not. Including radios that the existing infrastructure can't spy on and police. People have coordinated and organized, but it's a minority. Most of the people here saw an opportunity to express their resentment, and got brave. The problem is that, because public opinion is very, very against them, being 'undesirable' mouths to feed, there aren't as many people on their side from the inner Circles as there should be, and ultimately whether someone loses the next election because of police brutality is irrelevant; their replacement can't afford to change much.
Lilian Rook     Kale showing up to the frontlines in military garb has apparently drawn that exact ire; cops are bad, but Important Rich People who would actually show up on the frontlines can only be one kind of person: cronies of the magic class called in to show the mob who's boss. Kale is instantaneously the focus of every thrown object and hurled slur for blocks around. A senior officer waves for his attention and hits up his private radio, asking for identification.
Kale Hearthward Kale responds with radio-speeddial-three, which sends his Paladins credentials, with appropriate contacts to call to verify it.

More importantly - he's drawn aggro. He instantly regrets drawing aggro - thrown objects hurt, and he doesn't want to risk activating his contingency defensive spells right at this juncture, for a number of reasons, so he's stuck using his arms to shield his face from the worst of it.

... And, to be honest, the words the crowd is using don't just bounce off of him harmlessly, either.

"Excuse me!" He shouts, standing stoically in the face of the crowd. "I need to talk to you all! Could you please stop throwing things and talk to me? I understand you're upset but I can't help you if you're attacking me."

This may or may not work, but attempting verbal de-escalation is the step one Kale remembers from his training. And if nothing else, it's buying some time for the others, hopefully.
Trudy Grimm     "Please," Trudy's eyes close and she makes a dismissive gesture, "A demonic familiar? Give yourself some credit, you'd call up something with a completely different sense of style. And you certainly wouldn't call something as untrustworthy as a demon." She grins, showing those chompers of hers, "An ancient fox spirit, perhaps. That sounds about right."

    She lifts that hand in a flippant wave as she steps away, "But I get it. An exhaustion curse would be too bad of a look, so we do it the old-fashioned way."

    Kill them? Old fashioned, not Olde Fashioned. Wait, was there a time when killing the revolt wasn't in fashion? Stop that. I could find who they're mad at and kill that one instead.

    Trudy pauses, lowering her head and tapping a finger to her chin. Her eyes lift as people turn on Kale with thrown items.

    ...Maybe.

    She wants a good look at the leyline network of this place, and that means getting High. Her shadow deepens and grows around her, forming a circle a meter or so across. From this rises a long bony rod, which she grabs onto. Placing her foot on a hold that emerges some length later, the pole begins extending, reinforced in key points with bones bound together. For stability, it extends arms outward that cling to walls and fire escapes as it rises, elevating the girl to the roofline and some distance beyond atop some spindley multi-limbed thing. Shielding her eyes with her free hand, she surveys the city from above, searching out the lines of the land and its telltale convergences. After a moment, she brings her gaze down to the streets below, getting a better look at the density and movement of the revolting mob, all with a thoughtful expression.
Staren     Staren's eyes go wide, ears flattening as she bounds out of the way of a kick. Who hates cats this much?! What the fuck?! While she has *briefly* used this form in combat in the past to slip out of grapples, it's still a shock to suddenly go from a talking context to 'a bunch of people many times your size trying to attack you!' She looks back to shout, "WHAT THE HELL?!" hackles raised and tail bristling, and then a bullet hits pavement near her, and adrenaline soars as she recognizes the escalation from inflicting pain to lethal for no apparent reason. Drives to FLEE, to FIGHT, to NOT SHOW WEAKNESS, all rise at once and... Honestly, for once? She has no reason to expect anyone would judge her for running. So FIGHT and FLEE are perfectly balanced, the old amber spherical force-dome surrounding her to deflect followup shots as she considers her options long enough for higher brain function to finally catch up with a reaction of 'Attacking them would be crazy! They're not human supremacists, you WAY outclass them, and summoning battle armor here will only escalate things! Just get out of there!'

    So she scampers off, turning the field off after she's heard six shots and finding a rooftop or alley to dart out of sight into.

    In the meantime, she also gets to learn more of what this is all about, and can put 2+2 together and realize that she was mistaken for a local magic-user. Ugh.

    EVENTUALLY, Staren emerges from another alleyw--wait, no, she steps back into the shadows and summons her Assassin cloak (it's white with red trim) to cover her ears and tail. Let people assume she's wearing clothes shaped as IF they have ears and tail under because she's a furry or something.

    AHEM, EVENTUALLY, Staren emerges from an alleyway further back from the front lines where hopefully people are a bit less ready to pop off. She tries to find some people who are... not actively yelling or rioting, and engage them in conversation. "Hey. I'm from the Multiverse. I see that you're suffering. What can I do to help? Like, actually do, right now. If the current regime needs to be toppled, then that'll be on the to-do list, but it's messy and I don't know if you want a war right here, right now. So what CAN we do, right here, right now, to help? Bring in supplies? Try to build another settlement on this planet? What can we do for you?"
Lilian Rook     Kale getting pelted with bullshit mostly draws jeers of satisfaction from the crowd. The especially brave get right up into his face to spit and scream. Shortly enough, officers on either side pull him back and overlap shields, beating back the crowd to protect who they presume is a VIP who will have their necks if they don't. It takes a little while for his Paladins credentials to go up the pipeline and back down again as they check with superiors' superiors' superiors whether or not that should be allowed to be involved here. The answer is a swift affirmative, at least. Better to let someone else's hands get dirty, probably.

