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Stanley Padgett     The days have turned milder in Lampport as March slips towards April. It's been fairly... sedate since Chastity's Wish was undone, and she awakened to Grimhild. Not that she's decided to actively take up the mantle just yet. The young lady seems to be happy just enjoying her new mom and old dad being happy, which was... you know, okay.

    Stanley, however, has been out and busy with... being a hero. And it's been rough, frankly. Like tonight, as the young man sits in the ruins of the old apartment he used to live in, the hole in the wall repaired at some point. The power still works and everything, but it was never refurnished, and so all that's left in here is a old couch the young man has dragged in, the fridge that he rescued from the movers, and a wifi router. Everything a young man needs to escape from... everything. He's here, staring at his phone, after sending out a group invite to the others. at the old place across from happycade bring snacks
Charlotte Newman     'Bring Snacks' in Teenspeak has certain meanings attached to it.

    The milder weather has convinced Charlotte to take up a bicycle for getting around, which has been healthy and refreshing and-- while slower-- only half as traumatizing as her usual method of getting places in Lampport.

    She pulls up in front of the place she'd first met Stanley, looking up at the Happycade's sign. She decides to chain her bike to the rack here, then cross the street with a cloth grocery bag hanging from each arm. It's enough that when she arrives at the repaired house, she has to knock with her foot.

    The girl presents herself at the door with grocery bags held up, one looking stupidly heavy and strained, the other making the distinct hollow crinkling of chip bags with a square box in the bottom, "I came prepared!"
Stanley Padgett     Stanley gets the door open for Charlotte, and smiles. "You got here first, I hope Isaac's on his way." The 'kitchen table' to set things on is actually in the living room, and it's just a hunk of the old kitchen counter, hauled out after crews dismantled the kitchen to repair the wall. Something else saved from the bin, apparently. "At least we don't have to worry about wrecking the place. And don't worry, I checked to make sure we weren't being listened to."
Isaac Beaufort It takes Isaac some extra time to get there.  

This is because he decides to run there.  Why?  It's nice weather, and he wanted to get his cardio in for the day.  He also swung by a nearby grocery store to pick up snacks.  Several plastic bags are now in his hands, full of chips, candy, soda, and whatever else he could get away with.  

It is about this time that he ends up knocking on the door, with his hands full.  How did he do so?  Probably with his head.  Isaac is also wearing a blue tracksuit, as...well he spent his time jogging here.  "Wait, dude...do you still live here?" he asks, concern on his face.
Stanley Padgett     And then Isaac's there, and the teen contingent of the PERSONA SQUAD has assembled. "Nah, this is... you know the place where the robot attack was? This is where I USED to live. Wild, huh?" Stanley is helping get snacks and supplies, as he looks at his phone. "Chastity said she's got stuff going on, and then texted me a picture of a beach somewhere, so..."

    Stanley's contributions to this event are the location, and then, of course, several large trays of energy drinks that are in the fridge. Looks like at least 50 or 60. "...So its just us three. And I think I'm okay with that."

    Though, Stanley is showing some wear and tear tonight. There's a splotchy bruise across his cheek and eye, a shiner starting to fade already thanks to an evening in the Velvet Room. He's also favoring his right leg.
Charlotte Newman     "Looks like you had a rough time," Charlotte greets Stanley with that observation, having stood aside to make space for Isaac at the entrance.

    Now inside, she hoists her bags onto the table and unpacks. Several different varieties of Noritos, including the Creature Crossover flavor that made the chips green; two big ol' two liter bottles of soda, and several cans of Creature-- which she realizes Stanley already has a huge supply of, but these ones are Pink and thus she had to get them.

    Turning, Charlotte leans against the counter and pulls her phone out to thumb through some screens, "If you guys want I can also get pizza delivered, Jan would probably just run it right over here, even. Or there's always Minimo's but that's across town and I think Grotto pizza is better anyway."

    Glancing up from her phone, she adds, "I think Chastity mentioned something about a vacation over spring break, I hope she's having fun." After a pause, she adds, "I think it's fine with just us three for now." Her eyes swing to Isaac, "Especially since I barely know you outside of what's public already."
Isaac Beaufort "Well, things have been quiet, take that as a blessing or a curse.." Isaac says, with a shrug at Charlotte mentioning not knowing him.  "Midterms, studying for college entry exams...the lacrosse nationals coming up..." he shrugs, "I barely have time to think, haha."

