Scene #8338: Té

Owner	Pose
Rowdyruff Boys	THE CITY OF TOWNSVILLE... Is under attack by a giant robot dog! Or more accurately, a Hyper Ranger Xord, which is similar to but legally distinct from a Zord. The great red mechanical dog also isn't so much attacking the city as it is causing general mayhem and property damage as it pursues something along a sleepy downtown street in the early afternoon. Unlike the Hyper Ranger trio themselves, it isn't accompanied by a horde of conversions, nor is it cheap. It's a fairly credible giant robot dog, albeit a relatively small one in the scheme of things. It fills the streets handily, but you get the impression that the skyscraper-demolishing robot is definitely the combined one. This one could merely chew on the buildings credibly. It is pursuing a human silhouette dressed in purple that is reliably keeping ahead of it, but not FAR enough ahead that it manages to lose the Xord. Getting a good look at it apart from its general colors is difficult at the moment; it's moving fairly fast to stay out of reach, but it's reasonable to intuit that it's a person. The rumble of this pursuit carries it directly past the small sidewalk-level windows of Té, a local tea shop of noteworthy quality and inadequate accommodation. It's also just made a trail of debris where the Xord has stepped on cars, though nobody has actually gotten hurt in this mess. It's just property damage. Still... somebody ought to do SOMEthing. Right?
Rowdyruff Boys	INSIDE Té... Brick looks up from his table as a colossal robotic dog chases some purple girl past. He follows the pursuit blearily, looks at the time on his phone, and then goes back to drinking his tea. There are reasons he says he's not a hero, and his unwillingness to be the default solution to situations like this unasked is one of them.
Ishirou	Ishirou was, of course, looking for the person they were looking for...having some slight mental image of the girl in question. Though that image was getting fuzzier over time. He'll never actually contribute this to anything Petra has done that was good, but only in spite of her spiteful actions. With the dog becoming an issue...no wait, the giant robot dog, becoming an issue, Ishirou is already in the RESCUE unit the moment he arrives on the scene. It's obviously chasing someone, and that gives him something to do. He waves the purple girl towards her and then fires a few OPTIONS out. They swarm around the giant robodog, aiming to shoot beams towards the terrain he was moving through, aiming to start liquifying it, so that it'd be like stepping into tar. Two more options head towards its 'eyes' and start flashing in bad code data to try and scramble its ability to perceive. "Over here, I don't know the story here, so I'll hope you can fill me in, but I can at least help you escape."
Futaba Nuki	Futaba already had her fill of bad food in recent days, so why's she in Townsville again? This time, it's to have hyped up tea, not for a lack of access to good tea, but to find out just why this basement shop even has a rep. Naturally, she goes for the local special, but she also orders something else with milk and sugar extra. That's the only way she can get a good feel for this place's true specialties, after all! Before she can really compare the two drinks, though, she sees the purple figure and the giant dog passing by. "Whoa... Big robot." Getting excited by the prospect of a sick giant robot fight, she grabs her jacket and gets ready to run out, pauses, then doubles back to leave several bills on the counter. "I'll come back for the stuff later!" And then Futabadives out through the window with a quick shrink and re-enlarging once she's back on the street, giving chase by following the trail of destruction. First things first: Finding out what the big machine is for. Futaba enlarges her hands and throws them forward to launch herself well above the Xord, diving towards the face to latch onto it and start scrambling for the eyes. "Hey! Anyone in there? What's the big idea?!"
Timespace Riders	"Huh... it looks like there's not enough room for the two of us, Woz. That's okay--you can just take my seat!" "Inconceivable, my Demon King. Please, I insist." "Haha! You're so charitable, Woz. Well... maybe you could sit in my--" The discussion is interrupted by the pounding of robotic feet on pavement, which sends both of them stumbling for purchase and has Sougo uttering one of his distinct, buffoonish cries of surprise. The Demon King wheels around just in time to see the tail end of the robot dog. "I guess tea will have to wait... " The retainer makes a sour expression, lips pursed. but nevertheless procures his transformation device. "Are you certain, my lord? This hardly seems the work of Another Rider." "Hm... probably not," admits Sougo. "But a good Demon King doesn't drink tea while something like that is on the loose. Let's get after it, Woz!" He smiles brightly, and procures the bulky white TIMESPACE DRIVER. Woz straps his own BEYONDRIVER around his waist. Brick is subjected to a cacophony of transformation noises and flashing lights as the two of them exit: Kamen Rider Zi-O in the bulky silver and magenta (MA-GEN-TA) DecadeArmor, and Woz in the silver-and-purple Shinobi Armor. Woz makes a series of nimble running leaps and flips over parked cars, swinging from traffic lights and running alongside buildings, cutting sharp corners with iconic smoke-puff teleports (complete with deer scare 'donk' noises). He's aiming to land on the back. Zi-O, meanwhile, lags behind at first, until he slots in an unprecedented third greeble, overtop the bulky DecadeArmor watch--this one a more standard version of his little futuristic pocketwatches, the face of which displaying the Greek-letter themed hero, Faiz. The bulky armor changes color to a silver, black and red theme, announcing FAIZ! AXEL! The flat, smartphone-like helmet switches over to match the visage of the rider Zi-O is mantling, and his speed increases just in time to round a corner, leap, and grab hold of the dog's tail, flailing as he narrowly avoids impact with a building on his clumsy climb.
Powerpuff Girls	The Hyper Rangers had caused all sorts of problems around Tax Season - but this time, the Powerpuff Girls are entirely ready to react to such a terrible happenstance! The protectors of the city... ... Well, Bubbles is actually at across the city at campus, and has her airpods in. She can't hear the big doggie! She may cry about this later, but for now, is jamming to learning about ocean invertebrates. ...Well, Buttercup is out of town entirely, chasing a rogue orbital object NASA had asked the Girls to handle, and she had put it off long enough it hit the weekend and still wasn't done. Blossom had demanded she finish it before she was back from her saturday morning tea with Brick. ... Which leaves Blossom Utonium sitting across from Brick Jojo, leaned in on the table in a black turtleneck under a tan stitched sweater with a red horizontal stripe pattern, slack at the arms and sleeves encroaching over palms just a bit. Under, she wears black leggings and a red-black plaid skirt, and black flat shoes. Her hands steeple over a paper cup as she smiles, lightly knowing, across to Brick and brushes her bangs behind her ear, leaning down to take a sip from the lip. Past Brick, in the window, the sounds of mecha mayhem become the sight of a Hyper Hound chasing someone through the streets of townsville. Blossom hangs, and her eyes go from knowing-warm to a kind of annoyed-determined. She puts the cup down, and starts to slide out of their shared table. "I have to take this, sorry." She mutters, though Brick knows she's not really-really sorry. She has to. SKRR! zips away the red Puff, blurring out the teashop door with a loud 'b-ding!!' from the door. Immediately taking the air, Blossom chases after the Xord, airbraking while Futaba falls on the large dog and then joining the grappling by flying up to grab the tail and stop the Xord completely! "Hey! This is a REALLY inconvenient time for you to be doing mayhem! Didn't you get the memo? Saturday mornings are off limits unless you want the express service!" Blossom shouts, actually Mad about this. You see, most Townsvillains know not to Find Out before Blossom has finished her tea on Saturday.
