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Darren	Summer rains fall in sheets upon a pocket of greenery nestled between three separate ranges of red, iron-rich mountains. Mistralton City sits within that pocket of green, a small town by the standards of the densely populated Unova region.      Sidewalks, roads and streets wind neatly around buildings which rarely climb higher than two storeys, all of which seem placed so as not to encroach too much on the expanse of greenery and wildflowers. There's even an apparently community owned farm growing a variety of fruits, vegetables and herbs, which is adjacent to your meeting place--the airport.      That is to say, the "Mistralton Cargo Service." It's not only an important part of the region's supply infrastructure, but apparently its first floor is something of an unofficial community center. Darren's RV is in the parking lot, but the trainer himself is in the aforementioned first floor. In a word, the atmosphere inside is lively.     Looking like a cross between a legitimate lobby and the spot of an impromptu party, the ground floor of the Cargo Service's office has easily a dozen visitors besides yourself. TVs show news broadcasts on mute, while a singer belts out a pop classic for a handful of enthused listeners. Tables and chairs make for a relaxed environment conducive to chatting--a group of townies at a different table is currently engaged in spirited debate, while the rest of the other visitors crowd around the secretary's desk, which she's presently using as a grilling station.     Darren's seated at one of the tables near the windows, the soft glow of the city's evening lights diffracted through the steady patter of raindrops against the window. A map of the region is spread out on the table, along with a laptop. The map has a variety of locations circled in yellow and green. Some of the yellow locations have red Xes marked through. Mistralton is circled in yellow--no X.     "Glad y'all could make it," says Darren, standing up for handshakes and handshake hugs, as preferred. Rather than immediately elaborate as to why he's invited everyone, he opens with a question. "Tell me something--how'd you each get here? Warpgate? Personal conveyance? Public transit?" There is a warpgate in town--and for those who prefer more scenic methods, Unova does have bus lines that cover most of the region. "Every day," he says, "On this world and ones like it, there's an attack on the sanctity of public transit. My modern homies already know where I'm going with this," he says, emerald eyes flicking between those of you he knows to be from worlds with automotive industries.     "Suffice it to say, for y'all that *don't* know, that any public good tends to come under attack from people who want to cut it up a hundred ways and sell off all the pieces. And when things don't go their way, people like that play dirty. Long story short, I been on that research grindset," he says, turning the laptop around to show his sources. "And I've come to develop the hypothesis that the automotive and oil industries have been involved in a conspiracy for the past ten years, to poison the public subconscious against public transit with crisis actors and mass psionic manipulation. We're gonna test, and ultimately prove or disprove, that hypothesis."
Hiromi	Hiromi is here. Rather, that must be her, even if she's rarely, if ever, appeared in this form in front of anyone here. It's the presence that most tells it, like something out of a storybook, an apparition that all but forces the hallucination of deep, drum-heavy musical accompaniment. It's the leak of otherworldliness, as if she brings her own world with her, wherever she goes, without caring to quite contain it from overwriting any sense of normalcy. There are the bells, too, of course. The bronze rings. The hanging ribbons. The black fur. She's large, too, but not so large she has any trouble fitting through the door.     She's currently a wolf whose head only comes up to around chest-height, with no apparent hurry to appear as anything else. She responds to Darren's extended hand by nosing it, which completes the greeting ritual.     I ran.     She's still perfectly understandable, conveniently enough.     Rather than taking a chair, she looks over the map on the table, then begins sniffing around other people in the center.
Friz	Dirt: Tons of activity here, bossman. I'm counting dozens, looks positive. Savvy: Unexpected place for a community center. Grit: The tribe's bonfire is wherever it is permitted. Moxie: Hey, there's the guy who invited us. Let's go see him!     "Darren Spears (the quarterback?), hello there! Call me Friz, don't have my legal name right now." Moxie: Alright, in for the shake. Dirt: He's giving the briefing now. Savvy: 'Psionic manipulation'...? Grit: Something about what he's saying is true. Savvy: You *sure* there? Grit: Dead sure. Savvy: Alright, well, I thought it sounded weird, but maybe...     "Really?" The conspiracy takes Friz in almost instantly. "How would we prove that? There's too much infrastructure to catch them in the act, we'd have to go to the source of where they're trying to make it happen."     A voice in her ear: "Go to the social media. Go to the physical side of digital. It's where they always start. That's where money turns t'influence, and it's where they think they can get away with murder."     She pulls out a tape recorder and starts saying, "Alright. Rogers, looks like a case of top-down manipulation, I'm gonna start with the social media." She focuses on Darren. "What's that look like? We could see about tracing hostile activity there and getting an idea of where money starts turning into influence, good locations to start checking for evidence."
Kukuru	Rather than meeting clothes, Kukuru looks like she's dressed more for a picnic today. What else would she be wearing, after hearing that there'd be some kind of trek or walk or long bus ride considering all the bus clapping that's been going on? Probably anything but a pale yellow sundress and a wide-brimmed hat that looks like the sort that could be lost to the skies by a stiff breeze, but that's exactly what she's wearing today. She's got just the thing to keep her hat from blowing off in the event of dramatic winds, too: A neck string! She tells herself not to waste too much time checking out the farmer's market, but... The deals. THE DEALS. Besides, it's not like she has to carry all of it the whole time. She can just shove that in her pockets so she can meet Darren at the designated table (with a handshake hug, of course). "He-llo, Darren~ I got here watching TV." She explains, pointing at one of the live TV broadcasts before promptly disappearing into a dark cloud, reappearing somewhere in the background of that show, then disappearing through a second cloud and reappearing besides him once again. "And walking a little. There's a lot of nice little stalls around here, so I might try making something when we get back. Do you like apples or strawberries more?" There's still work to be done, though, and she buckles down mentally complete with a focused glint in her eyes as she pulls over a chair and plops herself down in the most unladylike way possible: Leaning forwards against the back of the chair with one leg on each side. "I guess the easiest way of testing it is to try and see if we can make it happen ourselves, right? Um... Not to arrange all of it, but to be there when it happens. Like..." Kukuru looks over at Friz while tapping her chin lightly. "If we trace it, then... Could we guess where it's gonna happen next? Or... Is there a sign we can look out for? Like a... Something bigger happening in the world that might set off a reaction?"
Persephone Kore	Persephone's aura- warmth and scary gentleness- announces her presence long before the sound of her clacking heels reaches Darren. She emerges into view last of all, giving him a handshake-hug with a little laugh and seating herself next to the window.      The pattering rain seems to enthrall her a little bit. Haha, but can you blame me? We never get that in space.      "From the warpgate," she says. "But you know, I regret it now. Taking the bus sounds really fun!" Persephone lives in blissful ignorance of automotive industry despite being 'modern'; Darren's eyes can safely skip over her.      She takes a little bit to put together the pieces out loud, unfamiliar as she is with their shapes. While staring out the window, hand pressed to the glass: "So... if people ride on a bus, they don't need to buy cars, right? But if the buses are sabotaged, then... they'd have to buy one. A lot of people would have to buy one, if they can't just walk. That's it, right?"      Hiromi is perfectly recognizable to her, for reasons more than just all the contextual clues. When the wolf approaches, Phony tries to pat her right on the head, exactly like someone who has never touched a dog in their life. "That's a new look, isn't it? Ahaha, it goes great with your bells! The brass, and the color of the fur..."      She pats Friz on the head later, too, for completely unrelated reasons. "You're looking a lot brighter now! And your friend, too. Let's solve a non-cosmic mystery together, okay? I really want to see how you work."