"Thankfully, I managed to get a night up, staying organized on everything makes that easier," though it's easy to see he's /tired/.  Though he's not very likely to actually admit it.  

He nods at Stanley and explains that this wasn't where he lived...thank god for that.  "Well, Chastity and her new family deserve it.  It's easy to forget not every person gets it as easy as I do when it comes to family," he says rubbing the back of his head.  "Glad to see her get something though."

Also, it appears that he's snuck some orange-yellow color of Creature.  "Uh...anyway, I'm Isaac.  I do sports ball.  A lot of it, haha." he says, and by his stature, compared to the others it's not hard to believe.  He stands a few inches taller and has a rather well-built body even through the tracksuit.  
Stanley Padgett     Stanley is already working on a can of Blue Flavored Creature, as he peers over at Charlotte and Isaac. "Jimmy's will be fine, yeah, though don't let him know it's us or he won't take money." That idea seems to irk Stan, as he sinks into the couch in a gentle huff. "And she knows all that bro."
    The Fool leans against the arm of the couch, doing a skinnyboy draping... thing that pops out his back. "...And I know the good stuff already, so she's got to hear some of that too."

    "Besides. The more we know about each other, the better we can work together, cover each other, that sorts of thing."
Charlotte Newman     Charlotte is content to leave the subject of Chastity alone after the initial acknowledgements, nodding politely to the boys in turn as they voice their own thoughts. Her head tilts towards Stanley's last, insightful comment, then the other way as Isaac speaks more about himself.

    After a bit, the girl's eyes close, "I had a rather poor impression of you while you were getting in our way, but I'm willing to give you a second chance. You seem nice enough to work with."

    With her pink Creature opened, she places a hand over her own breastbone, "I'm Charlotte. I'm in a lot of AP classes for academic scholarship this semester. If either of you need help studying-- well, I've helped Stanley before already, but the offer is open to you too Isaac." Eyes opening, her gaze drifts a bit, "Other than that, you probably noticed I spend time with the popular girls, though they aren't really what I'd call friends."

    She returns to her phone to order from Jimmy's Grotto, though speaks a bit more, "My parents are always out of town on business, so I almost never see them." It's said in a quicker tone, almost like she just wants to get that part over with.
Isaac Beaufort Isaac sighs at the 'poor impression' comment.  Though he doesn't hide from this fact that well...she's right, he wasn't exactly being helpful until suddenly he was.  "It's...a complicated subject," he says his hands fidgeting with the can of orange-yellow Creature he's holding onto as he looks down.  

"I asked Stanley to cover for me with the Hun situation...but that was when I awakened after Stanley did.  It was...overwhelming, honestly.  I didn't know what to do or say, but if anything went wrong...it wouldn't just be me on the block.  The entire team, their parents, /my/ parents would be horribly affected."

"I should have come forward sooner, especially when those slimy corpo guys came.  But...I just closed my eyes, praying that I was normal..." he takes a breath, "But, yeah...I wasn't.  I was special, got powers, and am what the Multiverse people call 'an elite'.  Thankfully, nobody is making a stink of this, if they even noticed."

"Though I am...a bit relieved and happy to be able, to be honest about myself more.  I can do a lot of good now." he says, "So...sorry about all that mess.  I guess I was just scared that I'd ruin everything for a lot of people."
Stanley Padgett     Stan siiiiiips on his Creature, as he sighs. "Isaac's a good dude, he's just... well."

    The Fool leans forward. "He worries way too much about everything that isn't him." The skinny boy pokes Isaac in the forehead, before sitting back and patting at thigh. "Not watching out for yourself is how you get yourself hurt or worse, okay? Take that from someone who's only now getting to look out for peolpe other than him."

    Stan reaches over for a bag of Cruncheroos, KICKIN RAD HOT variety, and stuffs some into his face. "Hmmtffkkgkgf..." Swallow. "I can only guess there have been new wishes that just... are sneaky or not as disruptive as the others we've been seeing."
Charlotte Newman     "Apology accepted," Charlotte still turns her nose up a bit, in that specific Rich Girl way. She corrects almost immediately though, adding on, "And I'm sorry for being so hard on you."

    With a sigh, she listens to Stanley's impressions on Isaac, then confesses, "And I have a problem with prioritizing other peoples' troubles over my own. So maybe we have a bit in common, there." That might explain why it took so long for her to tell Stanley about her-- issue.