Petra Soroka	Townsville is a source of intense and conflicting distress for Petra. On one hand, the continuing threat of her clone is always on her mind, and every elite-tier event in the city catches her attention because of that. On the other hand--Blossom was definitely disappointed in her, and was still willing to talk to her, and Petra ghosted anyways. By Petra's reasoning, the only way for her to make up for this faux-pas is by engaging in some heroic activity in Townsville and meeting the Puffs there coincidentally, rather than, of course, actually saying anything about how she's feeling. So, for now, her pursuit of the mechanical dog is intended to reduce property damage, rather than intensify it. Weaving the Kana through the air across city blocks quickly exhausts Petra, the Kana's clumsy handling combined with her own difficulty managing flight forcing her to slow down at every corner or scrape buildings with her mech. She lands and disembarks in the small back parking lot behind a Vietnamese restaurant, tucked up against a dumpster, then continues to pursue on foot. Sprinting after the robot dog with occasional gunpower-based assistance, Petra eventually launches herself upwards and lands on top. She stands proudly on its back and laughs with nervous exhilaration, trying to keep her balance. She stomps on the hull and buries her twin revolver blades into its head to stabilize herself. "Hey!" Petra's voice strains from disuse, and she coughs. She's barely said a word in days, except inside Bladecraft: Connect, and she'd nearly forgotten about the lingering damage in her throat. "Stop trashing the city or I'll have to stop you myself!" Futaba intervenes too, and Petra tries to give her a smile, but it's clearly a little shaky. Petra's hair falls unwashed around her worn and drawn face. Her jacket hangs on her shoulders as if it's overwhelming the rest of her figure, and her torn boots now have staples attempting to hold them together, rather than tape.
Rowdyruff Boys	Ishirou knows that this is who they were looking for because it is who Ishirou was looking for. She is, and this is much clearer to him now in part because he has seen her before in his mind. Bellamy is tall, with a relatively slight build. Her hair is black, worn long with a purple ribbon tying it back. Her dress is the same shade of purple, but she's... different. Not robotic, but certainly heavily cybernetic. She does not stop when prompted by Ishirou, but she does have the speed and coordination to look at him and converse while she navigates. "There's no story. I don't know why these particular creeps are so interested in me," she replies. There's an aggravated edge to her voice. She has an inkling, but it's so implausible that she doesn't think it's worth bearing out. A stumble by the dog at her back prompts her to jump, kick off the side of a building as if she was pushing off the side of a pool, and tumble across a rooftop. The eyes, as it happen, are in the process of being 'scrambled' when Futaba comes up to one of them. Which is why the pilot, Hyper Ranger Red, simply pushes the covering open. "We decided that a hound would work the best for finding who we were looking for. We were correct. How can I help you?" Blue and Green are nowhere to be found. If this one has a robot, though... The Xord doesn't seem to have meaningful external defenses to small-scale intrusion, as if it was expected it would never deal with a credible attempted boarding. You're not sure if it was quicky made, shoddily made, or if they're simply not being activated. Either way, Woz and Zi-O manage to board with only the predictable aggravations of dealing with being on a moving thing. The real big hazard they have to deal with is the part where it stumbles from Ishirou's interference-- that could throw them off, or at least rattle them decently! Another harsh BRAKING occurs when Blossom simply grabs a hold of the Xord's tail. Scale it has, but in fact it is not ROWDY STRONG. Besides, it's not even a Gigaxord yet. You don't get to stop the hero of the week cold with a primary cast member Xord. You need to do the transformation sequence and produce a big stupid weapon that will wow the kids. Hyper Ranger Red lurches forward, stops himself from being launched out the window, and then secures himself in his seat. He flips a switch. The dog-Xord begins to wag its tail extremely hard. This would, left unchecked, by extremely destructive actually. Also cute. But definitely destructive. "I did not get the memo. Please forward it to red@ppgzx.net," Hyper Ranger Red says. Billy knows this policy, but apparently brainwashed Billy doesn't. Hyper Ranger Red looks up at the blades coming through the ceiling of the cockpit. The muffled noises coming from above are audible enough. "Okay. Please also reprimand the one melting the streets, please. Thank you," he says, indicating Ishirou. There is definitely a limit to this polite acquiescence, and you probably can't be sure where it is yet...
Rowdyruff Boys	Brick glances outside again. Lots of people taking care of this. He adjusts his cup on its saucer and looks across the table at Blossom. He's not liable to interfere with this unasked, but he would if she did. Just the fact that he had a cup that was not to-go was probably enough to signal his reluctance, though. "Naturally," he says, allowing just enough annoyance to show to permit recognition that he'd rather have her stay, but not enough that it could be said that it was directed AT her. It's a careful balancing act. He hasn't always been good at this.
Powerpuff Girls	With such a strong response, Blossom is almost-content to two-armedly yank back on the Hyper Ranger Red Xord. The purple runaway will get plenty of lead, and there's plenty of people around to stop one giant robot. It's just one giant robot! What's the worst that can happen, really? Floating with one arm around the end of the tail, Blossom gets out her phone with the other and starts forwarding Hyper Red the email, absolutely not backing down from this petty, moment. She has a 'strong dislike' for this sort of overtime work, especially when it intersects against her having a specific kind of expressive time. She wears it in her shoulders, bears it out in the aggressive thumbnail-clicks against her phone's screen. "Now, Billy, you should know this, so--" The clicks grow slow, as Blossom's ruby eyes stare at the email she has thumbed in. Inquiring-sweet, the sort of tone someone takes when they are trying to determine exactly the taxonomy of turd being left with care on their stoop. "Billy? Hyper Red? I don't remember that domain, what does that stand for?" Blossom was going to leave things to Futaba and the Timespace Riders -- some sort of Hyper Rival Rangers? -- but with Ishirou and Petra in the same area, Blossom isn't simply willing to leave this situation.
Ishirou	Ishirou shouts back towards Red, "I AM NOT MELTING THE STREETS IN THE NORMAL SENSE, DON'T PUT ME ON THE SAME LEVEL AS SOMEONE RUNNING A GIANT DOG IN THE STREET!" Ishirou says, indignant as a twink can be. To Bellamy, he nods. "Well, I am definitely in the category of people who don't want to see you captured. Can you fly on your own? If not I can help provide extra movement for escape," he says while moving on the run with Bellamy. Oh, now it's doing something with its tail. That can't be good. Stopping it might not be the best idea if it'll just switches to doing property damage. Though if it's only red there... "There are definitely going to be two more," he comments to Bellamy. "Do you have any places you can be safe?" he asks, more wanting to get her there than anything. He turns towards the giant dog again, and this time engages in hacking with it. The idea would be to shoot out its data control systems. It might not shut it down entirely, but it WOULD make its life a lot more terrible. Aiming with priority to make its movement more difficult first, and then trying to damage the weapon systems.
