Scene #3036: The Faceless Rally

Owner	Pose
Scarlet Everille	Today was supposed to be a simple matter, specifically for a very small selection of Heaven or Hell. A one or two person job, following up on the long-term leads of the last. A simple trip to the downtown greater London area, to pay a visit to one of many potential people with an ancillary hand in Eli Aldwood's petty misdemeanors (or so they would have been had it not been ensured that he was specifically crucified in private court). The scene is the head domestic office of Album Mercurius, a locally based, multi-national, "reagent acquisition and distribution" company, specifically catering to high-end mages, owned and run by someone called Simon Arklese, whom apparently more than one person wants to have words with. QUite a few more actually. The wide, ultramodern street is packed end to end with bodies, all traffic having been well cleared and all digital signage having been shut down. The surroundings are nothing but very large complexes pretending to be centennial construction, and so there is no immediate danger to any homes or small businesses, but the tone is obviously hostile. The air is filled with the sounds of a steady stream of impatient, dissatisfied rabble-rousing and pockets of disorganized chanting and stomping mutually drowning itself out, though the typical picket signs have been replaced with projected ones courtesy of the cheap wearable computing everyone seems to have around their necks. Scarlet is stood just outside of the mess, around the corner of the next block, where it's more a scattering of people standing watch to foist pamphlets on people and warn of further police, though the second gesture appears to be moot as they're all over the place. The local law enforcement uniform appears to have gone through a few changes, but is still relatively recognizable in the picket it's formed to divert civilians from the site at either end. What's less familiar is the ranks of men in full, environmentally sealed armour out the front of the corporate HQs in line, all of whom are visibly, heavily armed. So much for a proud tradition of unarmed policemen, England. It's fairly easy to tell gawkers apart from protestors by the fact that the latter all seem to have a visible smiley face pinned somewhere on themselves, overshadowing an exceedingly basic representation of a magic circle behind it.
Kimiko Shinobu	Kimiko said 'civilian clothing,' and that's how she shows up. In fact, a spaghetti-strap top and faded blue jeans is the most casually-dressed most people have likely ever seen her. The long, silver twin-tails and the somber expression are recognizably the same, however. Either whatever she was doing until a few minutes ago wasn't terribly fun and exciting, or that's just her work face. This leaves her as a rather short, obviously foreign girl of unintimidating build who is hopefully not stepping into much colder weather than she just left, though if so, she'll deal with it. Likely worth few remarks, and definitely not carrying heavy weaponry. She is carrying a cell phone, but it's hardly like the sort of tech she's seeing. Huh, odd, those. Fiddling with her phone probably isn't going to get her a lot of answers, but it's something to do while walking down the street, glancing between it and the commotion, and sidelong at the armed guards.
Guest Psyber	Psyber had mentally gone through all the cover IDs he had: Interpol Agent Paul Syber, CIA Agent Holden McGroyn, UN Special Task Force Crosby Stills. None of them was really appropriate for a cover ID in a world like Scarlet's due to the changing regulations of badges and security, along with organizational overturn. But, if there's one thing Psyber can count on from the British, it's to stand on traditional things for inordinate amount of times. Thusly, Psyber is here with a tablet PC of indiscriminate make and a fake press badge around his neck. Psyber holds up the badge to one of the cops and says, "Al DePantzeu, London Gazette." In his world, the paper had been around since the mid 1600s, he had no reason to think it wouldn't survive in Scarlet's world, albeit he figures it has probably switched over to digital format. He holds up his tablet PC, "I'm here to do some interviews for a report. We tried to message ahead and set it up, but," He waves at the crowds as if blaming them for network slowdown and bloats in processing speeds.
Riva Banari	Well damn, this sure is a 'public disturbance.' The fact that the police are armed and in /hazmat gear/ immediately puts Riva on edge and trips a lot of red flags, and she is privately glad she stowed her guns in Agartha. They wouldn't be armed if this hasn't had a history of being violent. In /England/. "What the crap has this world come to." Riva mumbles to herself as she slides in on the edge of the demontration. "Sup." She says to one of the people on the edge handing out pamphlets. "I've been out of town, how long has this been going on?" She asks casually. As she does so, she takes one of said pamphlets nad gives it a look through. She will get out her phone and check online (because these people always have internet stuff), trying to get a broadter information base on the protest and the group organizing it.
Ayako Hasekawa	"Uuu..." Ayako tends to get lost easily. Especially in cities, and even more so in downtown areas. Modern cities are so confusing! All of these blocks and straight streets and intersections! Not to mention all the people. The Water Spirit tends to get caught up in the flow of traffic easily and will sometimes follow the movement of people without even being aware of it! But even she has to stop when she sees the protestors. She walks over cheerfully to looser edge of the clump where they seem to be less angry and more pamphlety and accepts one. Ayako inclines her head to the side gently as she watches the heavily armed police. They look ready to fight a monster or something! Then her amber eyes go down to the pamphlet to figure out the question that's probably on everyone's mind. 'What in the world is going on here?'