    To their credit, the police actually help him, the shields in front of him pushing back the most aggressive shovers to clear a little circle of space, and the lead officer assigned to this road getting out his megaphone to declare that Kale is from the Paladins (at least loosely known here), which 'calms' the crowd into a state of loud and rhythmic chanting (at this block only). This is more or less the best platform to talk he's going to get.
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Mourn what could have been

    The Aerial Bazaar of Arthur's plans from long ago could maybe have taken the pressure off of this. Now it's just an obliterated economic non-opportunity. Why did he bother constraining himself? Why didn't he just *go*? Well... he was loyal to Lilian. He is, still, loyal to Lilian.

>Arthur: Solve the premise another day. Focus on getting them off the street.

    What can he do? What can he really do? Well... he takes off again. Back to the line between the rioters and the police. He has to start doing *something*. Pulling into a hover over the barricade on his rocket broom, he slows to a stop and descends to a few dozen feet over the street. He is in perfect view of the rioters and the police both.

    He closes his eyes, cracks his knuckles, and puts both palms out, fingers rippling. Two small suns form in his hands. They begin to glow brighter, brighter, brighter... And when he slams them together into a binary orbit, the pulsars begin to sweep. Like constant flashbangs, the twin stars flicker their beams of unbelievably high-intensity light over the crowd of rioters... and of the police. Arthur has tried to add the incredibly horrible inconvenience of "sun in your eyes" times a million, plus the flickering strobes of the worst dance club in the cosmos, making it nearly impossible for anyone to bear to look towards the path further into the second circle, as well as making it tough for the police to meaningfully aim or fire. The electromagnetism the binary stars are emitting is precisely tuned, as well: Every fire alarm in the area, which is thankfully non-residential, is likely to begin going off uif they're modern ionization fire alarms, making it even worse to be here.

    Arthur has learned, over years and years, to be the most *annoying* son of a bitch on the planet. He is also a gamer, and so he knows that people will go for what is most emotionally satisfying, and that certain things can make everything very, very unsatisfying, such as certain light and noise.

    He doesn't even have anything to yell. It's just a simple, clear, flickering thing that's designed to strongly motivate everyone in the area to leave.
Rita Ma      Lilian wants to send these people back home before worse measures are taken, and they all get killed. We could do that, if we worked together. But unless we have a plan, nothing will change.

     I want these people to win. I want them to put enough pressure on the 'fairer neighbors' that they cave to expanding the wards. ... But if what she says is true, that's impossible today. Even with my help, it wouldn't work. Too many of them would die.

     Dad... what would you do? I hate this. I hate it so much.

     "Yeah. Okay. Thanks," Rita says on the phone, her voice choking up a little with stormy frustration. She snaps it shut hard enough to crack the screen and exhales sharply. Her eyes scrunch closed; when they open, she blinks a few times to clear the emotion away.

     Ahead of her are a pair of police officers with binoculars and a rifle. That's a more immediate problem. Regardless of its scale, it's something good to focus on. She peeks over the edge of the building to study them for a moment, then turns invisible to vault up and approach them.

     When she's within twenty feet or so, she shimmers back into visibility- but not as herself. Rather, she looks like a generic-ish Immune, a little taller than her natural stature and wearing armor that's similar to the white-and-black stuff she's seen Lilian in. Hopefully appearing out of thin air will accentuate, rather than diminishing, the verisimilitude of the disguise.

     As authoritatively and bluntly as she can manage (which is only moderately), she says: "What are you two doing up here. Shouldn't you be back at the line?" A skeptical, mildly confused gaze rests on them; she tries her best to convey the bearing of someone who simply hadn't gotten the memo.
Lilian Rook     "Flattery won't get you anywhere. Right now." Lilian says to Trudy, rolling her eyes a little bit at 'fox spirit'. "Well, I'm going to move then." and so she does, up to near(er) the front where Kale is.

    Trudy soaring into the sky on two and a half innuendos has a pretty good read of where she is. Right by the beach to the east, she can see older, untouched construction, surrounded by a semicircle of deep and wide postmodern architecture, and beyond that, an equally deep and wide semicircle of ghetto, with the robust walls and installations barely capping that. Well, that, and a few miles of February snow before the land beyond turns dark.

    From that vantage, she can see that two reasonably strong leylines run through this area, which is 'enough to matter' but not enough to make this a sorcerous hotspot, and they appear to be taxed to capacity maintaining the extensive dome of layers upon layers of incredibly powerful wards and enchantments she feels tingling her skin the higher she goes. The mob has clearly packed in around the entire eleven to one o'clock arc of the city, which does appear to be divided up by interior walls, especially around the ghetto areas, like firebrakes.
Lilian Rook     Staren asks about the the most suspicious couple of questions possibly at first, and is quickly surrounded by a thick crowd cajoling her with a fuckton of 'You a cop?' 'Obviously a state actor!' 'Agent provocateur?' 'Nice try spook!' 'What if they're with . . . y'know . . . the Watch?' 'Then prove it.' Unless she quick to produce something convincing, she is probably about to be hit with a lot of assorted blunt implements.