Futaba Nuki	That telltale RIDER JINGLE is as good of a signal as any that Futaba can't afford to be too sloppy today. It's an unfamiliar one, but she knows that particular sound pattern well enough to know that she needs to step up, especially if one of them is a ninja Rider. Blossom showing up as expected has Futaba giving her a wide berth, too. Even if she's not a local, she can hear that irritation in her tone! Some of that is even reflected in Futaba's tone when she addresses Hyper Ranger Red once he reveals his presence inside the machine. "That's not how... You gotta get a regular dog for that! One that tracks by smell, not one that tears up the street!" Sighing lightly, she peers into the Xord's cockpit before giving Red a confused look. "Where're the other two that were with you? Don't tell me they're bringing their own dogs." Part of her is already bracing, but another part of Futaba really wants to see what their machines combine into. This one actually looks like it's got budget put into it, after all! Hearing more familiar voices from further back, though, she looks away momentarily to stare right at Ishirou and Petra. "Hey, Ishirou! Hey, Petra! Remember what I said last time!" Even though her hands are full holding onto the Xord, that doesn't mean Futaba can't spare a moment to take one hand off just to point at her eyes with two fingers, then at theirs. "Then you two can beat the crap out of each other or whatever!" Of course, that moment she takes her hand off is just when Blossom pulls on the Xord's tail, sending Futaba flying off the dog in that same head-latching position she was in moments ago. She tucks into a proper roll shortly before hitting the ground, tumbling backwards a few times before catching herself, then hoofing it right on back towards the Xord. As she draws closer, though, she grows several times in size, eventually taking on the form of really tall alligator standing on her hind legs right in the Xord's path. It might look really weird since alligators aren't meant to stand that way. "So are we good here? You got Miss Blossom's memo, you know the type of dog to use for this people tracking thing?"
Petra Soroka	"Okay. Please also reprimand the one melting the streets, please. Thank you," Petra glances up at Ishirou, trying to think of a reason why she shouldn't. With two overlapping booms, she puts a pair of unnecessary holes in the head of the dog, and uses the blowback to tears her revolvers free of the metal casing. As she's studying Ishirou, eyes narrowing as annoyance stirs up at the sight of him, Blossom provides the reason she was looking for. Petra stumbles when the Puff pulls on the Xord's tail, and that breaks her glare. She turns to Blossom and looks a little sheepish, automatically moving to put her revolvers away as if she was caught doing something she shouldn't. She hesitates, flicks a dial and twists the paired guns into their combined shotgun, then gives Blossom an awkward wave before swinging over the front of the Xord's face and forcing her entry into the cockpit. The gap where the glass eye windows meet the metal is weak enough for Petra to jam the blade of her shotgun into sideways and blast a sizable hole in before Billy can close the covering again. If he starts to try, Petra rips her gun in two, and shoves one revolver bayonet into the sliding seam of the eye shield to jam the mechanism, and uses the other to carve the hole she opened until it's big enough for her to fit inside, which she proceeds to do. "So, what's up with the person you're chasing? Who are they? What do you want with them?"
Timespace Riders	Zi-O is tenacious, but it costs him. Definitely the less graceful of the two riders, it's him that loses his balance Howling in equal parts fear and disorientation, he hangs on for dear life to the tail as it whips frantically around, his black-red armor absorbing the collisions with buildings until he can pull himself back up to the body, dazed and on shaky footing. Woz, meanwhile, is nevertheless kept from capitalizing on his advantage, attempting to help extricate Zi-O from the tail while also avoiding its wild swaying. When the both of them are back on solid footing and no longer worried about flying off, Zi-O, holding a head to his hand, marches up the robot's body to peer downwards at the pilot. The other hand is held out towards his retainer, a silent request to hold off on attacking for right now. "Hi!" he says, with a friendly wave. "I think Petra's on the right track," he says. She most assuredly isn't, just generally, but he likes everyone and is far too lenient. "That is--it would help if we understood why you're chasing her. Could you maybe tell us, please?" Zi-O looks up, then over at the fleeing Bellamy. The scrolling FAIZ AXEL text on the barcode-sash around his breastplate briefly moves in reverse, right to left. That brief moment is host to a temporal adventure--one where Zi-O watches Bellamy's past to see who else has come after her and why.
Rowdyruff Boys	"I don't know," Billy says to Blossom. "Father simply issued us passwords on private e-mail accounts connected to that domain and told us to use them." He is telling the truth. Thankfully, this won't require very much by way of digging, even if it's something she can't resolve by talking to him. "Technically. It's easier not to," Bellamy says, of flying. This is more than passingly odd, but there probably isn't time to do much about it. She considers the offer of wings-for-the-moment, then shakes her head. "It has been many years since I navigated by sky. I'm not used to it anymore. I'll be fine if you continue the distraction. Thanks, by the way." She considers the possibility of two more. "Maybe. Doesn't matter. I should be able to disappear for the moment. But they might escalate if they can't find me. Keep an eye on them, not on me." It's hard to tell if Bellamy is being distrustful and trying to route you away from tracking her. Either way, she immediately sprints to the edge of the roof -- her footsteps are heavier than her frame would suggest by far -- surveys the surroundings, and then takes a running-jump off onto the roof of a rooftop rowhouse garden. She opens the door that leads below, and vanishes into it. Bad news about the Xord: Somebody really wanted to do this thing on the budget. All of its access points are smart lightbulbs, permitting access to precisely one thing that is actually networked, which is a webcam. Their communication network uses Skype, and the only mechanism with a lot of automation is COMBINE.exe. You can definitely mess with that at some point in the future. Wait no, there's something else here. SNIFFER.exe. It tracks some sort of obscure chemical that is apparently in Bellamy's make-up. There's a very limited number of things in the city that have a similar scent trail. You can turn that off, probably. Right now, though, everything else is a hideous manual operation shitshow with comms made and secured by some hopeless boomer. //Where are the other two?// Hyper Ranger Red shrugs. "Their Xords aren't finished yet. Also, their xords will not be dogs." He pronounces the word 'xord' extremely precisely. It sounds wrong. Petra does not require that much effort to actually enter the cockpit through the open eye. Billy buckled himself in after he opened it, so he can't actually comfortably reach it to put the cover back on. Also, he seems uninterested in avoiding that anyway. He's not using the xord because he isn't capable of fighting the people here at all, after all. "I don't know, her name is Bellamy, and because Father said so," he says, simply. Red is telling the truth. Unable to provide more, he simply repeats himself for Zi-O. Red looks out the window at the giant alligator Futaba. "You shouldn't be an alligator, you should be a moose." Which isn't really answering her question.