    She latches on to the changed subject, pulling open the Creature Noritos with a lot of loud crinkling, "--You think Novasoft can control when wishes go out? Are they laying low while they try to figure out what happened to the last one?" She holds up one neon-green chip with an uneasy look on her face, "That could be part of it, too."

    Charlotte eats the chip, crunching on it with an unreadable, slightly miffed look on her face.
Isaac Beaufort Isaac thinks for a moment...he knows he had a reason for prioritizing others over himself beyond what he's just said.  Something on the edge of his memories...

Remembering something...remembering telling someone this.  Remembering something else happening.  Then everything becomes fuzzy.  He shakes it out of his head, he's probably just tired.  He can remember this when he's not talking with his friends.  

"Thanks, it won't happen again," he says with a grin toward Charlotte.  He scratches the back of his head again, "Three peas in a pod.  Stanley can't say no to a friend, and the two of us put others first.  Ha ha.."

When things turn over to Novasoft, he thinks.  He got the rundown on what's happened, and why they're involved.  "Well, maybe we're assigning too much competence?  Maybe they don't have full control, or there has to be something they're looking for.  They also sent that guy to fight you right?  Maybe they did so to try and get you to stop, but if that didn't work then..."

"Dunno, we're guessing with only half the information."
Stanley Padgett     Stanley just has problems saying 'no' in general, but that's besides the point. He grumps and rubs at his face. "I really wish... no, actually I *don't* wish that No-Face guy showed up again, but I wish we could have gotten more info out of him than we did." More Chrucharoos, and he pushes a slightly orange stained hand through his hair.
    "And there hasn't been anything overtly strange going on, yeah. But we know NovaSoft can fu- mess around with the wishes, Mr. Speck said so. But that doesn't account for all the other places..."

    His eyes go wide. "...Hold on." He leans in. "...What if we didn't just lean on NovaSoft?"
Charlotte Newman     Charlotte has decided she wants no more of these neon-green snacks. Rather than close the bag or put them aside, though, she offers the open top towards Isaac and Stanley in turn if they wanted to try it for themselves.

    "You have a point," she concedes to the sports star, "I'm pretty sure NovaSoft can mess with the wishes somehow, but we don't really know how, or to what extent. That was kind of a guess, honestly."

    Stanley pitches an idea and she glances his way, "You mean, check for other involved parties? People outside the company?"
Isaac Beaufort Isaac takes some green snacks, and after the third one is sure he regrets it.  The fact that it took three to realize this is...well a testament to these awful chips.  When offered more, he shakes his head.  

"Well...it'd make sense if they'd be offering their wishes to the rich.  It'd also give them something to control.  So who do we consider going after first?  We'd probably want to also involve the people we're with in the Multiverse too."
Stanley Padgett     Stanley shoves one of the bags of Dubiously Labeled Shrimp Chips at Isaac and Charlotte. You know the kind you get from the world food market that only has the very basic food information in your local language and that's just a sticker? Yeah.

    He's also getting on his phone to hunt for stuff. "So Foster Dad says Solutiony isn't a thing anymore, but like, there's other new companies that just sprouted up around the city at the same time as NovaTech and NovaSoft." He starts searching, and ticks his fingers. "ReduceIt, TradeItNow, MrsFina Tax Solutions, StaffPro Hiring, FoxTrot Scooters, GTime Deliveries..."
Charlotte Newman     When presented with shrimp chips, Charlotte immediately turns the bag around. Her eyes widen slightly at the bare-bones contents. "Ingredients: Shrimp, Probably." she says out loud. Perplexed, the girl peels up the sticker like it was a post-it-note, but finds nothing underneath so she smooths it back down.

    "So you think we should check out some of these other companies?" is her question for Stanley while opening the bag. Some chips are gathered, eaten, appraised, and deemed Worthy. With an enthusiastic nod, she offers some to Isaac, "Actually something was bothering me a little. When I visited the Velvet Room with you, Stanley, didn't mister Igor call the town Steelport?"

    "Do you think he's just old-fashioned, like William was, or could that be his way of offering us some sort of clue?"
Isaac Beaufort Isaac actually grabs a handful of shrimp chips.  He seems to like these better than the last ones because he grabs another handful.  At some point, he pulls out a bag of some local bag of chips, the real kind of local that you get only in a grocery store.  These are ranch flavored apparently.  He offers his own bag to the others.  