    Rita manages to startle both officers, but --a very new experience for her-- she sees the both of their aggression responses die on their faces, taken over with stark blanches and nervous swallows. They glance to each other as if to immediately blame the other one for fucking up, before remembering that they are actually supposed to be here. The spotter-caller replies "ACPS ma'am. We're posted here on VIP duty. Call from above. We have permission to shoot to kill should anyone present a credible lethal threat to a VIP after entering the AO. We'll cover you too, ma'am. Ah, not that you need it, I'm sure."
Kale Hearthward "I'm - doing fine," protests Kale as the police pull him back. (He's not.)

He does at least get his opportunity to speak. There is an established precedent and order to this, per the training - tell the crowd to disperse. Appeal to them that this is not the way. Explain that violence will ensue if they don't comply. Make whatever empty promises you have to. Get them off the streets by whatever means necessary. Leave to see to the next crisis as soon as the mob returns to their homes - because the squeaky wheel gets the grease, not to help the wheel, but to stop it from squeaking.

<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "If you disperse it now, they'll probably start witch-hunting the organizers. That'll cool it down for a while."

"..."

Kale is a man of cities. He left home to head to the city, he threw his whole lot in with the city - and when it chewed him up and spat him back out he threw his lot back in again until it accepted him. He's flown for the biggest city on his home world, put himself on the line for it time and time again, and when he left it he gravitated towards the study of it - of building his own town, of dreaming idly of having his own towering spires and busy streets. And when it all comes together, when it all works, a city is a sight to behold.

This is not such a city. This is urban sickness - what happens when a city is done wrong, when it doesn't protect its people, when it doesn't reach out an equitable hand. When someone decides that sweeping the downtrodden under the rug is easier than letting them share in the bounty. And that...

... Goes so directly against everything he believes, everything he wants to believe, that he can't remotely justify the rug sweeping, the superficial wheel-greasing, the procedural de-escalation for the sake of de-escalation, and leaving the people trying to change that out to dry.

"ATTENTION!" calls Kale, his voice naturally amplified. "Your leaders have failed you!"

Of course, he doesn't entirely have a plan either. But it's fine. It's improv. He's got this. Just start talking confidently, let the words flow out and assemble them one after another until you pull a working plan out of them.

"That much is plain to see, on every level. Your leaders, inside these walls, see to their own needs - while leaving you hung out to dry!"

"And - your cries have been heard! I am Kale Hearthward, Paladins Lieutenant, and the East Wind of the Gale Empire! The Paladins stand for peace, and prosperity, and freedom and fairness for all people - *ALL* people! And whatever the situation here - those things clearly aren't happening here!"

"And so I'm here to tell you - I am here to launch a full investigation into the affairs of this city, by my authority as a Paladins Lieutenant and Elite! Whatever corruption or wrongdoing - I will drag it to light, kicking and screaming if I must!"

"But - I can't do that right now. I need you all to stand down! You have made yourselves heard - trust me! I need you to lower your weapons, and go back to your homes in peace - you have it on my honr that if you do so peacefully, I will see to it that no harm will come to you!"

This... may be a big check that his beak is writing. He's committed now. "I promise you, I am here to help you - but I cannot help you here if I'm stuck here trying to keep peace between you and the city. So please. Trust me."
Staren     On the radio, the idea of just paying their debts is discussed. Staren's not sure her expense account is THAT deep, but she can probably at least buy them some breathing room! An urgent e-mail is composed on her headcomputer and sent off to the Concord's accounting department to, with as much as can be allowed for this mission, devote the entire mission expense allowance to just giving the city's poor (as determined by someone reasonable) money. Staren's up for letting the Concord's accountants and lawyers work out the best arrangement, preferably one that somehow sticks it to the peoples' creditors, but as a starting point she suggests: Their current-interval social credit payment covered and whatever's left of each individual share direct-deposited into their bank accounts for use how they see fit. It irks her to be, by paying debts, giving money to the people who CAUSED this problem, but they can be allowed that victory in return for giving the citizens reprieve.

    She hopes someone can figure out how to make the opressors pay it back to more deserving folk many times over, but that's a problem for another day.

    Meanwhile, in realspace, the crowd is *seriously suspicious*. "Geeze, what is your problem!? I'm with the Concord, and I'm giving ALL of you some money so that we can all BREATHE while I find someone who's willing to actually TALK to me. Geeze." She'll follow up on the vague promise with a specific announcement of terms and how much as soon as she has it back from Concord Accounting. She'll give them a lowballed guesstimate with "It's gotta be at least $XXX, I'm having them work it out now..." if needed to stall for time.
Lilian Rook     Arthur's plan sort of works, and also tremendously backfires. At first, the sheer horribly obnoxious bullshit quotient causes both crowds to stagger right back, howling and covering their eyes and ears, blowing every fire alarm for 'way too far' and debilitating the street. However, these rioters are pretty well-organized, and tinted shades have been brought out in anticipation of the flashbangs that were already used earlier; the police of course are able to largely swap to tinted visors, and one of the officers is yelling over the radio to try and get civil services to cut power completely in the affected blocks. He's broken up the lines for at least a solid chunk of the line.

    But word starts to ripple through, because there are people who know him here. People who recognize him. People he has helped. People who like him. Even trying to flashbang everyone with the power of the sun, it doesn't take a genius to figure out, and the attitude of the crowd seems to immediately hinge on the assumption he's 'getting 'em', and soon people are chanting his name. He has a crowd cheering on. Probably presuming there's a non-cop baddie there he's pissing off.