Rowdyruff Boys	MANY YEARS AGO... [Zi-O's Journey to Bellamy's Past] The factory is built along a spit of land jutting out of the California coast. There is a fire; it burns green and hot and unearthly, and you are quite certain that the one who built this factory died in it. It collapses in on itself, and the numerous inhabitants; though of the inhabitants, only one of them is a natural-born human. There are bodies. The bodies are not capable of servicing life for long. They are made of negligble quantities of sugar, spice, and everything nice, along with plastic, cheap spraypaint, and too little Chemical X to hold them together for long. This is too far forward, she wasn't there for that, but it's impossible to inspect the factory without encountering this moment. No, the person that Bellamy was is one of these diminuitive figures. She is awake only in the loosest sense of the word; she is packed beneath a sheath of plastic on a cardboard backing and shipped off on a boat full of other plastic-sheathed five year olds. Most of them are deformed. Bellamy (she is not called Bellamy here; she is a "Blossom", though the colors are wrong and match the Bellamy of the present) is relatively normal-looking though stylistically divergent from her originator. It is a year later that she is shipped back to the little dock below the cliff on which the now burned-out husk of a factory remains, an opened package stamped with a recall notice. There are others, but they are in pieces and do not appear to be animate or alive in any sense of the words. You're sure they were, though, once. For a little while. It's hard to follow her after that. Bellamy lingered there for a while, but at some point she got help-- the person who did it is savvy enough that their lab starts barking notices of temporal distortions if Sougo should try to enter it this way. After that she lived a pretty normal life that involved very little superheroics, occasionally dipping back into the lab environment to get her body upgraded-- mostly upsized. There is no plain connection to these people. Certainly none to any 'Father'.
Ishirou	"Hey wait," he says right before she goes. He hands her a USB stick, ejecting it from where POD is connected to him at the moment. "This is how they tracked you. Use it to avoid it in the future, alright? It'll also have contact info in there for me in case something happens in the future. Don't be afraid to use it, alright?" he says, deciding that in this case that he shouldn't push here. He understands enough about what he sees to determine that. Thankfully, he's managed to get SOMETHING out of this thing. Though he notes combine for later. In fact...he leaves a surprise in there for later, because he's sure he's going to need it. He also then starts scrambling SNIFFER.exe. Injecting it with a payload of viruses to make it unable to work, but also making working with it dangerous...but that surprise will be later. He also just attempts to crash the Skype call. OUT OF SPITE. Just repeatedly crashing it. "Holy crap, would people STOP making everything analog! IT MAKES YOUR MACHINES EXTREMELY OLD AND BAD! UGH. LUDDITES!!!" Ishirou really hates this!
Futaba Nuki	'Their Xords aren't finished yet. Also, their xords will not be dogs.' That all but confirms it for Futaba: Combiner robots. Fighting the instinct to go 'oooh' at the thought of it, she instead clears her throat before trying to rest her hands on her hips. It's kind of hard to reach that far down in the alligator form, though, and she just gives up a moment later. "That so? Well, you're not gonna need them to find a person of all things. Just hire someone with a dog, or hire a dog investigator or something! Then we don't need to fight over-" Wait. Combiner robots don't combine /unless/ there's a fight. "-finding the person. We can fight once you've and Blue and Green are all together and need to... Uh. Kidnap them?" She actually isn't sure why they're looking for Bellamy. Billy/Red doesn't seem like he's going to cause nearly as much trouble as last time, though, and Futaba eventually settles right back into her usual humanoid form (but stays just as relatively large) while letting her guard down. "A moose, huh?" As she contemplates that, she steps over the Xord to take a seat right on its back, then pats the machine's head to see if there's any dog-like reactions programmed into it. "Maybe, but you've gotta have variety when you can do stuff like this. Always turning into a gorilla or a dinosaur, or making my arms real big and turning into a gross spike... I mean, it works, but it has to be cool, too, you know?" "Did your dad say what's gonna happen to this person once you find them?"
Petra Soroka	Petra frowns at Billy, then turns around and taps her revolver on the frame of the eye window in irritation, looking out at the other Elites. "Why doesn't this guy know anything? Is he stupid?" Poking her head out further to be visible to Blossom, Petra adds, "Do you know who 'Father' is, Blossom? Whoever's able to make that armor and this mech? He's saying it with the kind of emphasis that sounds like a title, not his actual dad. Or, I guess," Petra pulls her head back inside the cockpit and looks over at Billy, slowing down her speech and emphasizing her words, "Do you know where he is? Is he important to you?" Quickly losing interest, Petra gets distracted by Futaba talking about mechs, and casually leans against the eye frame with her arms crossed, halfway inside the cockpit. "Animal robots that combine together are cool, but they always feel a little cheap to me, you know? It's like, there's only so much you can do with a 'dog' robot. It's loyal, it tracks things, it's," She lowers her voice and leans away from Billy, "Kind of dumb. She nods, looking bizarrely comfortable and relaxed in this situation. "I guess it'll be fun to see what the others are, at least. Usually there's five robots that combine together, right? Three is a little limiting."
Timespace Riders	Many Years Ago... Zi-O's square, smartscreen helmet is illuminated by sickly green fire, the rider recoiling despite his presence here being strictly as an invisible, intangible observer. In the glow of the suit's HUD, Sougo's eyes are wide and full of hurt. Rewind a little from the fire--things aren't much better. The rider runs down to the dock, his pace growing more frantic as he desperately searches the lifeless, slipshod imitations for a sign of life--he isn't even looking for Bellamy in parciular, anymore. When he finds her, the first time, it is with a heaving sigh of relief. And when he travels a year forward, the sight drops him to his knees in wordless, powerless, overwhelming sympathy. It's the kind that makes one feel sick, angry, sad, helpless--and it spurs him forward, in search of any kindness she might have been shown. Again, he is given cause for great relief, when he finds that someone out there did care enough. That someone, whoever they are, is not this 'Father.' And after the first warning of a temporal distortion, Zi-O returns to the present. The Present Zi-O looks as though he has to collect himself for a moment, and not just from residual dizziness following being swung on the Xord's tail. "...it doesn't matter," says Zi-O to Futaba. "She doesn't want to be found. She just wants to have a normal life, and it's up to her to decide what that means. I'm sure that this Father is only doing what he thinks is right..." Zi-O's helmet turns slowly down to Billy. "But even so, I have to put my foot down. If you and the others come back, I'm going to be with the people here, ready to stop you... and that goes for Father, too."