Staren	Staren steps in from the street. Her labcoat can stand up to the rain, so she's fastened it shut and worn a clear hood and mantle with hi-vis green trim instead of her scarf and glasses. Rain is annoying...     Staren looks around, taking in the scene. Her ears (the hood has 'ears' that fit over them) turn towards the pop song, then one turns towards Darren and her head turns to follow. She walks over to the table, pulls a box from her bag, and sets it down on the table, chocolate-covered donuts for the group. Then she takes off her hood and brushes water off the front of her coat before hugging him. She stretches and sits across from Darren, shaking water off her hood, coat, and tail. "Warpgate. Then I skated."     She extends a hand to Hiromi's nose after seeing how she greets Darren.     She tilts her head as Darren talks about attacks. Honestly she's expecting him to go on about... something about the upper class making laws and reinforcing memes about the importance of individual transit to restrict the mobility of the lower classes. It's not that she doesn't *care*, but she's been reading a lot of that sort of thing over the past year already. She can't help kind of tuning it out as she relaxes under Persephone's aura, until he says something about mass psionic manipulation, and she stops staring into space and looks at him, the ear that was turned to the pop song also facing forward now. "What?"     Friz is talking. One ear turns towards her, followed by her head. "...It's you. I hope your bosses are treating you alright... or that you're managing despite them, anyway." She tilts her head. "Are they cool with you working on stuff like this?"     Also, Phony is here! Staren stands and runs to hug her when she sees, smiling. "Persephone!"     After the hug she turns to face the group and listen to the discussion about the situation. She's wondering what proof Darren has so far... "So... what have you actually observed, anyway?" She prepares to start assembling her understanding of what's going on.
Team Breelai	"Eh? How'd we get here? Weird question to ask, but alright big guy. I took a flight on the beef train express. Beats getting packed in like sardines in a bus, and is more scenic than walking through a boring ass gate."      Cheelai points to Broly who's currently standing behind her, as if to elaborate on what exactly the 'beef train express' is, before taking a seat across from Darren, with a complete lack of etiquette from her part as she throws her boots up on the table.      As she listens though, she eventually shifts into a proper sitting position, her eyes narrowing a bit as she scratches underneath her chin. The way this guy talks, it kind of reminds her of a paranoid old man. HOWEVER...      "Well. Alright. Everything you say so far tracks with me. If there's anything I've learned over my years, it's that bigger companies love denying people cheap and easy to access stuff."      As Cheelai actually pays attention to everything being said, Broly meanwhile seems completely preoccupied with something else, his eyes glued to Hiromi in palpable fascination. Like a boy who's staring at someone walking their dog from across the street, to be precise.
Vantablitz Remnants	Ahn, somehow, does not look like a heroine out of a Ridley Scott movie who forgot to get oiled up for set and sort of just staggered out of bed and combed her hair. This is because that dubious titled 'quest money' has--     No, actually, she just sort of got a fat pile of money from Chains and then stayed indoors every day for two months saying she was going to go out and buy new personal things for just herself, every single day, and then never actually did. She just found jeans in her size and knit green longsleeves with a trimmed brown leather jacket that she is probably now sweating to death in because she heard they were going to the mountains and now it's too awkward to take off.     Lotus looks like Lotus because she is not pretending to be clothes. She is currently in the process of unsuccessfully coercing Ahn to take a layer or two off with the threat of licking the first drop of sweat she sees in front of everyone.     "Hi there! I'm Ahn. This is--" "Lotus~ I can speak for myself you know." "'Can' and 'should be trusted to' are different." "You're right. I should do your introductions instead." "Excuse me?!" "You're totally thinking right now 'oh no?! were we supposed to have legal names here?!' and it's so obvious." "Nnnnnn"     Ahn turns to Behold The Grind. Lotus currently busies herself with separating her elegant face surface into a horrifying maw and silently devouring a donut every time Staren isn't looking. "I see, I see! It's just like the experiments with the invisible distribution of biodegradable LSD in apartment buildings and public gathering spaces to provoke mass outbreaks of aggressive hysteria! Back when they were peddling it to the news stations for engagement ratings right before nationalist subliminal messaging segments and manufacturing public support for the abolition of commons in favour of a security state! Right before they installed backdoors into the first wave of smart home surveillance devices linked to the government supercomputers!" "Yes. Like that." "Where do we start!? A train station? Bus depot? Satellite-concealed blacksite for testing private stealth jets?"     "Ahn~ You're sweating~ You aren't scared of the giant, are you~?" "I'll die before I take off this jacket. It took two days to find."
Hiromi	Hiromi interrupts Persephone's patting hand with, again, nosing the palm. Thankfully, the risk of a canine (as with many living beings) taking badly to sudden touching is inversely proportional to its sense of self-assuredness. (Or unfortunately, in the context of teaching Persephone about appropriate canine handling.) Either way, she gets wet-nose sniffed, as Staren subsequently does, an act more informative than most self-introductions, though Hiromi isn't about to reveal the secrets of what everyone's been doing with their hands through the last several washings. She'll just know, without even being smug about it.     Broly can look. Hiromi's used to that. The supernatural portion of her presence fades off when someone looks away, which can be incidentally hypnotizing.
Friz	Grit: Pet the dog. Moxie: That's an entire goddamn wolf!! Grit: Dog, pet. Dirt: Sorry boss, I'm outvoting you here. That's a wolf. Savvy: All the same in my case. Grit: Fine, then stare. Dirt: Sure thing. Moxie: Argh, no! Grit: It's fine. Everything's fine. Savvy: Why? Grit: No reason. I just know everything's okay. Dirt: I got zero sensory data for that, but sure, chief. Dirt: Hey, donuts. Grit: Get one or we didn't hunt the prey. Savvy: *What?* Grit: We're coming off of a week of stress. Savvy: And we don't need frosting and sprinkles in the diet. Moxie: Sorry, I'm doing it anyway. Savvy: God's sakes. Well I'll at least tell her thanks.     "Oh, I love these!" Friz snatches up one of the most chocolate-covered ones from Staren's box without hesitation, then after a short delay, "Oh, uh, thanks. Yeah, Security Chief is always pretty nice..." Grit: Hey. Look at that guy's muscles. Dirt: The beefcake express? Sure thing. What do you want to know about them? Grit: No, just keep staring. Dirt: Okay, Moxie, give me the full face-rub, I'm not gonna keep staring.     Friz rubs her face extensively, jostling her big round glasses around a bit as she does. They wind up a bit askew, and she's fidgeting with them when Persephone's headpat comes down. "Huh? Wait, you can see--?!" She sort of jolts back when she realizes that.     The ghost near her quirks an eyebrow up, adjusting his hat. Seemingly only visible to Persephone at the moment, he looks grizzled, fifty-something, wearing a shabby button-up and jacket with a wound punched through to his heart. He brings out a spectral cigarette, leaving it in the corner of his mouth as he says, audible to just Phony, "Really *can* see me, can't you? Well, long as you aren't yanking me around." His ghost-lighter finally manages to get it alight. "But you're a nice girl. Not gonna like where this goes. Big business and big influence. It's the *worst*." His scowl gets intense, and the more emotionally sensitive might feel a slight chill in the room for a moment. He takes a long drag from the cigarette. "These people and their *marketing*." He spits the word with disgust, then lets out a heavy stream of thick spectral smoke that usually only animals and cameras can vaguely detect before it disperses.