    And much worse, he starts hearing 'Hey, where's the rest?' 'They've gotta be here right?' 'The Grandmaster!' 'Stark, dude!' 'Hey! Hey look! It's that crazy bitch who shot that cop on video!' 'Really?!' 'Hell yeah!'

    Yes, they still remember that. Arthur has been here multiple times when the civil unrest flares up, and the UCCS bungling that operation was made pretty famous. People surging around the segment where Trudy and Lilian are begin pointing her out and calling, now having gone from 'glimpsing some rich girl there to rat about the situation' to recognizing her as that girl from that viral video and presuming she is probably on their side. The police look back at her with a visible --even palpable-- wave of restless unease, glowering at her from the summary alone. Lilian bristles, even while the crowd is yelling and demanding she come forth.
Lilian Rook     Staren's accountants don't like this. Accessing the available information, these people are pretty much paid in digital scrip, and don't actually have the legal right to own cash money they can spend outside the Urban Center while at such low status. Paying off the city commission comes with all kinds of fees and conversions and won't go equitably to each person. Even then, he's looking at 'at least ten thousand people in this mob', and she does not have a billion credits to casually blow unless she wants to eat cup ramen and shoot BBs for a year.

    She could pay a considerable fractional amount, but she is sternly warned that doing so would piss off everyone else deep in debt who didn't riot; who would then probably start their own riot to try and get paid too. They don't advise funneling it straight into the rioter's bank accounts. But, then again, they're also accountants, so they probably don't have souls. Expert advice is, at least, to offer people something tangible, rather than making the life-ruining number go down a little.

    The name of the Concord crossing her lips gets some sour reactions, but they presume that, from her ID, she's not in the doghouse with an organization as important as the Concord to be some Enlightened ally's flunky here to create casus belli for the police to act. The Concord being a Big Money Do Shit organization is also relevant enough that she's met with a (unnecessarily hostile) demand to talk to the people in charge of this place and force through 'Prop 108', which is apparently some grand budget/planning/hiring combination originally meant to expand the Urban Center by a third, which has been repeatedly shot down for eleven years running.

    They're inherently mistrustful of 'set up a new place to live'. Why? Some of them had friends, family, coworkers, leave for Caelton. Regular (illegal, Multiversally smuggled) contact from them had stopped abruptly from some of them for a solid month after the Caelton op, and the rest told them what happened. Because of what the Letter Agency did at Caelton, the people here seem to believe that even a working Satellite Colony is a trap wherein they will be exploited for labour and brutally punished for trying to gain independence.
Lilian Rook     There's a period of tense, bated breath semi-silence as Kale starts to talk, which then explodes into . . . well, not quite cheering, but loud howling jeers that mostly seem to be supporting him(?) when he opens his beak (disguised as a human mouth). Nobody knows what the Gale Empire is, because Kale hasn't talked to these people about it before, but they quickly figure out he must actually be with the Paladins after all that police chatter and letting him up front-- mainly that a local VIP wouln't have been put within bricking range.

    It is, very much, a big cheque. A lot of people feel enthused about his promise, but the tone remains boilingly suspicious of him telling them to stand down. Enough people are yelling to be heard: 'Prove it!' 'How are you gonna do that huh?' 'You fibbing mate?' 'I'll kick your arse if you are!' 'What are the Paladins gonna do? It's been years already.' 'Yeah, what are you gonna do about this?' 'Fuck later, how about right now!' 'C'mon, put your money where your mouth is!'. They're not hostile towards him, but these people have been hearing enough talk.
Kale Hearthward Kale holds out a hand, and then with a flourish produces his phone, and holds it up.

"Right *now*? You'd like to do what I can do for you right *now*?"

"Right *now* I have a Paladins aid team on call - that can arrive within a few minutes and start repairing and improving your areas of the city - fixing some of the problems that others won't fix. How is that for right *now*?"

'Improving' is maybe a bit of a stretch, but the repair team is indeed on their way.

"And - I can't speak to what Paladins you've met before... But myself? I was a soldier."

He kicks his heels together, and starts floating (jetbooting) just above the ground - as the wind starts picking up around him dramatically. "I was a conqueror. I am a powerful mage and holder of three powerful and rare weapons. I do not back down from conflict for the sake of being nice - and if I have to be mean to change things here - I *will*."

The winds pick up a bit more, in a way that isn't natural. Kale raises a clenched fist.

"So run home, already, and let me do my job - and either fix this city or break it even more."
Trudy Grimm     Kale shouting in the distance draws Trudy's attention, and then she turns the other way to the lightshow Arthur's set off in the other direction. She casts her gaze back to the leylines, making a note of their location and angles. No real convergence, either. And humming with mana, certainly tapped to their limits. Ishirou mentioned something about making them more effecient. Trudy resolves to chat him up about that later when discussing matters of improvement. Going up instead of out... Might be a good idea, if the warding dome can be pushed upward safely. Would it be more effecient? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

    Rubbing her chin in thought, Trudy once more takes stock of the situation, eyes wandering between the agitated police line and the more agitated crowd reacting to Lilian's presence. She claps her hands once, then rummages in her pockets.