Powerpuff Girls	Releasing the tail of the Xord (Ecks-Ord, for legal reasons. In Blossom's head, though, there's more of a zz sound to the start), Blossom floats up, following everoyne towards the overstuffed cockpit at the head of the Hyper Red Xord. Sedated and unblurring, she floats forward with a perfect sort of poise, and a pensive sort of look. She gets a feeling... That despite smelling the presence of Nice on the air, it was only a chemical fume. Old, turned over, folded into the mix, like gasoline left out on the shop floor slowly loses strength and flammability. Petra looks back at Blossom and the pensive-eyed Puff nods her head slowly. "Pee Pee Gee Zee Ecks." Blossom repeats, spelling it out. "Powerpuff Girlz-" She hits the 'zz' sound like in the normal pronounciation for 'Xord', "Xtreme. When that man made a whole factory full of copies of us. And sold them. He fell into the ocean, he died in a fire!" Now, Blossom is atop the head looking down at Billy. "Are you working for Dick Hardly, Billy?! Is he back?!"
Rowdyruff Boys	"I doubt it's something I can control," Bellamy says to Ishirou before she goes, "but okay." She pockets the USB stick. There is no active Skype call. The next Skype call will be interrupted. Billy weighs in on analog controls: "Father says that fly-by-wire is nonsense and unsafe." This person's opinions are definitely entirely dictated by whatever Father says, which is no surprise to Ishirou, who has experienced his brainwashing. //Just hire someone with a dog// "It's easier to isolate the specific tracking scent in this way. Training an actual dog requires unacceptable risks," he says to Futaba, simply. Blinking slowly behind his mask, he considers the matter of kidnapping. "Inviting them home, more like, I think." There are no dog-like reactions programmed into it. It is an analog piece of garbage because it was built by an old man with bad taste. "No, I don't know," he says. None of his style choices are his own. "And Father has not clarified that matter, no. Perhaps she will be made a member of the team." But not a monochrome member, goes unstated. //Do you know where he is? Is he important to you?// "No. Yes," Billy says, dully. He doesn't seem perturbed by the rest of the comments. Maybe he's not actually meaningfully capable of it at the moment. //... and that goes for Father, too.// Hyper Ranger Red sucks a breath in between his teeth, an uncomfortable hiss. "Your notice is appreciated." He can't say it, but he doesn't really envy anyone standing against Father. He reaches to one side and pulls a key from his console, which vanishes 'into' him in the same way that the other Rangers had previously. The xord shuts down, sagging forward so that it rests obstructively in the street. One 'eye' dangles sadly from its socket. Billy snorts at the name Blossom repeats back to him. It's a completely different tone of when he speaks about Father. "That ridiculous grifter? Father is just Father." He doesn't know anything about this.
Rowdyruff Boys	IN THE PAST... There is no movement amidst scattered, plastic husks. Calling them 'dead' isn't incorrect, but it's probably not the whole picture. It's hard to imagine what could be done about them. Some are missing limbs that don't appear to be mixed in with the debris; they might never have had them. The factory line you saw backs that up. The Powerpuff Girl you've met is flesh-and-blood, not plastic-and-paint. It's a very strange approach to cloning.
Ishirou	The Xord. Dog? Xorggie? Xorggie. Yes, the Xorggie stops, and the mysterious girl is on her way. Maybe she can't but he'd be awful if he didn't arm her with the right information. It also...doesn't stop him from looking for her later, if he finds the need to do so. Ishirou walks back out into the open, still frowning at this 'Father' person. While he's engaged with the others, Ishirou attempts to scan the brain of this person, trying to get into his memories to figure out who 'Father' is, and if it's the same person as 'Professor'. Right now, they're still operating at a disadvantage, and this person is likely to turn a girl's life upside down for some stupid, selfish goal.
Petra Soroka	When that man made a whole factory full of copies of us. And sold them. He fell into the ocean, he died in a fire! Are you working for Dick Hardly, Billy?! Is he back?!" Petra crinkles up her forhead and scrunches her nose in thought. It was a long time ago, but Petra used to keep up with the Powerpuff Girls' adventures as a kid, and Blossom's alarm stirs up some vague memories in her. "The... guy who made shitty clones of you, yeah! He sold them as... weapons, or something, right? So..." Petra's eyes widen as she puts two and two together. "Oh! He's probably the 'Professor' that the, that the clone of me talked about. And the Rangers weren't able to tell that I wasn't it, so they can't be very familiar with it, because the differences are obvious. And it was poorly made of cheap garbage too, so that lines up. My clone must've been made by that same guy who cloned you before!" Petra actually looks kind of happy about that revelation, rather than angry as she has been every time Betra was brought up before. "So there's two evil father figures involved, probably. D-Dick Hardly, for the copy of me, and whoever Father is, and they're having some kind of fight. Does that sound right?"
Futaba Nuki	"It only feels cheap because... I mean, yeah. It's always some kinda dog, a dinosaur, a bird, maybe a tiger or something..." Futaba's head changes with each of those animals, almost as though she's not realizing she's doing it. "That's why you need variety! A raccoon, maybe, or a hippo, a tanuki, a chicken, maybe even a beaver... Shakes things up more, right?" Stroking her chin, Futaba considers Petra's other point about numbers before tunring to Billy once again. "Right, how's that gonna work. Is one of you just gonna end up being both arms or both legs or something?" Zi-O gets her mind back on track, though, and she gestures towards him while looking right at Billy. "Yeah, he's got the right idea! Invitations are one thing, but chasing someone around in a big robot like this doesn't really make it sound like you just want them to come over if they want to." Crossing her arms over her chest, Futaba pauses as she looks over at where she last saw Bellamy and Ishirou, then scratches her cheek. "Well, I guess trying to follow them with a sniffing dog wouldn't be much better, either. And if you really wanted to fight, you wouldn't be talking. Or this." She gestures all around, between the open cockpit and the Elites gathered around. Despite the gravity of the revelation, though, Blossom drops another name that has Futaba inadvertently sputtering and quickly turning away to hide her face briefly. Sadly, she's still huge, so it's hard to really hide the smirk. "Anyway. Just... Uh. Get a smaller robot dog if you have to, then! Something less scary to the locals and..." She can't get her mind off that factory Blossom mentioned, even though she does reach over to try and shove that dangling eye back into the Xord. "Your da... Father's not trying to get into that cloning business, too, is he?" Another beat, and then Futaba's eyes open up suddenly. "Is he taking visitors?"
Rowdyruff Boys	Ishirou's Probe... The being they call Father is the silhouette of a tall man with brilliant yellow eyes, his features only vaguely defined, but he gives the impression of a 50s sitcom father complete with the silhouette of a pipe emerging from his mouth. At first there is simply a memory of receiving instructions that are coherent and line up with what you've been told straightforwardly about this guy. Then the memory stops in a way that memories do not do, and Father is looking at you. He raises an eyebrow, and nudges -- distantly -- the vague imprint of chromatic programming that had ceased functioning when Ishirou's belt was withdrawn. It stirs, then stills. Then the memory resumes. You're not entirely sure if it's edited or not, but you can't be confident that it isn't after that. There's nothing about a Professor; contextually you can probably be certain they're different beings. The web probe suggested by Blossom yields a shitty private school headed by a totally real Headmaster who looks like an un-silhouetted 50s Dad. It's hard to tell for sure it's the same guy though; it's actually a pretty good obfuscation, and there's got to be thousands of older men with this sort of cultivated image.