"Steelport?  Isn't that the old name?  If that's a clue then..." he pauses thinking.  "Then it'd be...whoever got the name changed..." he considers.  "Also, are these all like...side companies?  Do you think we'll find anything important in them, or are you just sort of...throwing something at the wall to see what sticks?"  
Stanley Padgett     "I think all of these places might have Wishers in them." Stanley is tapping away at his phone, and grumbles. "Maybe not all of them, but think about it..." He jams a Grocery Store Iced Cookie in his face, and washes it down with Creature. Neither of you have ever seen Stanley study this hard for his actual classes. "...Why come to a dead factory town, without having a REALLY good reason?"
    "It can't all be the tax breaks.

    Then the Steelport question drops... and Stanley looks at Isaac again. "...Your dad's like... a marketer guy, right? business to business stuff, right? Like he knows people?"
Charlotte Newman     "It could be nothing at all," Charlotte wants to make that clear, "Old people still call the place Steelport, too. But he's like..." She shrugs, "Connected, somehow? To all of this? So maybe we can ask him later if that's relevant or not."

    No sense doing a sketchy investigation when they can just ask a question.

    The girl hums quietly in thought, considering the list of companies again. Locally made chips are offered and she helps herself to some, "Hnn... The only thing I could think of is that property was probably pretty cheap, with all the big factories and smelters closing down. Otherwise it doesn't really make sense, no."

    She glances towards Isaac when a question is offered, "Oh?"
Isaac Beaufort The question is turned on him, and Isaac blinks.  "My dad?  Yeah, he's in a few things, but a marketing firm is what he primarily does.  He knows people, yeah...more than a few times he's pulled strings to get us stuff that wouldn't be easily gottenable.  Why..?"

"Well, the money is where you'd want to look for that.  There had to be a lot of money to clear all that out.." a pause.. "Or...a wish."
Stanley Padgett     Stanley nods! "Yeah yeah yeah. We can't trust Uncle Sid anymore, not that we could EVER trust Uncle Sid, but like... We need some inside information, that not just Foster Cop can get me. Mr. Stuart's a nice guy for a cop, but like... he's already on thin ice for the Alice incident, and... I don't want to get him fired."
Charlotte Newman     Charlotte closes her eyes, arms folding. The look on her face is pensive, thoughtful and ponderous. Out loud, she mutters, "Follow the money..." Eyes opening, she nods once, "That's not a bad tactic. I've heard some of the Watch folks mention something similar. It seems as good a way as any to figure out how things are connected together."

    The girl pauses, then deflates a bit, "Oh, right. I wouldn't want to put Mister Stuart's job at risk, if for nothing else, for Alice's sake." She glances towards Isaac, then back to Stanley. Inexplicably, she suddenly laughs, failing to cover it up with the pretense of a cough.

    "We're a regular team, aren't we? All we need is a mascot creature."
Isaac Beaufort 'All we need is a mascot creature.'

"We have a cop, right?" Isaac says, with a little bit of sass.  It's obvious he's kidding.

"Well...I can certainly see if dad can help.  The worst that he can say is no, but he's probably willing to look into things." he pauses, "I just don't want to put him at risk either.  I'm sure he'll be careful, but...I'd be heartbroken if anything happened to him.."

"Well, if you can look into that, I'll ask him."
Stanley Padgett     Stan huffs and nods. "We're going to look into it, yeah. Find one of the smaller companies to rustle, get Mr. Beaufort to help out, and we can get this all back on track, right?" He reaches out a hand, and smiles. "We can do it, and we get Lampport or Steelport whichever back to normal."
Charlotte Newman     'We have a cop, right?'

    Charlotte's giggle becomes a full on laugh, she doesn't even try to hide it this time. She does quickly restrain herself, gesturing at Isaac, "No, I think that one's pretty much feral. We need something domesticated."

    She takes a second to compose herself, resting her hands on the edge of the counter, "It sounds as much like a plan as anything else, I'm on board." Shifting, she reaches out and puts her hand over Stanley's, "The four of us can't be stopped."

    She must be counting Caelan.
Isaac Beaufort Isaac nods, sure this is a good plan as long as everyone is careful.  Though he's still going to be bashful about asking his father for help.  This won't turn into a bad time for them, no sir.  He does break into a grin at Charlotte's laughter.  

"Feral huh?  That's no good, did he at least get his shots?" he says with another joke.  

"Yeah...though it's still going to take some effort.  A lot of effort.  Can't get cocky with so much on the line."
Stanley Padgett     Hetanley smiles, and then nods. "Now let's get that dang pizza. I think I've got some episodes of Zephyrman that Isaac hasn't seen yet.
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