Kukuru	Kukuru pops a squat when Hiromi comes by, offering her face to for sniffing and showing not a hint of fear at the possibility and capability of Hiromi to (probably) eat her head at a moment's notice. There's no reason to be afraid, after all, even if she does smell like freshly cooked meat for some reason. Persephone brings up some good points about the differences in buses and cars, and Kukuru taps her chin again in thought. "Well... If that's the case, why not make it so people can work without going to an office? Then there doesn't need to be cars or buses." Staren offers donuts, and Kukuru gladly obliges. "I didn't know you could skate... Wow. Your balance must be super good for that, huh?" She asks, likely concluding incorrectly that skating involves just standing still rather than actually moving. Clearly, she's never gone skating before. Kukuru perks up when she hears 'beef train', but she doesn't make the connection that Cheelai is mentioning Broly even though she's pointing right at him. She waves lazily at the pair and looks right past Broly, but her attention eventually goes right back to him as she steps right up, licks her hand, and... Starts trying to straighten out his hair. "Ah, so messy... Come on, a little lower. You're really tall." Somehow, Ahn seems to be the type of person on Darren's wavelength, and Kukuru giggles cheerfully at that. "Wow, that's... Complicated! Maybe the sweat's making your brain work harder, but you should still be careful and drink enough water if you're gonna do that." Wrong conclusions are fun. Friz seems to freak out a bit over Persephone seeing her, and Kukuru laughs again before stepping over to rub her back lightly with a (non-donut'd) hand. "Phony has really nice yes, yeah. Do people from your home not have good version?" She asks, once again missing the point while messing with her own glasses idly. On closer inspection, the lenses are completely flat.
Darren	I ran.      Darren's eyes gleam brightly. "Feel my homie Archwolf running to the flight tower with a new fit," he exclaims excitedly, hyping himself up with a fistpump. "OK, FLEX! That's what I'm talking about," he hollers, briefly hyped enough to bounce. RAIN'S LIT, Roswell telepathically agrees with Phony, swirling through the air to give her a hug after Darren. DUNNO IF WE GOT THAT BACK HOME      Ignoring the confused stare of the singing woman in the background at his earlier exuberance, Darren continues. "That kind of expression, that kind of freedom," he says, more softly to Hiromi, "Is exactly the kind of thing these people want to put a stop to. If they can't make a buck off it, they're gonna try and pry your fingers off it, one by one. It *is* fun," he says to Persephone. "Well, it is if you're not, like, tired or impatient. But there are a lot of reasons buses and Warpgates and roads gotta stay open, besides just how nice they can be sometimes. Look at her," he says, nodding at Friz and gesturing with an open palm. "'Friz.' They hired extradimensional beings of entropy to eat her name and locked it behind a paywall. Now she's prolly gotta pay installments to get it back."      "Exactly," he says, pointing at Cheelai in fervent agreement. "We let 'em take the bus, what's next? Sidewalks? I'm not tryna pay a subscription for my daily jog so Macro Cosmos can keep searching the planet's mantle for alien life forms," he says vehemently, arms crossed.      Slapping the table, he asserts his agreement with Ahn, as well. "I could not have asked for a more enlightened group of people to help me with this!" By this point, between Darren and Ahn, some of the people seated near you are scooting away to other tables.      Darren shares his laptop, pushing it towards Friz. He's collated some information on that front already. The MCS is mostly operated by the community here, but commercial flights can land on the airstrip in the event of heavy congestion in Unova. One such story from a user living in Mistralton, dated two weeks ago, describes such a situation.      Apparently, by the way the post is phrased, everyone on the plane got off at the same time, stood in a circle, and for some reason, arbitrarily watched a rude exchange between a cargo technician and another passenger, then clapped for the apparent 'victor' of the exchange. It could just be someone lying for clout--but Darren notes, concerningly, that the green circles on his map correspond to incidents he's been able to confirm a supernatural incident. In interviews with subjects, Darren's notes include consistent reports of strange lights and snickering laughter, remembered only days after the initial incident.      Asked about signs to look for by Kukuru, "One guy said he saw a reflection, lookin' out the window at a building across the street," Darren adds, pointing at a green circle over Nimbasa City, an evidently very densely packed area judging by the roads that crisscross its interior. "That the bus looked like it was a different color than when he got on--but I haven't been able to verify that with anyone else's reports so far." Most of the circles on the map are yellow, some yellow with red Xes and some green. It looks like Darren's investigation is proving more involved than he'd anticipated, judging by how many places he's yet to visit. "Rotom's known to do that--inhabit objects. It's a mostly harmless poltergeist kinda vibe, to the point that we live alongside 'em. My phone case even looks like one."      "But," he says, "This guy was very clear--he said it looked purple and green, but it was your standard Nimbasa City white and yellow when he got on. No idea what that could be."
Darren	As for what he's observed, "Nothing in person, yet. The eyewitness reports in green there have had enough matching details to suggest similarity in the incidents. And, my own experience as a psychic isn't monolithic for this world. Not all of us can do this," he says, levitating his laptop for Staren to see. "Not all of us have Future Sight, either. There are some with the ability to alter space around them, some even capable of mind control. The trouble is catching our psychic infiltrators in the act, which is where y'all come in."      Where to start, as always, is the problem. "There's a witness here I haven't questioned yet. The cargo tech from that story where everyone got off the plane and clapped. I've spoken to her and asked ahead if she'd mind us all stopping by after work--we're all good, whenever y'all're ready."
Staren	Every time Staren glances back at the donuts there are fewer. They're really popular! She takes one for herself, before they're all gone, bites it, chews while Darren explains.     Staren imagines the described incident as a bunch of people acting like old videogame NPCs. "That sounds *creepy*." She hmms and rubs her chin. "Reflection a different color? That sounds really subtle and hard to notice.... Hmm. Is the kind of mind control needed for this ever heard of?" She nods, moving to grab her coat. "I'm ready when everyone else is."
Kukuru	Kukuru says, "But a name is a name. That'sn ot a... Thing you buy." Kukuru sounds utterly baffled by Darren's explanation about Friz's name, looking between then several times before slumping. She's clearly not going to get it today, but not for a lack of trying. Maybe another day. Kukuru has enough things to spend her brainpower on today, leaning over Darren to see what's on that screen. She tries to figure out if there's a pattern to those circles, all while listening to Darren for THE SIGNS and taking note of Nimbasa's circle in particular. "If it looked different between when he got on and when he left... Maybe he entered another dimension? Or one of those... Mind limit spaces?" She suggests/asks, clearly not knowing the right terminology for any of these things while sort of trying to guess at it in the broadest way possible. "Or maybe the bus really was white and yellow the whole time, but he was still seeing weird stuff for a while after he got off. That could explain the colors being off by the time he got off, but... Oh. We'd know for sure if he saw other buses that were the right or wrong colors right after that, too." She's stretching a bit there, but she's trying her best! "Maybe we can ask the tech what changed or... Not changed after seeing that stuff. I'm ready, too!""