Arthur Lowell	"Christ, I look at you and it's like I'm lookin' at one'a those SKELETONS. You just ain't YOU without some'a that armor, yo." Arthur says. He knows Kimiko enough that he knows that he should start poking and prodding her socially, perhaps in an annoying way, because she's very serious and because it sounds fun. "I feel like there's MISSIN' SKIN here or something, 'cept instead of being SPOOKY under it, you're just kinda VAGUELY CUTE." HA HA HA HA HA! Arthur stops messing with Kimiko long enough give a distant, supportive-looking nod to Psyber, and then to press on into the crowd itself, keeping around Riva Banari. "Oh, you get this shit in EVERY WORLD, really." Arthur says, shrugging a bit. "RESTLESS MASSES, RABBLE and their ROUSIN', that kinda stuff? Shit's a UNIVERSAL CONSTANT. Literally, actually, don't tell ANYONE 'bout THAT PART." Wait, what?!"Glad HAVIN' you HERE, Rivs. How you been holdin' up since that BARBECUE?" Psyber may be going after info that way, but... Arthur's here for the most basic of basic infogathering techniques. These guys are handing out pamphlets! He's just going to take one, because that's the action that comes to mind when you go and press the Interact button on these guys.
Konoe Kanno	Konoe was out of place in pretty much any world that wasn't Gensokyo. The most she could do was wear the cat haired hoodie Kyra had gotten her a while back. It went down long enough to assume that her tail was a part of her hair at a casual glance. ...Only downside was that she looked like a stereotypical troublemaker. Oh well, it couldn't be helped. She stood by on an edge of the demonstration, taking a flyer in the meantime as she passed. "......" Her eyes lowered to the piece of paper in her grasp, skimming left and right slowly. "......" ".........." "...(I can't read this.)..." So much for that then. Konoe inwardly sighed and raised her gaze to observe the demonstration instead.
Theo Morrison	Theo doesn't bother going undercover. He's a kinda overweight young person with a tee-shirt, cargo pants, and a backpack. As far anyone can tell, he's just another face in the crowd, unless someone casts Detect Magic and stares at him for a while. Then things might get a little interesting. (Then again, given who is responding to this... well, that's a common problem.) Rather than rush on in, Theo lingers near the edge of the crowd, trying to get a feel for what the heck this is all about. If someone is spouting rhetoric, he sidles thataway to hear what's up. It seems to be the easiest way to do this sort of thing. Kickotron, the three-foot-tall myr (read: bird robot), follows in his tracks. He's wearing a red baseball cap. It doesn't really fit, but it stays on... somehow. Theo didn't think to dismiss him when he came down.
Gawain	Beep, beep, beep. Huge magical blip walking through, Sir Gawain is here. Dressed in a golden suit, this is the knight's first time in this (or any) London, but help was called for, and he's here to provide it! ...He has absolutely no idea what to do, so he just arrived and is deciding to wing it. So he walks into the crowd, approaches what he thinks to be a sociable group of people, and asks the obvious question. "What's going on here?" Sir Gawain, world's greatest info gatherer!
Kaname Madoka	Madoka arrives shortly behind Psyber, shadowing him in such a way that makes her seem like an intern, perhaps, or even a relative with more lightly pigmented hair. The one alteration to her usual school uniform that she's wearing is a too-large plaid beret that she acquired from who-knows-wear and that she is constantly having to push out of her face, so she could certainly pass for the former at least. Granted, however, she has no desire to lie outright if she can help it; she gives little in the way of introduction beyond a fairly bashful wave to the officer whom Psyber is addressing, then slightly more confident, miniature bows toward all those people that she's able to recognize in their group. Since she was the one who asked them to come here, Scarlet probably gets the first of these. When she's feeling a little more bold, though, Madoka peeks out from behind Psyber, leaning out with one foot raised. She's only able to maintain this posture for a few seconds before she starts to lose her balance and stumbles out from behind him, after which she frantically goes to catch her hat before blushing brightly at the officer in question. She makes the most painfully awkward smile that may be within the realm of feasibility for any human being before swiftly tip-toeing behind Psyber again for comfort, but at least she got a -glimpse- at what's ahead: masses and masses of people, and lots and lots of yelling. In earnest, Madoka might actually have been glad to be distracted by her own anxiety were she in a mood to be metagcognisant. Alas, though, she is not, so we'll just have to wait until her shyness abates to hear words from her. Oh well. ... or until she gets distracted by the shops on the side of the road, and those aforementioned computer-things hanging around people's necks. Even the less regal parts of this world are like Mitakihara! Or enough so to give her deja vu, at least; there are just enough similarities to perch this entire universe upon an uncanny valley of nostalgia. Just another one of many, many uncomfortable feelings that bombard her whenever she visits. Still, a part of her likes being here too. It's a pretty vexing ambivalence, really...