    In her free hand she produces a similarly glowing, sickly green gemstone. Squeezing this in her hand, the gem cracks, then shatters into the curling shape of a Svefnthorn; the Sleep Thorn rune. Casting it out, she disperse the detritus as powdery dust to descend on the mob and police unit both, an unfelt gust carrying it down the street. Little more than glitter by the time it touches the ground, all caught in it may feel their energy winding down. As if it were much later than it is. As if they've run a marathon or worked all day. All this excitement and tension must be exhausting.
Staren     Staren holds her hand to the side of her head in a 'I am receiving a transmission' gesture. "Okay, I'm being told that the laws here forbid you from owning money because the jerks opressing you specifically wanted to stop anyone from helping you. I'm not sure whose heads need to roll to fix that. If the clever among you can work out something I can buy for all the poor in the city for like," she gives the number "each that they can't legally take from you, let me know."

    "As for Caelton, I personally helped hunt down the people responsible. You can have the video if you like."

    It really seems like they have the right idea here. Staren's tried to think of alternatives, but the opressors are locking down options pretty hard. Lilian's a good person. She should be helping these people... Fuck, did she hear that? Oh well, the hell with it, it's true.
Staren     Oh right. Lilian and her pali-pals may be the political geniuses, but Staren has an option too! Now that she's got a much more detailed picture of what's going on, she feeds it all to the experimental AI back in Grand Dorado and tasks it to find: How can I get a step closer to ending this opression?
Staren     As frustration builds, Staren can't help thinking Thousands more unchosen who will never get a turn... God, brain, stop it! If you heard that I'm sorry. This is wearing on you too, right? I'm not any stronger.
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Do something

    Arthur freezes up. A combination of shame, embarrassment, and anxiousness surges through him. Public expectations. A personal image. Things are being compromised. He's... not having a good moment. And if you look closely, at the sweat on the brow and the palms, the clench in the teeth and the fists, the wavering in the eyes and the voice, you can tell he's got that "just fucked up" mood in a high intensity.

>Arthur: Do something

    No. He can't. What CAN he do? In the middle of the road here, what CAN Arthur Lowell do, really? Squash all the goodwill to appease nobody by compromising with both sides?

>Arthur: Do something

    No.

>Arthur: Do something!!

    No.



>Arthur: Do something for the fans

    "Fuck it. I'll work with it." He stops freezing, trying to choke back his nervousness. The suns collapse into themselves with a quick burst that's likely to blow out the smoke detectors that went off and silence them, and supernova is used as fuel. And he shouts out: "IF IT'S SPACE YOU WANT, COME HAVE IT! OPPORTUNITY, COME MAKE IT AGAIN WHERE THEY CAN'T STOP YOU!! EQUALITY, THEN LOOK DOWN ON THE SONS OF BITCHES FROM A THRONE OF YOUR OWN MAKING!!!" The detonation of the twin suns he contains surges into the brilliant green lines spell he prepared a long, long time ago. A series of antigravitational enchantments that are familiar to those from his past incidents, surging over the city in an arc to a particular place even more familiar to the once-organizers of the Bazaar. A place where, a long time ago, they could acquire important goods at a wonderful discount.

    Importantly, it's a place where, in a fit of rage and violence, he once laid down high-density spatial warp infrastructure and a self-sustaining antigravity system. At the time, he was planning on taking the entire Bazaar and running. This time, he has a different approach.

    Like then, the building farther back lifts up. Unlike then, he has no intention of untethering it from the Earth. Unless someone was *very* thorough with decontaminating the Bazaar's building, it's going to respond to his call, lift, and ascend over the buildings, to heights that the city itself can't match.

    "YOUR WORK HOLDS UP THE SKY. TIME TO OWN IT. THE BAZAAR'S BACK, PLUS MORE." With several mighty gestures, broad and sweeping motions that look almost like martial arts, he twists space. Lines of green arc from above and slam into the sides of buildings, blasting open new doors that now lead to the aerial structure. Doors that are *firmly* in Third Circle territory *only*. Chunks shorn out of the street below are geometrically repeated like game textures, expanded into more space that links above. Thin green lines mark where doors are linking like portals. Gates aboard it above are connecting, not just below but at great distances, as long thin lines arc far over the horizon.

    "*YOUR* SECRET DOORS. *YOUR* AERIAL BAZAAR. *YOUR* GATES. *YOUR* SKY. *NOT THEIRS.*" He booms. Then claps his hands together once, setting the aerial third circle into a slow eliptical path around the second and first. "AND IN EXCHANGE... Give me a while to tip some scales. And *good fuckin' job* putting the fear of god back in them." Arthur shouts, finally settling down.

    Arthur's hope is that enough of the old Bazaarians are among the crowd, and enough of the old fans of his(?!), and enough friends of those, that the crowd will have some fascination. And there's one more thing: Two essential urges that fill the human soul. The first is curiosity, and the second is the urge to get far above a rich person and spit on them.
Lilian Rook     Once Staren says something about 'heads rolling', the people around her get noticeably less loud and more shifty-eyed. They barely even seem to want to half-seriously suggest something. Analyzing the situation makes it clear: They don't actually know who makes these decisions above the heads of their city council. While they consider their elected officials either lapdogs or functionally helpless, they know next to nothing about the structures beyond them, and that seems to be by design; they aren't supposed to.