Hiromi	Hiromi spends slightly longer in Kukuru's immediate presence, checking for the source of all these meat smells. Knowing Kukuru, she expects the answer is 'packed lunch,' not yet having any knowledge of Meatworks. There is, as expected, no danger of her biting anyone's face off. Probably.     She stops to cock an ear and listen to Ahn describe shady government projects. It is flatly impossible to determine, with any certainty, how much of that she understood. She's looking with particular intensity while Lotus is making sweat-related threats -- or maybe she just always looks like that. It's hard to tell, visually, with wolves, but the intangible feeling of force changes from one moment to another.     Darren, meanwhile, is definitely understood perfectly, at least with regards to 'that kind of freedom.' Hiromi's eyes return to the map, tracking the patterns in the geography.     Unfortunately, psionic influence is outside her area. If it were a magical ritual, she might have a better idea. If it were a direct assault by an invader, she'd know how to draw and manipulate the battle lines. If it were skittering prey, she'd know how to head it off. As it is, she'll need rely on others for their own expertise. She huffs something that means Yes, I'm ready.     Though there is one other point.     Why would you not first destroy the merchants of transport?     If an opponent is known, whether they're responsible for a given attack or not, it only makes sense to force them into submission. Then they can be made to reveal what tricks they'd planned.
Persephone Kore	If Persephone has ever turned down a hug, the circumstances under which she did so have been lost to time. Everybody offering her one gets theirs. (She's been baking cookies recently, Hiromi can discern, among other things.)      "I can just see you a tiny bit," Phony says, talking to apparently-thin-air. "Haha, I bet if you moved around I'd lose you again! You seem like a nice guy, too. What's the matter with big business and big influence, though? Aren't they just made up of people? Dealing with people is easy, right?"      Then, back to Friz, prompted seemingly by absolutely nothing: "Yeah, he is pretty buff." Phony seems vaguely detached from the topic.      She seems to be following what Darren's saying, but her questions stay pretty basic; the entire premise of it seems unremarkably believable to her. "So how are we going to catch them in the act? Do we just hang out where these things are probably going to happen? Oh, maybe you've figured out some kind of pattern to them! That'd be just like you."      During a lull in the conversation, she takes a chance to wave to the two Tall Girls currently in attendance (one prospective candidate disqualified through lack of bipedalism). "Hi, Ahn! Hi, Lotus! I'm Persephone! Here, let me just..."      A refreshing, cool breeze starts to telekinetically blow on Ahn, fluttering her hair a bit and cooling her down measurably. "There. Haha, it is a really cute jacket. I wouldn't want to take it off either! You're a Pokemon trainer like Darren, aren't you? That's why you're here, right?"
Friz	Before she turns back to Darren, Friz blinks a few times at Kukuru. "Huh? Oh-- no, it's, never mind. Just don't worry about it, I'm solving it!" Apparently Persephone's perception of something in particular isn't going to be addressed in detail. Dirt: Fashion glasses. Savvy: Is she vain? Dirt: No. Just pretty and wanting to embrace that.     Friz smiles at Kukuru. "Thanks for the worry, though..." She trails off a bit before she focuses on Darren. Dirt: Chief, there's a lot of rhetoric here. Savvy: ...Situation sounds familiar too. Savvy: We're going to help. Grit: Same thing that hurts us, though. I'm turning up the adrenaline.     Friz scratches her face, seeming a bit jittery. She nods to Darren. "Ahh... something like that. Well, anyway, you're right about-- Well, you're right about a lot of things, I'll be happy to help with." Then she starts digging into the info on the laptop... Savvy: Moxie, notebook. Take that down, take that down! Moxie: Wow, this is *unnerving*, I can tell why it's psionic and evil. Savvy: We're looking at flash-mobs, coordination. Paid people. I can see it. Dirt: Not clear enough yet though. We need that witness. Grit: Expect them to be changed. Moxie: That's kind of an awful thing to see. Breaks a lot of assumptions... Savvy: What? Grit: I won't explain. Savvy: Fine.     She pulls back from the laptop. "Alright. Let me see what I can do with her (and for her (it has to be kind of scary knowing that things like this are happening) to help her feel better)!" She shakes her head, getting some jitters out. She gets into chats with Persephone pretty quick. "Wait, how did you--!?" Fortunately, she's not going to get into it. It's Rogers who is.     The ghost-man speaks to Persephone alone. If she's capable of feeling a chill in that sweater, she might just a little. "These people," He holds the cigarette tight between fingers as he draws in a full lungful of spectral smoke. "They aren't just people. Influence is a drug. Change enough minds and you start to think you can change every mind. The returns get real diminishing, and you just don't stop anyway, you need *another hit* of the relevance, and it's never as good as the first time everyone heard of your business, yeah?"     The chill grows, such that more certainly might feel it. "So you cover every spare minute on every screen, and every moment of silence, with your influence. You try and steal every conversation and thought, until you're not a bunch of people anymore, you're just *influence*, you're just a machine that makes public opinion metrics go up, and the price you make everyone else pay..." His cigarette burns down. He tosses it into spectral dust, stomping hard, leaving just a little real-world ash visible near Friz. "Higher than you'd think."
Darren	"It does," Darren solemnly agrees with Staren. He takes the last donut, assuming no one else reaches for it first. "The kind of power you'd need for this is rare in humans, but theoretically possible. With pokemon, it's entirely possible. We had an incident a few years ago right here in Unova, with a mass movement of Elgyem and Beheeyem, even. Everybody that got near got swept up in it, and woke up days later in their homes, dead ass tired."      The quarterback sighs, when Phony asks if dealing with people is easy. "Dealing with people is easy. Dealing with mind prisons that use humans as organs isn't--and that's intentional." His expression shifts to a sly grin. "Ahn's not the trainer, but you got the spirit."      Kukuru evidently really has the spirit, because Darren snaps his fingers and gestures excitedly. "Weaponized liminal spaces! Could be, could be."      Asked about just destroying dealerships and manufacturers, "Nuclear option. But I have a friend who's about that life, if we ever need that option on deck."      The cargo tech is named Amber, and she's living at an apartment complex just a few minutes down the road. Darren can drive most of you there, his RV surprisingly not as cramped as it'd seem.
Staren	> They woke up days later, tired.     "Did anyone ever find out what they *did*?"     "...Mind prisons that use humans as organs? Wait, what?"
Kukuru	"Okay! I'm not as smart as everyone else here, but lemme know if you need a strong hand to help figure that stuff out." Kukuru answers Friz with a bright smile, reaching over to ruffle her hair briefly before slouching back in her seat and turning her attention back to the mystery at hand. "If it's because of a bunch of Pokemon doing stuff... Are there any kinds that can make people see these... Lim-in-al spaces?" She struggles a bit with Darren's new word. "Maybe not even as a planned thing, but just... A bunch of them getting the same idea? Or... As a reflex?" A beat, and then she scrunches up her face. "Wait, no. If it's because of someone trying to mess with buses, then... Maybe they WERE trained to do that kind of stuff. Unless they want us to think it's a reflex..." She's starting to get into this conspiracy stuff. She's even looking at the maps once they're on the way to Amber's place, although her attention eventually shifts towards making sure everyone packed in is as comfortable as possible. Hiromi's hunch about Kukuru's scent turns out to be correct as, once everyone's on the way to Amber's apartment, Kukuru brings out all the packed lunches. It's enough for an entire picnic with everyone here, although the fare is less 'healthy family meal' and more 'grilled and fried meatfest with beer and implied fireworks in the background'. Everything's packed in little individual containers, and even the drinks have their own little baggies for easier cleanup/not having to worry about empty cans dripping all over the RV afterwards.