Ishirou	The hair on Ishirou's neck raises when the usual scanning turns into a nightmarish situation. The image of a memory of a man turning to face him directly. The inkling of control from the belt just starting to be brought up, but fading and the memory resuming. He shakes this off and proceeds to check the other place. It reveals a non-silhouetted man with a similar figure. It will, however, give him a name...and a place to start looking in the future. That figure though... It unnerves him in a way that it shouldn't. He doesn't say anything in the open but speaks on the radio after.
Timespace Riders	"My Demon King, I question the wisdom of advising your adversaries of your intent ahead of time," says the ninja-themed armored fighter, his amartwatch-faced helmet canting to the side in mild askance. "Mm... maybe you're right to, Woz, but Bellamy has been through a lot. Father might not know that--people can be pretty blind to what's around them, when they get focused on something. That's why I'm giving him the option to call this off." The retainer utters a 'hm' of acknowledgement, helmet dipping briefly in a nod. It still doesn't sound like he's sold on this. "Billy..." Zi-O lifts his helmet up and off his head, tucking it under his arm. Medium length golden brown hair spills out, resting in an almost natural sweep along his brow. It frames his soft features, brown eyes and gentle smile nicely, as he steps around the cockpit so that he's not looking down on the pilot, but straight ahead. "You don't have to be scared. Everything is going to be okay." He didn't need to time travel to pick up on the reaction Billy had to the idea of opposing Father. He looks over (and up) at Futaba, his eyes alight with hers. "That's not a bad idea," he says,nodding. "If Ishirou is right about this connection with the school, maybe we could set an appointment and clear everything up!" It is a very hopeful way of looking at things, to say the least.
Rowdyruff Boys	"A hippo," Billy ponders aloud. He doesn't actually helpfully clarify how much this is a kidnapping for Futaba. He probably doesn't have that much latitude to interpret his orders anyway-- something Ishirou can mostly confirm. That might be because Red is the least creative of the three, though. Green seemed a lot more spunky. "Cloning? Not that I know of. Ideological re-educating, yes," he adds, shrugging. That's self-evident enough that he doesn't feel uncomfortable sharing it. Asked if Father is taking visitors, he says, "By appointment only. Telephone in if you like." But he doesn't tell you where to telephone in to. Billy considers Zi-O for a moment. He blinks. He might not really be fully cognizant of his reaction; it was a little like somebody scraping an elbow or knee. Not a good reaction to be having to an authority figure, though. After a while, he says, "Goodbye." Once again, Hyper Ranger Red appears to draw in on himself and disappear. It's a very strange way to do... whatever he's doing. It's not even clear that it's teleportation, exactly. The XORGGIE tips over on its side with a loud CREAK and crushes an expensive-looking sports car. Thankfully, giant robots are commonly insured for here. ELSEWHERE Bellamy plugs the USB stick into a port on the palm of her hand. She reads it for a few moments, then disconnects it and snaps off a message to Ishirou: It's tracking Chem X. Can't mitigate that much. Thanks, though. I've got plenty of hidey holes in the city. And I could punch that thing, too. It's less tiring not to, though.
Powerpuff Girls	Blossom, tied up with the drama between Ishirou and Petra, doesn't chase after the purple girl. She can't, despite the normal aesop being one of learning about the needs of others via helping them through scary situations, because there's horrors from the past coming up. Even tea-time is put on hold. "I'm..." Blossom listens and trails off, reserved and not wanting to immediately leap to conclusions. Petra's line of logic is quite. . . odd, but she can't immediately find a flaw. "... not sure if it's one person or two. But yes, Dick Hardly made clones of us, and if he's back and making more clones, we've got to stop him." She's firm on that point, at least. "Chasing after people-" Blossom has not connected the dots on who and what, as she is not privy to Time Dialation Crying, the most efficient time-based form of falling down stairs, nor is she Ishirou and hacked the conversation using words and questions with Bellamy. "-is a pretty bad look for recruiting for your private school. So is running a mecha through the city, by the way, Billy!" She's back to chiding, from the top hatch. Thankfully, Zi-O has provided a solution for everything after Ishirou's data search. Blossom, again, doesn't have the context of Touchy Feely Belty Brain Melty time, and so only has the idea of an odd silhouette being actually some old guy. It's always some old white guy, though. "I think that's a great idea. Why don't you give us that telephone number, then, and we can schedule an appointment?" The XORGGIE falls over, and Blossom, hanging in the air, watches with an unimpressed stare as the mecha tips over past her feet and crushes a commuter vehicle. One more reason why insurance premiums were insane in California.
Petra Soroka	Petra nods along with Futaba, caught up in the silly mecha topic. "Beaver is a really good idea, yeah, there's so much you could do with a beaver mech. Chicken is unique too, but I can't really think of abilities that I'd immediately expect it to have? It's definitely better than dog, though." Petra's gaze becomes a little distant, staring off into space as she tries to imagine something. "A beaver as the headpiece Zord... and like, its tail turns into a cape? Is that anything?" Her eyes flick back over to Billy. "Yeah, with three of them, it'll probably be... one as the waist with both legs, one as the torso and both arms, and one as the head? Though, the legs-Zord would need to have the cockpit right in the--" Petra cuts off with a small giggle, before suggesting that the cockpit goes in the cock of the robot. She rubs the back of her knuckles against her mouth, scrubbing away her smirk. Petra looks blankly at Billy's abrupt 'Goodbye', not entirely understanding what was happening. Her reaction to the Xorggie falling over, while she stands partly inside its cockpit, is delayed by moments as her brain catches up. She shrieks and starts clambering out as it tips over, leaping out and tucking and rolling onto the street with just a few scrapes to show for it. Looking awkward, Petra stands up and brushes herself off, then walks back over to rejoin the group around the fallen mecha. "Is meeting this guy by appointment, in his office, the best idea? I mean, he has those mind control belts, who knows what he might set up as a trap."
Ishirou	"It isn't a good idea at all, I'm forced to ag...ag..." Ishirou looks like he's trying not to be sick, "Agree with Petra." He pops a soda he had in his storage system and drinks it as if trying to get the taste out of his mouth. "He...saw me through the scan. Like, I was looking at memory and the memory stopped and...I think he tried to invoke the belt. I can't tell if it was a memetic trigger or something else. If you go, I...don't think it's a good idea if I go directly." "You know, thanks to someone," he means Petra. "And by someone I mean Petra."