    The idea of launching some bloody assault in the direction of 'the Phantom Circle' of the UK seems to be bitterly pleasing, but they also can't seem to commit to it as a Right Action. Because, as it's explained to Staren, they still can't actually just kill magic people until the problem stops. Because it's so patently obvious that they survive on their whim. The entire human ecosystem of most of the world is built on the destruction of the masquerade and welding of magic to people's lives behind the scenes. The idea of challenging that much power directly seems ridiculous to them. Like a 'divine right of kings' vibe of centuries ago, almost.

    They're sure there are bad people obstructing everything, but they can't name them, because they're not taught and don't have the resources to learn. The most that's available to them as a matter of record is 'taxes and appointments cast by the magic class, into the city, as much as law can hold them to, which hasn't yet been stealthily dismantled piece by piece after the Onslaught'.

    The AI pathing on this is pretty bleak: 'Ending inequality' here is an utterly massive project. The only way these people could ever factually have true independence is if a large portion of them had innate magical ability, access to magical resources, and minimal allegiances and dues to specific power blocs. An utterly staggering amount of money being dumped into the city would work if it were allocated solely for the purposes of expansion, but there are plenty of totally mundane self-interested villains waiting to soak that up too, being the most dramatic obstacle.

    Enormous political pressure on a large number of members of parliament (itself existing in name only as an old-fashioned holdover, specifically restricted to the Hidden Continent and not available to the people who live here) could be sufficient to pass the existing proposition that had the entire program outlined. But that does involve custom thumbscrews on several dozen powerful people to have a chance of swaying a two thirds majority. An armed revolution, in just this one location, is pretty much doomed to fail. All said and done, a well-prepared and armed militia would actually grossly outrank the probable private military assets the major stakeholders in this Urban Center could call up on short notice, even with magic involved, being 'hundreds of thousands' to 'hundreds', but the minute someone successfully petitions a subcommander of the Immunes, it'll be obliterated by crack teams of supersoldiers.
Lilian Rook     Kale's show of 'force' doesn't get him too far, but people stick around when he whips out the phone can calls the dare. People get agitated waiting, but seeing the squad swoop in from the Warpgates immediately draws fascinated interest. The suspicious jeering dies down. It's not much --the infrastructure is mostly an issue of cheap non-presence rather than poor maintenance-- but it's enough for agitators to eat crow (heh) and accept that Kale is the real deal.

    The law of large crowds is still that nobody wants to be the pussy who quits and goes home first. It loses some members around the edges, its cohesion devolves a little, and then eventually a few concerned organizers start trying to herd people back, starting up the mob inertia to thin it out, and give the more scared and exhausted to be here an out.

    That number increases dramatically when Trudy starts sprinkling sleep glitter. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this is crowd control magic though, which stirs up the remainder; those who are angry and prepared enough to power through it and be sufficient upset about it. It is also equally clear, though, that it's being used on the police too. Oddly, this doesn't seem to be taken as a sign of 'not taking sides', but a sign of 'the top boys have decided the cops are useless and are ready to danger close their lapdogs too', and causes the police line to fall into some amount of disarray as they try to pull back and shelter behind or inside vehicles.

    About a fifth of the line on Trudy's and Kale's side surges forward aggressively, attempting a breakthrough. Bricks fly, bats swing, fists are throw, and the first couple of molotovs of the hour go off. People are down on the ground, being wrestled or pummeled. It's technically a sure sight better than 'all of them', as it could easily have been, but it's still a mosh pit of several hundred people involved, even if it's not 'a couple of thousand' as it was shaping up.
Lilian Rook     Arthur, on his half of the line, pops the fuck off. There is mass gasping, oohing and aahing, hooting and hollering, cheering and jeering, and many loudly exclaimed gamer words. The police are abjectly stunned by Homestuck housebuilding happening in the sky, and are paralyzed on the line, calling in a very well-justified 'what the fuck do we do?'.

    This is something that doesn't spur the crowd to violence, but actually has them running the opposite way, spreading into the Third Circle to scavenger hunt all those doors --and immediately board them up treefort style-- before anyone else gets to them.

    There are 'enough' still remaining, mostly to chant his name, yell at him to come join them, and also bring his friends. The one unresolved thread is that they still know Lilian is here, still consider her 'the viral video accomplice', and are even more urgent that she appear alongside Arthur and prove her allegiance once and for all.

    Between the options of 'backing away and being lumped in with the enemy', 'standing there and being assumed a snitch or turncoat', or 'going up front and being despised by the cops who already hate her', Lilian picks the lattermost option. Begrudgingly picking her way out in front of the police line, the officer line clears five feet to either side for her to pass, earning mockery and sneers from the crowd that the tough guys tear gassing them an hour ago won't come within arm's reach of a five foot six woman.

    They are now cheering, chanting, demanding, that she make the cops fuck off. Shoo them away. This might actually be something Lilian is sometimes inclined to do. But this time her fists are squeezed tightly by her side, jaw clenched, knuckles white, as the yelling gets louder and more agitated.

    The police snipers on the rooftops get their calls, and swivel their weapons to aim near her. They know Lilian was here, just like the brass that 'wouldn't let her ghost', and they've been ordered to shoot anyone who makes a 'credible attack' on her.
Kale Hearthward Yes! Yes, it's working. Kale means what he said about making change happen, even if he has to force it, but - the most important thing *right now* is seeing crowd disperse.

He lets himself relax a bit, and then predictably, things immediately all go wrong.

He tries defending himself as the line surges forward - not wanting to draw steel on them, but the longer this goes on the more of them are causing injuries-

He flies up, breaking out of the melee, and casts.