Team Breelai	"Green and purple? Uuuuuh huh. Weeell, here's hoping I'm not a suspect of yours, buddy."       Cheelai makes a crappy joke, a shit eating grin spreading across her face. Afterwards, she takes a moment to think over what was just said, her fingers now idly tapping against the table in thought.      Maybe she's just used to larger scales, but big corporate and government bodies tend to be more 'in your face' with these sorts of things, given the amount of immunity they tend to accumulate. If anything, it feels like this is the work of something smaller. Or, perhaps a third party is involved? It's not like she hasn't known people who've been picked up by businesses to do dirty work...  There's a lot of angels, honestly, so she'll just leave the conspiracy crafting stuff to Darren for now. She doesn't even know where to begin when tackling this.        When the Pokemon Trainer offers a ride in the RV, Cheelai is about to object, however Broly suddenly chimes in, speaking in an extremely flat and practiced tone, as if he's been trained to respond in such a manner.      "We thank you for the offer. We would be glad to accept."      There is no backing out for Cheelai now. Not without looking like a jerk, so she just quietly accepts with an attitude that exudes defeat.      At the very least however, Broly seems to be happy, despite having to keep his head down for most of the ride.
Darren	On the drive there, Darren takes time to answer some questions. Though the height clearance isn't the best for Broly, the seating is remarkably comfortable even for a person of his size. "In this instance, the automotive industry," he says, keeping his eyes on the road in the rainy night. "But really, anything larger than the humans that support it, which exists only to sustain itself, using operant conditioning with wealth or power as rewards for sustaining it, is a mind prison. I could go on, but we got an witness to question, you feel me?"      "I'm fairly confident it's possible they could," he says to Kukuru, his green eyes bobbing up and down in the rear view mirror. "At least, I'll say it's plausible that a Psychic or Ghost type could, somehow, induce the feeling of being in a liminal space, whether through altering the matter around them or the perception of the individual. You've seen Trick Room, haven't you?" Roswell's ability--the one that inverts speed through some sort of causal effect. "There are other techniques like it. And there are techniques we may not have discovered yet, too. Like the field of pokemon, the field of psychic potential is one that's still being discovered."      Amber's apartment has been decorated with a preference for earth tones and a fancy of, for lack of a better word, endearing hippy bullshit. A triptych of a wise woman's passing through a forest is commented upon favorably by Roswell, much to her delight. Her accent is, like Darren's, vaguely northeastern US. Short cut black hair, rolled-sleeve flannel and boot cut jeans--by all outward appearances, a perfectly normal person.      "Can I get you guys some coffee?" Coffee or no, she takes a seat in her living room, on a comfy-looking cream-colored armchair. A matching loveseat and couch combo is here, pressed together in an L. "I like to have a lot of company over," she says proudly of her setup. Behind her, there's a combination table and chest of drawers that's currently serving as her entertainment center. Some kind of documentary about pokemon is on, but she's got the TV on mute. "So, Mr. Spears said you guys wanted to ask me about that day at the MCS a while back?" She frowns slightly. "I've never seen anything like it."
Vantablitz Remnants	When Darren jumps up and starts loudly popping off, Ahn sinks into her chair (as best as a six foot woman really can anyways) and awkwardly glances around the airport lobby slash community center out of the corner of her eye, making a little noise approximate to melting in vicarious embarrassment. When people start looking at her though, after her very worldly and well-reasoned comparison to a major historical event that everybody knows about, Ahn cradles her face in her hands and does her best not to start blushing up to her ears. "Please calm down mister Spears! Isn't this supposed to be . . . covert or something?" she whines.     Once there's a moment to calm down and resume things from there, she helpfully says to Kukuru "Right. So because it's something you don't buy, it's something that nobody can make money off of. That's why They--" Who's they? "--have to take it away from you and then sell it back. It's . . . um . . . commoditization of the commons?" Lotus summarily runs out of donuts, and leans over the back of her chair, bonelessly arching her back just a little too much for even the pretense of someone wearing a snazzy plastic greeble suit and meeting wolf Hiromi in the eyes. The four glowing slits on her face blink in asynchronous order.     <<Does this make any sense to you either?>> There's the sense of a pause, in there, somewhere, like the moment of quiet where the wind stops rustling leaves for a single instant by accident. <<Who are you here with anyways? You're not on of that guy's ball-friends. You're 'hungry' and 'bored', even 'restless', right?>>     Ahn makes a slightly overdramatic little sight of relief when Persephone starts <<blowing>> <<blowing on you cretin!>> her. Truly she was not prepared for 'mountains' to mean 'American midwest in summer' and not 'himalayas'. She melts against the table. "Ahhh~ Thank you Miss Persephone~ You're a real lifesaver!"     The fateful question is asked. Ahn glances sideways at Lotus. Lotus' eye glows slide her way reciprocally. "No--" "Yes! That's exactly right! Haha, you could tell? Lotus is my pokemon! We go way back!" A blink. "Who are you talking to though?" "Hmph. Well now I'm not telling you."     A short period of psychic bickering later (mostly just looking like pouty staring from the outside), Ahn settles on "Yes, let's go!" However, once they're actually on the way, Lotus seems to be done chewing on one thought in particular, and buzzes up a sort of darkly foreboding low vibrato ask-aloud "Nobody answered the main premise though, did they? If the point is to make people hate public transport, why make everyone stand around in a circle and clap? If they have all those paid psychics, wouldn't it be easier to make things break down or blow up? Or make the arguments escalate into fights?"
Persephone Kore	Persephone really does try her best to absorb the magnitude of what the late Detective's saying. Her self-proclaimed ability to 'always understand people' clashes with her total lack of topical experience. "You mean that it gets a kind of momentum. It gets bigger than any one person, and hungry, and too spread-out to manage. I think I get it!"      To Friz, simply: "Haha, don't worry about it. I'm just special." She smiles a ~~brain-~~ heart-melting smile, resting her cheek on her hand.      She answers Ahn and Lotus's thoughts in exactly the way they'd hope she wouldn't, effortlessly intruding into their conversation: Ahahaha. Stay above the table for now, okay~? I know it's hard!      As they walk out towards the RV, she adds: "Oh, but Darren said it was the other way around, Ahn. Haha, I'm really sorry for presuming~" To Lotus: "It looks like you've done a really good job training her, too." That's probably about Ahn's physique. Probably.      Once they've arrived at Amber's apartment, she's a little less rowdy. "Yes, please- just a little bit of cream," she says, naturally gravitating towards a seat at the corner of the L. While she waits for Amber to return, she addresses Lotus and Darren again:      "That does seem weird, but maybe it's just the way their psychic powers work? If it's really specific, maybe they can't do anything else. Or maybe what we're hearing about is just a symptom of the real disturbance. I don't know."
Kukuru	Ahn explains the sale of names despite the inherent lack of ability to sell something like that, and that contradiction has Kukuru scrunching her face up in utter disbelief and even more confusion. "Why would they do that? Why would anyone LET them do that? It sounds super dishonest." She states as though she's come to some kind of grand revelation. "Do they need to be taught not to do that, then?" There's a long pause before she finally figures out the next relevant question that probably should have been the first one out of her mouth. "... Who are they?" Kukuru's going to keep messing with Broly's hair during the ride over. She's not about to let him NOT look presentable for the questioning of their witness, although she does look over at Cheelai to try and pull some clues from her on what to do through body language alone. "Trick Room... I think so! Yeah, your little floating friend's power, right?" If Rosewell's around, she'll reach over to pat him on the face/facelike section. "If there's more than that... Oh. Yeah, I can see it working out that way if there's more Pokemon that can do other funny head stuff, too. But if someone's really making them do it on purpose..." Kukuru doesn't finish that sentence, but there's a distinctly disapproving frown on her face by the time she stops. Thankfully, she's in a better mood by the time they get to Amber's apartment. She's since lowered the big sun hat to her back with that string around her chest (previously on her neck) holding it in place, and she waves lightly as Amber greets them all. "He-llo there~ Oh, no, that's okay, I drank plenty on the way here. Thanks, though. Are you hungry?" If she gets an affirmative, Kukuru produces one of her not-actually-patented tupperware containers of fried and grilled meat stuff. It's probably safe! "It's a really nice setup you got here... Comfy~ Oh, right. The work... We heard you saw some weird stuff that day. Did... What did you see after you got off the plane? Did it look different than when you got on?" She goes quiet for a while, then remembers her theory after several long seconds. "Oh! And did any other planes besides that one look different?"