Powerpuff Girls	Blossom Utonium has a ready-made answer for Petra's question, as she asks the red Puff about just walking in to some old white dude's office by appointment. "I'm not intending to go alone." replies the flying Puff quickly, touching down outside of the flopped-over XORGGIE and glancing about the group as Ishirou pulls out a Bawls Guarana to choke down the flavor of agreeing with Petra. "Thanks to...?" She chases the look to Petra, and frowns slightly. "Oh."
Timespace Riders	While Blossom might not be privy to the specifics of the time dilation travel, can sense a strong protective intent over Bellamy from Sougo that wasn't there a few minutes ago, yet seems like the kind of emotions one would associate with a well-known friend, built up over many years. Petra's startled shriek is matched by another oafish 'uwoh!!' from Zi-O, who awkwardly high-speeds his way off the chassis and nearly drops the helmet. Woz, meanwhile, leaps high into the air and lands dramatically on a bent lightpole, as is appropriate for his present choice of armor. >Who knows what he might set up as a trap? "I do," says Woz, stepping off of the lightpole to land gracefully on his feet. He removes the Shinobi watch from his Beyondriver, as his Demon King removes the Decade, Faiz and Zi-O watches from his (it looks really unwieldy with three greebles crammed in). The retainer, smiling like the cat that caught the canary, is holding his iconic book--the one with the blue hardback cover, its surface bearing whorls like the rings of a tree, its title evading efforts to read it. "It would be my pleasure to peer into such eventualities, if it pleases my Demon King." "Haha, thanks, Woz!" says Sougo, dressed in a canary-yellow button up that's stylishly too-big. He dusts off the seat of his jeans. "Oh--Petra and Ishirou know us already, but I don't think we've met you! I'm Sougo Tokiwa, or Zi-O when I'm in the armor. And that's my retainer Woz. He's helping me become king--and part of that means he can look into potential futures."
Petra Soroka	Petra nods to Blossom, looking like she's been chastised rather than reassured. Of course Blossom wouldn't be going alone. The Powerpuffs all together will be fine, it's not Petra's business to be worried about them. Petra gives Sougo a halfhearted wave too. "Yeah. Hey, Sougo. I feel like it's been a bit since I've bumped into you." Her somewhat cowed expression melts into irritation when Ishirou speaks, and she rolls her eyes at him. "You are such a drama queen, Jesus. You're acting like I killed your fucking dog, get over it. Or," Petra glances at Futaba, remembering her advice, "Or put your money where your bratty little mouth is and do something about it."
Futaba Nuki	"Yeah, a hippo! Strong bodies, tough skin, giant teeth... But they don't show up a lot in animal combiners. Kinda weird, right?" Futaba laughs, and her hand comes back to her chin as Petra adds on to that. "A hippo as the body, a beaver for the head and the tail cape... And then the legs!" Nobody ever pays attention to the legs. With Zi-O backing up her idea, Futaba grins proudly for all of three seconds until Billy corrects her on the cloning versus not-brainwashing thing. "Oh. Uh. Yeah, maybe we could go in for some of that... That. With an appointment." She coughs into her hand briefly, glacning over at Zi-O again and winking. "We'll just need a number, and... W-wait, hold up!" Alas, Ranger Red does that weird disappearing trick, and the XORGGIE starts tipping over. The sudden surprise of the giant robot crushing a car startles Futaba enough that, when she backs up, she trips over a different car and falls on her ass, flattening a second car in the process. Conveniently, she's in a spot where anyone that might need to bail out of the cockpit can land on safely at her size, but when she realizes she's just flattened a car... Futaba shrinks suddenly, reverts to her tanuki form, then just loiters underfoot with the group. It's better than letting any cameras catch her face, although she does shove her fat tanuki ass right in between Petra and Ishirou to make sure she's a tripping hazard when words start getting exchanged. "So where is this school, anyway? Sounds like that might be our next stop."
Powerpuff Girls	Petra doesn't get off that easily. Not by half. Blossom crosses her arms, smiling just a bit at Sougo and Woz as they reveal themselves. "Welcome to Townsville, then. Here to stay, or just visiting? Since you were helping here, could I ask you to help us... make sure that person you helped stays helped?" Blossom takes two steps to the turned-away Petra and places a hand guiding on the Yellow's shoulder. "You should--" Blossom steps off from the sliding-in Double Cheeked Up On A Tanukisday Futaba and her Petra-Ishirou intercession, but doesn't remove her hand, just reorients. "--figure out what you're going to do to meet a principal, right?" She asks, implying that Petra isn't ducking this one so easily. Oh no. She was implied as presumptively involved.
Rowdyruff Boys	Woz's estimations. A scheduled appointment won't result in an actual trap because that would break the illusion too sharply. This is not the same as a scheduled appointment not resulting in a potential conflict, but it is not the place where maybe-Father would make his stand. He's VERY willing to play stupid and get people hassled by local law enforcement for a variety of potential crimes in bothering him. Mind control is terribly difficult to prove for a lot of reasons. In other words, maybe-Father cares about procedure. He'll stick a knife in your back if you give him the opportunity, but he's not rigging the room to blow for you. There's a few narrow cases where a third party might burst in and cause problems, however. Sometimes it seems related and other times it is absolute nonsense. In at least one hypothetical the Gangreen Gang attempt to take over the school for some barely coherent reason. In another Princess Morbucks gets wind of "Powerpuff Girls clones", connects it to this place through purchasing communications data (completely legally!) between the Girls and the facility, and attempts to buy the place out. This breaks Father's masquerade in a completely different way and spirals in a very stupid direction; you probably stop watching before it reaches a conclusion. In a third, Woz ends up observing a living room in a weird television static dimension where the devil is doing a work-out. He's pretty sure this isn't actually relevant, though it could be HIM trying to obfuscate something.
Ishirou	Ishirou grumbles. He'd LIKE to actually do something about Petra, but he knows the time isn't right for it. He's still getting over his wounds from Evahime, but also there is a plan already in the works. He has to control himself, despite how much he really does not like Petra. He just needs to take a breath. "Whatever, I'm out of here. There are a million other places I'd rather be than anywhere near you," Ishirou says, bitterly. To the others, "I can spot for you, but I am not sure being anywhere near that man is safe for myself or others until I can make sure there are no lingering hazards." With that, Ishirou leaps up, transforming the configuration into flight mode, and soars off.
Rowdyruff Boys	Brick sits in Té, a beam of heat alternating back and forth between two cups of tea-- his own, and Blossom's. This has been going on long enough and he can hear the conversation that's been happening just fine. 'Down the street and outside' is barely a pace away by his standards. He ceases to heat the tea, covers it, and walks outside. He passes Blossom's to her; it is still hot. Not lukewarm, or warm. Hot. It'll taste fine. "If you have evening plans that aren't urgent, cancel them. This has just barely not been a waste of a morning, and it was still a waste of everything I like about it," he says. Brick eyes the xorggie, and glances into the sky. He's considering swatting a satellite out of orbit with parts of it. She's seen that look dozens of times when he got dangerously bored and annoyed. There's a tension in him that's not usually there. His eyes flick to Ishirou. "You should go. See if he tries to take advantage of it. It's important to know whether or not he could. For you, too."