An enormous wind wall starts forming, stretching across the middle of the area, blowing anyone caught in it back - and preventing further things from being thrown across it as well. Kale positions it to try to seperate as many protestors as he can from the police line - and then after that creates specificly aimed wind currents to sort the others that didn't cleanly get divided (police and protestors both) towards their respective sections and away from each other.
Rita Ma      Rita's eyebrows lift and her eyes widen when the black-clad soldiers startle, only partially successful at choking back her own fright response at 'ominous armed men getting antsy in her direction'. When they blanch and explain, she wrests back some of her composure and rubs her face as if irritated at herself for forgetting. "Right. Right. Of course. Go, carry on then."

     She walks past them, then shimmers back out of view- they can assume what they want about illusions or teleportation or whatever. She's about to leap to the next rooftop over when they get those calls and adjust their guns. Again, her spine goes stiff and her hand covers her mouth in alarm. Her eyes trace the line to where they're aiming. At Lilian?! ... No, she's a VIP. At anyone who'll approach her. But she can handle herself, and if someone innocently comes close...!

     In stealth, she walks back over to the two black-clad men, kneels down, and examines their gun. It's different from the ones she's used to, with the pneumatics and the needles, but some things are still the same. It's an easy fix. They're unlikely to notice the tiny bit of gunmetal-colored tentaclestuff that now binds the trigger of the rifle, just in case.

     She leaps from rooftop to rooftop with perfect stealth, hastily applying the same 'fix' to every sniper she can find. Only when she's sure she's gotten all of them does she head for the front lines herself, dropping five stories off a rooftop and landing on her feet. The impact-noise is drowned out by the ongoing chaos.
Staren     Some people fall asleep and others get mad. IT'S NOT STAREN'S FAULT SHE SWEARS SHE DIDN'T DO IT OKAY LILIAN?

    Arthur does some impressive shit. Staren's not sure it solves anything -- she's pretty sure that if having money is illegal, having skyhouses is too, as soon as the authorities get over their shock and start enforcing it. But, at least it sort of calms things down for now.

    Staren's drones that were left near Lilian come out and chastise the crowd booing the cops. And also keep Staren visually informed on the developing situation. "Hey! She's very scary, what's her shape have to do with any of that?"

    To any still gathered around Staren, she shakes her head. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I don't know how to solve your problems..." she admits, as she backs into the alley and makes her way back to Lilian.

    She emerges from the train station in battle labcoat and hero scarf. It's not the most fashionable but it *is* recognizable and at least *parts* of it probably look good, striding past Lilian towards the protestors. "And what is she gonna do, huh? She has worked hard all her life to be able to protect you from the Antegent. And that all goes away if she fights the people in charge for you. And then she can't stop them--" well, that's sort of a lie from Staren's perspective, but not really, because she believes Lilian believes it and if Lilian believes it then she psychologically can't, "--AND she can't protect you from the Antegent anymore. I don't know where you'll find help with this... but the Immunes have a different job that conflicts with helping you, and I don't know what to do. You want my advice? If YOU know what to do to fix all this, get someone to smuggle you offworld, get some powers, then come back and do it. But sneakily so the Immunes can't be ordered to fight you. If you *don't* know what to do... leave. Not to some sattelite colony, leave this world."

    She looks up at the floating city-pieces. "...You've got the God of Space in your corner, I'm sure he can find a way to take you anywhere you need to go."
Trudy Grimm     "Oh, come on!" Trudy shouts from her perch when a good number of people in the street below decide that 'violence' is the appropriate response to perhaps magically suggesting 'call it a day'. At least being up here on her completely innocent rigid bone pole, she's out of reasonable reach of thrown objects. Raising a hand, she rubs her face, staring down between her fingers. It really feels like she just made things worse, even if the crowd ultimately is far fewer people than before.

<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says coldly, "It's small. Containable. Handle it."

    Her hand lowers a bit, staring a bit into the distance. Right, containment..! Her attention returns to the ground, eyes darting between shadows while Kale's wind pushes people around. The Grimoire floats up, resting above her palm and snapping open. When at last it decides on a page, the paper glows with sickly green runes depicting Eiwaz, the Death Rune.

    Come to think of it, a lot of her stuff seems to use that one, so it's probably not as alarming as it could be.

    In the writhing throng of bodies below, shadows deepen. Moments later, barriers rise up. A fractal chainlink fence of macabre materials winding through the crowd, isolating people solo or in small groups of two or three with a latticework of bone barriers resembling the pattern of a spider's web.

    Trudy's mount with its uncomfortable number of arms finally descends. The Grimoire closes with a *thump*, re-fastening its leather strap and buckle while she shouts, "Take the hint and go home already!"
Lilian Rook     Some people choose violence. That's kind of how it always is. Kale's wind wall slamming each side back from each other, and Trudy's magical bone fence, is visually impressive, and certainly a crowd-agitator, but they already know that Kale is at least nominally in their corner, even if he is also Kind Of a cop, and the police got bowled down anyways.

    Most of the rioters on the wrong side use the opportunity to squirm free and sprint back into the mob before the bone wall comes up, though some are unfortunately just In Custody now. Though there's a lot of yelling and attempts to throw things over, people just kind of have to accept that there's no getting through here.