Friz	Dirt: Get a load of this lady, fellas. Grit: Excellent type of woman. Savvy: Oh, I *like* her. Alright, game face, let's get this case. Moxie: Which one of us is the game face? Savvy: That's me. Let's see, so I...     "...haven't heard of much of anything like it myself, if I'm being honest, miss. Detective 'Friz', Debtor Volunteer Security (and I'd *love* a coffee (sugar and milk if you can spare it), thanks)! I'm gonna try to do my best to reconstruct what happened and see if I can tell what could have caused it, so you, uh, aren't at risk of it happening near you anymore I suppose."     She takes a seat, pulls out her pencil and pad, and says, "I'll record it, if you consent, miss." She clicks an analog tape recorder on, if given the OK. She'll start up a full-suite evidence-gathering session, taking occasional opportunities to sip her coffee or comment in bright, friendly ways about this little apartment. Her technique is designed to extract the maximum actionable information with a gentle, considerate touch meant to make sure the witness feels safer than they started. Savvy: Simple stuff at the start. Moxie: We need to make her know we're acting on her behalf too. Grit: She can't feel safe after that. Dirt: And she needs to open up gently and respectfully.     "Could I get your name and, ah, official occupation?"     "What was the location of the event? Savvy: Focus on the event, but keep a light touch. Grit: She needs to know there's safety in truth, since she wants to help.     "Can you describe what the event was like for you?"     "Did anyone there make you feel threatened?"     "Were any phrases repeated or memorable?" Dirt: Make her feel heard and respected     "Do you want to offer any of your own theories about the event?"     "You've probably seen some reactions to this online. How do you feel?" Moxie: We need to know about the threat, though. Once she's open...     "The people involved, the circle, did you recognize anyone?"     "Did you see any unusual lights? Could you describe them?"     "Have you felt different since the event? More or less tense?"     "Do you remember what the fight was about?"     "Do you feel differently about it now?"     "Did any coworkers have anything to say about the event?"     And so on, and so forth...
Hiromi	Hiromi appears to find Darren's answer regarding not-yet-needed options acceptable. If he's still sniffing around for answers without revealing himself to his opponent, then that's a sensible starting course, as long as he's not holding back without cause.     <Does this make any sense to you either?>     <Who are you here with anyways? You're not on of that guy's ball-friends. You're 'hungry' and 'bored', even 'restless', right?>     It's not as if a wolf could laugh. There is only the impression of laughter, in the way one might hear voices in the wind, a beast's roar in the sea, or a growling in trembling earth. There's amusement, but it's not, strictly, at Lotus's question. The response she's given is understandable, though not even potentially translatable.     Humans are foolish creatures, but not all stupid. Their acts are often nonsense, mixed with childish misunderstandings and truth. <Darren> seeks the crumbs of truth, to find the path a being with sense would take. I came here to watch him try. Her sentiment carries the honesty of one who has played tricks, but has never had cause to lie.     Hiromi's head tilts, one ear turning. That expression is closer to human-understandable. Do you watch for the same? Maybe not. You've not had the same opportunities to take the role of a parent. You've not seen as much of what humans have built.     There's a potential disconnect that she doesn't explain, but the line she draws is clear enough, linking together --     If you haven't seen what they've built, you won't have seen the need to destroy it, to bring an end to the foolishness of children who harm themselves.     -- the concepts of 'parent' and 'destroyer.'     If I did not see and understand them, I could not judge what they must leave behind.     Though she had, in fact, run here on her own feet, Hiromi goes along with the RV transportation plan. She's roughly human-sized, like this, which makes her comparatively portable. With unexpected roominess, she doesn't have to sit on top of the vehicle, nor on top of anyone else. And if she'd been outside, she couldn't try Kukuru's lunch.     Once they arrive, there is, predictably, no need to bring her coffee.
Darren	"Ha! I knew there'd be some late night coffee takers. I don't mind if you record, Detective, but, one thing," Amber says, standing up and disappearing into her kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. "Shoes--you guys mind?" She gestures, as she passes through the doorway, to a spot near the front door where she's left hers. Darren levitates over and kicks his sneakers off.      "Amber Greene, cargo tech, Mistralton Cargo Service. The event happened on the tarmac of the MCS, as... uh, passengers and luggage were being unloaded."      Amber's response to Friz' next question also has some relevance for Lotus' concerns. "If making us hate public transit is the point, they succeeded, hundred percent. The way that guy talked to me, I'd be happy if we never had another passenger plane land here again. I'd have probably knocked his lights out if all those people hadn't been..." She shudders. "Watching, like that. It almost felt like they were keeping me from leaving. So, yeah, between him and the crowd, I felt pretty threatened."     "Some of the incidents have devolved into fights," Darren notes. "But not all of them. Lotus raises a good point about the clapping... what's that about?" Brow furrowed in thought, he nods along with Phony, bouncing an idea off of hers. "I see what you mean--like an immune response, maybe."     "No idea," says Amber from the kitchen, speaking up to be heard over the growl of the coffee machine's grinder. "But I sure know that part got tons of people in my comments calling me cringe!"      The drip starts, and she "Saying I was posting for clout. But it was so weird... and I just felt this... urge to write about it! Doing it felt good, somehow, but all the negativity afterwards just makes me feel embarrassed at best." She doesn't say 'at worst,' but given the bizzare circumstances of the situation, and how it might look to someone more skeptical, 'at worst' can probably be assumed. "I was honestly thinking of deleting the post until Mr. Spears DMed me about it." WELL RELAX YOU'RE PROLLY NOT CRINGE, telepathically assures Roswell. He's elected to take a seat in Kukuru's lap, hoping for more pets.      "Word," Darren nods.      Once she's done with coffee, Amber tears into something fried from Kukuru. "Yeah," she says, between bites, "I could eat." Answering her question, "Well... it was a medium-sized commercial liner, but I remember thinking it was painted really weird. Purple and green. It definitely stood out from all the other planes we handled that day."      "Can you get us that plane's registration?" Darren asks, floating back over to his seat after having taken notes at the door.      "Sure," she says. "Uhm, let's see, what else... repeated phrases. Not really, but he was calling me every name in the book and complaining about us mishandling his luggage. I know what it looks like in the lobby, but we don't mishandle anything at the MCS--all of us know how important it is to the city and the region."      'Unusual lights' draws her attention. "Actually, yeah, I did. Like, a swarm of them--I couldn't see too well through the windows in the airport, but after everybody left there must've been a dozen, flying off like something was after them."
Hiromi	It's good that Friz is so on the ball about this kind of work. Hiromi has little idea who Friz is (and can only vaguely tell that someone else is there), but that doesn't prevent her from getting a feel for the conversational flow and, at some point, realizing the purposeful nature of it.     'Shoes--you guys mind?'     Terribly restrictive, shoes. Can't feel the earth with your feet, when you have them on.     'It looks like you've done a really good job training her, too.'     Ahn is afforded her own bout of judgy-canine staring.