Timespace Riders	"Just visiting," says Sougo brightly. "We heard about that tea shop a few blocks back, and we were only a gate or two away, so we thought it'd make a nice stop on the way home." Her next question earns her a firm nod, and his smile is a few shades warmer. "You don't have to ask me for that," he says simply. "It's the right thing to do." The retainer already has the book cracked open. "According to this book," says Woz, who Blossom can tell knows the title but chooses not to say it, "The principal will entertain the appointment because it serves him to do so." He paces, briefly, around the crushed car. "However--this is not to say the meeting will go smoothly, only that any actual traps or overt attacks would jeopardize the illusion of a normal school." "He will display a remarkable aptitude for maneuvering within set policies and procedures, and use them against us at the earliest opportunity." His lips curl upwards in that same catlike smile, as he steps over a severed bumper. "This being Townsville, there is a possibility the meeting will be disrupted by one of several of your particular rogues' gallery," he says, gesturing with a flourish of his free hand towards Blossom. The book is then closed with a matter-of-fact 'thump.' "But I've read too far ahead.~ Suffice it to say," he adds with an upturn of his chin and a slow sweep of his eyes towards Petra and the departing Ishirou, "Tempers would best be kept in check."
Petra Soroka	Petra glances from Futaba, inserted as a barrier in front of her, to Ishirou, with a dull look on her face. She looks deeply unimpressed, with a distantly hostile expression that's hard to place on a human spectrum. She's looking at a bug, at dog shit on her shoes, at a bully and a pathetic victim at the same time. Petra watches Ishirou leave silently, her sneer radiating disgust more than hatred. Her hand twitches, briefly going for her pocket, but she stops even before Blossom lays a hand on her shoulder. She doesn't flinch or react to the touch at all for a moment, stone-still until Ishirou disappears. Finally, she shakes her head to clear it, then turns to Blossom with surprise written on her face. "Hmm? Oh. Um. I-I-- We're all going? I guess, I c-could, but... aren't you...." Petra isn't entirely sure what she's trying to imply. Already going with the other Powerpuffs"? "Worried that I'll fuck something up and make it worse"? "More than capable without dragging deadweight along"? None of the thoughts are positive, definitely. Between Brick and Woz, Petra shuffles uncomfortably, taking a step back to coolly remove herself from arm's reach. "It's probably a bad idea for both of us to go. I mean. There's really no reason at all for both him and I to be there. And he's worried about that stupid programming being stuck in his head still, anyways." Her word choice might just be a coincidence. It's hard to tell.
Rowdyruff Boys	Brick considers that, then shakes his head. "If you're trying to make up for the problem you created, it's best for you to be there. He'd probably go straight for you, permitting the group that goes a predictable variable in the case of an ally 'flipping'." "If not, use your own discretion," he says.
Futaba Nuki	With both pressing matters seemingly defused, Futaba breathes a light sigh of relief before looking over atBrick's approach and greeting him with a lazy wave from her spot near the ground. When Woz starts going into more detail about the mysterious Father, though, her attention remains locked on him, and she even follows him around that car idly with a thoughtful look in he eyes. Somehow, that is a look that can be seen even though she's in a raccoon dog form rather than a human form. "Sounds like he's one of those troublesome smart guys, then... So we just need to keep him on the back foot!" Standing back up, she pantomimes wobbling backwards unsteadily before actually wobbling backwards unsteadily, then landing on all fours again shortly afterwards. "The more people, the better. That goes for you, too, Petra." Futaba gives her look, although it's almost.. Trusting? Certainly not the same type of look that Blossom had given her. "Even if he's a genius, more of us means he can't focus as good, right? And if some of us are just really, REALLY annoying about it..." A shit-eating grin appears. Somehow. "Huhuhu... Then we'll be able to blow the lid on whatever he's doing before he even gets it off the ground."
Powerpuff Girls	"If it's a mind control guy, the best thing to do is try our best to get them from every angle. Plus, didn't you want to help?" Blossom asks Petra, letting the girl escape her touch easily. Reassurance had been her goal, but something about it seemed offputting to the other girl, so she didn't press things. Instead, she finds Brick has arrived - hopped over, really, and gives him a deeply apologetic smile as she gratefully accepts her tea back two-handed. It's hot! Her thankfulness deepens. At this point she would have accepted drinking cold tea, but the thoughtfulness has kept it at her preferred temperature. She would have kept it there herself, but... She was busy. Taking a steadying sip, Blossom tries to figure out exactly the words she'll use at a slower pace. "If you'd rather not, that's okay, but you've wanted to help out for a bit, right? If not this one, then next one? We could talk it out, too, if you'd prefer?" Blossom asks, not needing any sense at all to know that Petra would probably not prefer the long conversation about What Happened with Blossom Utonium.
Petra Soroka	"If you're trying to make up for the problem you created," Petra bristles, though there isn't a lot of energy behind it. "I didn't create this problem." It's contrarian for the sake of being contrarian, and it's easy to tell that she barely feels it. "The whole, Ranger thing, and 'Father', I didn't, that's not really my fault, I...." "Plus, didn't you want to help?" Somehow, this is received as something like a scolding too. Petra crosses her arms, and her shoulders draw together, shrinking a little bit. "Y-yeah. I'm... I am. Sorry. I'll be there, if you all think it'll help. And I'll..." 'Take care of Ishirou before then' is the phrase that drifts across Petra's mind, though she sure isn't going to say that out loud, especially when she's not sure if she means it. "I'll try to tolerate him." Petra snorts quietly at the idea of sitting down with Blossom, and talking over tea about her attempt to blow up her city and her continual streak of making things worse. Then she pauses. That's actually something Blossom does with villains, isn't it. Is it a good thing that the offer is being extended to her? Petra purses her lips, visibly thinking for some time. "Well. Um. I'll help with the principal, and whatever else. But, maybe, I wouldn't mind, uh, chatting sometime, either?"
Rowdyruff Boys	//I didn't...// "I don't really care," Brick says, partway through. He doesn't. It isn't because he's convinced, but because he wasn't in a position to record the incident from multiple angles. If he needed to convict Petra in a court of law he could come up with plenty of ways to do it as regards the cooking-off nuclear fusion reactor incident, but he hasn't got shit on this one so he can't nitpick it to death and beyond. "People who engage in this kind of business tend to have deranged mindsets like that. It's fine if you don't. I don't, usually. The point is that extricating yourself isn't particularly helpful in and of itself," he explains. He turns to Blossom and adds, "I was serious about the evening appointments thing, though. I'm making reservations somewhere. I'll text you later." That appears to be the last thing he has to say. Brick grabs onto the fallen xord and flies off with it, freeing the streets from its bulk. He does not, as far as anyone can see, hurl it into space.