    The fringes of the crowd spill out further to the side, exploring adjacent main thoroughfares, but the momentum is lost; they can't direct the remains of the mob to form up and tear ass into the Second Circle. The riot on that side has effectively been suppressed into the 'milling about and light vandalism' stage, and the police are apparently now being ordered to hold rather than pursue, with Paladins operating in the area.
Arthur Lowell >==>

    Arthur keeps his arms crossed, his grin wide, his eyes gleaming as the upper circle assembles. Old and new spells light up the sky. "Didn't think you'd be here and backing me." He says to Lilian, his voice wavering with a hidden uncertainty. He's post-panic, he's anxious after a rush of fear and shame and indulging a poorly-thought-out side of his mind. As others do the work of protecting her, he stays in a position that seems collaborative with her. He flicks a pair of sunglasses over his eyes to obfuscate his expressions a little.

    "I mean, I'm the hooligan who don't know shit. Sorry if I jammed ya in a tough spot here." He laughs a little under his breath. "This got away from me. Just, just froze and couldn't figure any way of solving it but turning some tables." He dry-swallows and turns to her as things are starting to disperse. "This was the plan I had way back, with Acton, when I got real mad. You kinda pulled me out of that, but..." He scratches the back of his neck awkwardly.
Rita Ma      Up close, of course, everything looks worse. The viscerality and scale of it momentarily stuns her. All those awful feelings bubble back up as she's immersed in the screaming, the smell of smoke, the smell of human blood. It is terribly familiar, but she never gets used to it. Her eyes scrunch shut. Her hands ball up.

     I can't help them: even if they win, the men with guns will come, and it'll only make things worse. I can't stop them: these are my people, the refugees and the poor. If I got in their way, I couldn't live with myself. But there's one or two other things this body is good for, right?

     Around a corner, just out of view, her tentacles weave a humble little medical tent and some small makeshift cots. She decloaks into her civilian guise, lays her supply-laden satchel down on a cot, and uses her sense for blood to locate wounded protestors. One at a time she grabs them, insistently nags and drags them back to her tent with pleading imouto eyes and subtly superhuman strength, and does her best to get them stabilized with her simple first-aid.

     Of course, that also gives them the opportunity and implicit permission to go on home instead of continuing fighting. It's not much- maybe she can treat a couple dozen people if she can keep this up for a while- but it's a way to help.
Lilian Rook     Lilian's refusal to pop off like a psychopath, as she had in that viral video a year and a half ago, is being met with increasing agitation from the the remaining crowd angry enough to stay. With the police peeling back to not come anywhere 'close enough to her to be blamed for anything' to her, her passive intimidation factor is pretty extreme, but eventually there's only so long a too-well/conservatively-dressed average height early 20s girl can actually stay repel the aggression of the diehard core of a mob. They start approaching, close enough to start doing the 'abusing police in every way short of justifying a physical fight' routine.

    A radio transmission buzzes through. Four teams take aim at the lead aggressors, dial, and --struggle with their triggers to no avail. The sabotage is obvious on Rita's end as unrest ripples through the officers they're reporting to on the ground. It works out on both sides, because the closest rioters freeze up a little bit once they come close enough to Lilian to get a good look.

    It takes a second to really get why. Lilian needs one. Then she self-consciously touches her face as they back up a couple of feet again. It seems obvious in retrospect. No self-respecting Enlightened, especially not a pretty young woman, would be seen amongst the poors with a visible scar. That leftover has redefined her identity. Staren doesn't need to explain what her job is. It seems quietly implicit now, a current of fear, confusion, and mild awe rippling through the crowd; there are a low double digit number of Immunes even in this country.

    They aren't really sure what to make of the situation now. On one hand, it makes her earlier activity even more strongly anti-authority, and does let her pull rank over the cops objectively, but on the other, it might mean she's here (with a traditional plus two) to steamroll them should they get out of hand.

    And so, for a change, the catgirl's heartfelt yelling actually gets her somewhere. Lilian is convincingly surprised and annoyed by the interruption --because she is-- so nobody in the crowd can mistake it for paid simping from an underling. Seeing someone 'in the know' jump in the way like that communicates well enough that there is a line here they don't want to cross, and in all honesty, it is actually a compelling argument that they should probably be responding to Arthur's rallying right now rather than playing with fire this dangerous. Most of this half of the riot has already run off to secure the flying city-circle, so . . .

    The crowd starts to peel away, bit by reluctant bit, as Rita starts securing the injured, and their immediate friends and 'people adjacent' go with her, loosening its cohesion and causing the metaphorical bricks to crumble. And as they do leave, something loosens within Lilian. Stiffly, she flexes her fingers free of their fists, letting out a rattling breath. She turns towards the police line, and says "Commander Lilian Rook, Immunes, Sword;Black. Disperse half your men back to HQ. Roll this picket back to the metro and hydroponics exclusively. Radio in that this is a level two situation or I'll do it for you." She points upward. "This is officially no longer your job. Be glad."

    'Not wanting to deal with space castles' is sufficient motivation for the cops to fuck off, even if a good number of them give her especially sour looks; a woman who acts way out of place and 'has at least one time abused her privilege on brothers of the badge' is secondary to 'someone they're an entire rank ladder beneath and couldn't beat in a fight if she were blindfolded'. Lilian groans to Arthur as the picket disintegrates too.

    "You have no idea what you've done, do you? You'd better be prepared. The people you've pissed off won't take that sitting down. Please tell me you have a step two, to all of this. I used up all the softness I have in me right now."