Kukuru	Kukuru beams when Friz gets the detective hat on and goes big with all those questions. She had only been considering that one angle, after all, but Friz really goes for the wide cuts! That gives her plenty of time to lounge around on that big love seat, shifting positions every now and then to get more comfortable including lying on her side, draped over the back like work pants, or even dangling off the back with only her legs holding her up. Somehow, she's still able to provide Roswell with a comfortable spot to sit. Or float. Or whatever it is he does. Naturally, he gets the pats. "Why would you be embarrassed about a thing you did if everyone clapped, though? Isn't clapping a good sign and not a... Guh. Cringe sign...?" She needs help with the youngster lingo, and she nudges Roswell ever so slightly to see if he can't beam some of that right into her face. "So you saw the weird lights, too... Hmm. So when the lights and everyone left, did the plane still look funny, or was it back to normal?" Kukuru asks, then furrows her brow as her brain starts to function a little harder. "And was it the only thing that looked funny that day?"
Vantablitz Remnants	Ahn frowns sympathetically for Kukuru. "Because they want money. And because other people don't get a choice. If they ignore them, and don't pay, then they'll be punished. Humans can agree on . . . anything, being worth punishing. They can make up anything as being wrong, and force each other to do things for any reason."     She freezes up, and Lotus blinks (turning her head just a little too far), when Phony interrupts. Ahn opens her mouth, blushes, then closes it again. Lotus makes a few errant electric clicks, then a low, humming chuckle. <<I wasn't even thinking about it! It was her fault!>> <<Guilty as charged~ But you were definitely thinking about it~>> <<No! That doesn't even make any sense! How!?>> <<Hehehehe~ I warned you~>> Ahn stares at Darren, deeply betrayed. "W-what?! That's so mean! I was just joking around before --we're not from here at all-- but--!" Lotus burbles into open, crackle-hum laughter. "Oh I make sure to give her plenty of exercise~ Lots of positive reinforcement~ And I keep her on her toes~" "Don't make me get out your baby photos." "See? Sometimes she grows a spine and pushes back~" "Oh shut up! Now the magic wolf is staring at meee!" "Isn't that Hiromi?" "What?!" "You weren't paying attention at all I see~"     While Ahn is busy trying to explain things to Persephone like a bottom, Lotus twists all her joints around in several different directions and just sort of flows into staring over the back of the seat with her chin on her folded forearms, beholding the magic wolf with a distinctly movie-grade appreciation. <<Mmm. I don't think I'm smarter than every human. There's still lots about humans that I don't even begin to understand. I just can't help but be drawn to them. Not just because they're so interesting, but because I was 'made that way' too. I wouldn't have anything to do, 'a reason to be', if I just ignored humans. My 'children' don't keep in touch. If you have to ask though, I think maybe I watch them to find out why they were so important. Important enough for me to exist, and important enough for Ahn to still care about them, after . . .>>     <<Hmm, no, she'd yell at me, and not in the funny way~ 'Seeing what they've built'; maybe it's that too? There wasn't much left of them but some old buildings and lots of movies and games. I think I might feel bad destroying them twice.>>     Once they're in the house, Ahn has already slipped her shoes off out of apparently unconscious custom, and Lotus just doesn't have any. The former politely declines coffee, then silently wonders about tea, and starts craving noodles. The latter obnoxiously creeps up behind where Friz is seated, bending down and presumptuously leaning on the back of her chair with her elbows, staring over her shoulder at the pen and paper and making the odd weird little rolling vibrato sound.     "You're really good at this." Lotus suddenly says. "Like right out of a crime thriller, but not all annoying and scattershot. Is this what real detectives are like? It's neat~ I like the ways you think~" A distorted little resonant laugh follows at the intentional plural. "Green and purple . . ." Ahn whispers under her breath. "A swarm? I'm sorry miss, but could you guess how many? More than the number of passengers? Less? About the same?"     "Ahn~ What's cringe~?" "You and you should feel bad."
Friz	Savvy: Swarm of lights. That might give us some clues. Moxie: If something influenced her... those are connected. Dirt: Think she saw where they went? Savvy: A direction might help, but only barely. Grit: Patterns. Savvy: Huh? Grit: There has to be something in the patterns. it's a swarm. Grit: Nothing moves together randomly. Savvy: If it's some kind of pokemon influence... Moxie: Maybe the way they move together could give a hint about which species.     "Only after everyone left? If you estimate how long, it might help."     "Can you describe how they moved? Like a flock of birds, a crowd of humans, something carried on wind maybe... Any pattern might help a lot, miss, so any answer you can give."     "Did you see that passenger get on? We'll check records with MCS."     "Huh, wha--?"     She clicks the recorder for a moment, startling and looking back at Lotus. "Ahh--! Oh, hi (I didn't remember you were there). Oh, well, of course! The galaxy's greatest detective, in fact!" She beams with a bit of pride. "The thrillers are alright, but when it's not fictional people slammed together like toys, you really do have to be a lot more kind and precise." Lotus likes the way she thinks...? "Haha (first time I've heard that), I suppose it gets the job done." A weirder response. Savvy: But warranted. It's kind of loud in here. Grit: Focus on the tech. Savvy: Right.     Voice recorder clicks back on. "I think we're just about wrapped up, though. Thanks for all your help, Amber -- and the coffee, and a lovely visit! If you've got any extra statements to put into evidence, feel free. And I promise we'll find out what happened soon."
Staren	(Darren explains the mind prions. Staren nods, "Oh yeah, egregores." She has read a manifesto about that!)     (Oh sweet Kukuru brought food! Staren has a sandwich or salad or pasta thing on the ride over.) > Why would anyone LET them do that?     "They don't. They don't have a choice because men with guns fine you and throw you in jail if you refuse. And then the things are taken anyway and they just take more things."     When they meet Amber, Staren takes off her shoes where requested, and smiles and shakes hands, and gives her name, but lets others ask questions while she thinks and tries to piece the answers together. Frowning as she answers questions. Not liking that the circle of people trapped this woman. Were they controlled? Or were they plants, to ensure the story got spread and scared people? Ure to write about it? People need to vent, encouraging that urge is probably really easy as these things go... right?
Persephone Kore	Phony boils over into open laughter at Ahn's misfortune too. "No, if it was okay one way, it has to be okay the other, right~? You can sit and take it!" And it's okay, I promise~ You don't have to lie!      Her interest, thankfully, is sharply swerved by something else. Her mouth opens in a silent, terrible "oooh". "No, wait! I want to see the baby pictures. Show me those! You have to! It's forbidden not to!"      Amber's testimony does get her to wind down a bit again. By the end, the only question she has to contribute is simple: "Do you have anything from that day? Especially something that would've been affected by the events? It doesn't have to be 'evidence'. Something a passenger dropped, something somebody touched."      She, of course, intends to use her psychometry on it. But it's a bit of a long shot.
Darren	Kukuru asks a valid question. THE CLAPPING AIN'T WHAT PEOPLE SEE AS CRINGE BLOOD IT'S LYING FOR CLOUT THAT'S CRINGE     "Which I didn't," says Amber a little defensively. WHICH SHE DIDN'T     Did the plane return to normal? Amber has to think about it for a minute, but... "Yeah. It... come to think of it, yeah. At first I thought maybe it was a different one, but there weren't any other planes taxi... ing." She scratches the side of her head, uncertain of the word's gerund. "So I guess it did 'return to normal' after the lights flew off. I'm... a little bothered that I only remember this now," she admits with a frown.     Asked about the number of lights, she has to concentrate a little harder. "If I had to give you a specific number, I'd say 'about the same.' I only caught the tail end of them flying off a dozen for sure--but there were a *lot* of them that were just on the edge of being visible by the time I looked. Kind of... little points, fading into the distance." She gesticulates erratic 'popping' motions with both hands to illustrate. "They started to scatter once you could hardly make them out. Must've been... I don't know, five minutes after everybody filtered into the airport?"     "Suppose your guess is right," says Darren. "How many 'lights' would that be?"     "With that kind of plane, about a hundred," Amber answers confidently. "Jeez, though," she says, taken off guard by Friz's introduction. "The galaxy's best, huh? I guess Mr. Spears has kept busy since his football days. Anyway... I saw him get off the plane," she says. "And I heard some of the other passengers complaining about him too, so I guess he must've been. If MCS doesn't know, the Regional Aviation Administration would," she offers helpfully.     For Phony, she has just the thing. Disappearing into one of the other rooms, Amber returns with a simple necklace. It's mostly leather cord, but there's a neat hammered silver medallion affixed to it, with a detailed engraving of a bridge. "I was wearing this that day," says Amber.      The necklace is the way that it is because it was made for Amber by a dear friend. There are memories steeped in it, and most of them are positive. It's usually harder for her to be upset when she's wearing it, but it's a little marred by the experience from a few days prior. Strong feelings of anger, inevitable confrontation, and the queasy feeling of 'being a spectacle' are all present on it.      So, too, a strangely compelling sense of vindication, towards the more recent end of its steeped memories. Phony can likely connect that to the Post. Most conclusive of all of the feelings, however, is one Amber herself couldn't quite put a finger on; something subconscious that nevertheless left an imprint upon the necklace. Standing near the plane, even to retrieve the luggage, amplified the unpleasant negative feelings like some kind of psychic pressure cooker.
Darren	Coffee served and questions answered, Darren's eager to proceed to the next step of the investigation. After goodbyes and thank-yous are exchanged with Amber, he's the first to step outside her place, and the first to speak up, once everyone's gathered outside.      "Aight. The offices we'd need to corroborate are gonna be closed right now, so the best thing we can do is get a good night's sleep and hit this thing hard as we can in the morning."      Standing in the apartment complex's hallway, he holds his fist out. "Win on three. One, two, three WIN!!"
Kukuru	"Oh. That's... That's really dumb." Kukuru concludes with another disapproving frown, although she doesn't clarify which part of it is she's talking about as she's listening to Ahn. "Do we know who they are? Like... Um. If they're with us, or they're with someone else?" Another target has been identified for... Something. Even Kukuru isn't quite sure what yet, but there is definitely a subtle flavored water-esque hint of violence aura starting to creep into her at the thought of it. It doesn't last all that long, though, thanks to Persephone teasing Ahn and Lotus getting a light-hearted laugh from her. once she realizes she still has her shoes on. Instead of getting up and putting them over at the designated point like a normal person, she opens up a little cloud by her feet and kicks them off so they wind up falling through a second cloud directly onto the shoe spot. The official reason is that she doesn't want to track more dirt around. The unofficial reason is that she doesn't want to get up. After sliding backwards off the front of the couch with about as much grace as one might expect, Kukuru finally sits on it like a normal person while listening to more of Amber's recollection. "That's a lot of lights to work with, then... Hm. So now we know it's the lights, but we still gotta figure out..." Kukuru hangs on the 't' noise of that last bit, hoping that the delay will help her figure something out. It doesn't, but she's okay with just leaving that thought hanging. After saying goodbye to Amber and leaving a few more containers of the fried foodstuffs for tomorrow's breakfast and lunch, she heads out into the hallway. "The offices, hm? Oh, yeah, there must've been loads of people that saw it. Maybe we can gather up all of them and do... This thing we just did." Her fist goes in, and her timing is extremely off/delayed, only saying "Win!" a full two seconds after Darren does.
Hiromi	Hiromi's still listening to the questions and answers, and some part of her mind is on it, but she finds no need to add her own questions. Not right now, anyway. She'll probably ask Darren, later, what the pokemon he mentioned look like or do. She can't tell much of anything from common names.     After sniffing around the home -- 'restless' behavior, Lotus would be right to say -- she sits down again, this time next to Ahn. Perhaps having sensed her discomfiture, she confirms, in her usual, inexplicably understandable not-words, I am. While putting one paw on her knee and staring her in the face.     Which is how Hiromi got close enough to figure out what else Ahn had eaten and where she'd been that day, and how Ahn got close enough to feel the completely natural impulse to submit before the overwhelming authority borne of strength and will that is Hiromi.     Unfortunately (for Ahn) and fortunately (for the floor and furniture) this is not immediately followed by any transformation, though the memory of their first meeting is one unlikely to be difficult to draw on.     A little later, the bit about 'patterns' gets Hiromi to look up, but that's another piece that will fit together with other things, together with the description of the behavior of the lights, when she asks about the creatures suspected of having similar powers.
Friz	"Win on--?!" Friz is caught off-guard! Savvy: Wait, what's going on? Grit: Fist out. Moxie, go. Moxie: Going?! Dirt: Wait, what did he say? Savvy: I didn't catch that. Moxie: Too late!     Friz is caught up in the moment, a clumsy fist out to Darren. She just makes a sort of affirming, loud noise instead of saying "win" on three, as they probably all throw their hands up. But hey, the spirit's there!     "Alright, after this... I gotta study up on Pokemon. See if there's anything that follows those movement patterns she described... Twice in a month I've gotten to work my old pet detective skills! I hope I can dig something up that'll help us find out what caused that. And that purple and green..."
Vantablitz Remnants	<<Yeah Ahn~ Take it~>> <<You tried to do the exact same thing as me! I just beat you to it!>> Ahn huffs. "Well now I won't show you either." "So I win~" "Wait, I . . . hnnn . . ." She's really struggling to figure this one out.     Wolf Hiromi struts up and puts a paw on her. Ahn stares. Her voice cracks slightly. "O-okay. I'm sorry?"     "Pet detective? Pets have mysteries?" "Oh my gosh . . . that's so cute . . . !"     Amber seems to have somehow given Ahn exactly what she expected, given the intensity of her gaze and sudden nod and lift of her eyebrows. "So, it's probably one for each of the passengers forced to stand around and clap. That's my theory." she murmurs. "That means you were probably singled out, for not being on the plane, but I wonder how they chose the guy . . ." She shakes her head. "We'll find out! I promise! And I believe you!"     The two of them are very slightly off Darren's timing, but eerily perfectly synchronized with each other.
Team Breelai	Broly, out of courtesy, does not try to force his way through Amber's doorway. He's pretty sure he could squeeze through if he tried, but if he messed up somehow, he's taking the entire frame with him, and it'd be pretty rude of him to break something he can't fix. So Cheelai will just have to go in and fill him in.      Cheelai is pretty silent as Amber explains everything, mostly because she seems like the kind of person who would implode at some friendly japing, and mostly because everyone else is asking pretty good questions themselves, so why bother. She's got a pretty good motto after all, 'work smarter, not harder', which is a motto she resonates with so hard, she did the smart thing by stealing it from someone rather than coming up with it herself.      With everything wrapped up, and Darren offering a fist, Cheelai throws her own hand in, with Broly eagerly following along as well after he finally catches on.      "Yeah! We got this! I uh, think?"