Nozomi Houken	This is the kind of time and place where Taiga needs to not be immediately visible. So of course, he goes with his usual means of more-or-less unseen transit; leaping roof to roof. It still carries some risks, but it will at least get him to the area with a minimal fuss from street-level law enforcement. Nozomi riding around on his back, however, is out of the question; adding her to the mix would just present too odd of a sight for those glancing upward or looking out the windows of much taller buildings. So she's going to need to arrive on foot with others. Specifically, this time, she's walking with Kimiko. The two of them of similar nationality makes them both a bit less suspicious than they might otherwise be, perhaps just a pair of tourists or out-of-towners looking in on things. Whereas Kimiko is looking between her phone and the street in general, however, Nozomi is just sort of sticking close and trying not to make eye contact with anyone or anything. It's a big crowd. A rather frightening one at that.
Riva Banari	"There's always people who aren't happy with the way the world works, but this is kind of messed up somewhere, isn't it, Arthur?" Riva replies. "I mean, I've waved a few signs when I was back in college too, but not with armed guys in hazmat gear giving me the lazy eye." She looks over and arches an eye to Arthur, smiling at him. "It's really good to see you, Arthur. Everything's going pretty well. Well-ish. Just doing my job and trying to keep people safe. " She shakes her head and then reaches out to prod Arthur in the shoulder. "I can barely keep track of /you/, though, Mister Adventure. We need to go out again sometime soon, you hear?"
Scarlet Everille	Scarlet seems to have gotten her eye rolling at Psyber's choice of name out of the way early, or else is doing a heroic job of hiding it. She also seems to be intent on not going anywhere near the main crowd, for reasons that will become shortly apparent. After all, she's still wearing that black uniform that looks like it cost more than most of everyone's personal computer here. Thank god she hasn't had time to put on what Tomoyo made her. His assumption, however, is entirely correct. The London Gazette is still around and going strong, even if nobody actually buys paper anymore. Journalists appear to be not exactly unwelcome here, but it doesn't seem as if anyone in the crowd is about to let him talk to anyone from inside any of these buildings. A lady almost half his height and probably of equal weight with frizzy, brightly dyed hair detaches from the outer edge of the crowd as several people turn around at the name of the news group. "Then you can report on something important for a change!" she huffs, putting her hands on her wide hips. The others paying attention seem to be in agreement, though their attention quickly shifts to Madoka as she peeks out from behind him, their tone softening somewhat at the presence of a young girl. Kimiko goes relatively unnoticed with Nozomi. The hair sticks out somewhat, being an uncommon colour, but otherwise a person is a person. They find out the same thing as Riva however, in that not only is everyone present using local cloud computing, but the web content they are able to access is horrifically unoptimized for phones, barely possible to even scroll through, nevermind navigate in a timely fashion. It'll tell them roughly the same things as the pamphlets that Ayako and Arthur (and technically Konoe) take from a nice looking older woman and sharply dressed young man however, just in a migraine-inducingly frustrating fashion. The name will only be vaguely familiar to a few present, and still bizarre to them. "Faces in the Workplace" is apparently what the social fad is called, and within 30 seconds of reading, they can probably tell why Scarlet isn't going anywhere near it. It appears to be a grassroots movement staunchly against two things: the use of familiars for personal escort, and the blanket use of human augmentation magic, making it a directly anti-magus initiative. The sheets are filled with pages of cherrypicked examples and further reading, jotted down in the form of tiny, keyhole essays by a moderately talented author, though it'd take a few minutes to get through. Theo would disappear into the crowd if it weren't for the robot, which people part around and stare visibly at, clearly trying to work out whether he's a local with some kind of disability design they've never seen before, or a rare, multiversal visitor. Hoodie wearing troublemakers like Konoe appear to be not out of place either. Gawain is predictably the one who nobody can ignore, a half-circle already forming around him. "The hell do you think?!" "A demonstration of our basic rights!" "Do you live in a cave or something?"
Guest Psyber	When the woman confronts him, Psyber's entire posture changes. It becomes almost coldly professional and, for a brief flicker, one might thing they were just looking at a larger version of Nathan Hall. His response, likewise, is precisely the right passive aggressive monotone and phrasing one might expect to come from his best friend as he holds out his tablet and goes, ""Local woman was interviewed, stating that the interviewer could do something. The London Gazette could later confirm this, by exercising agency, and using cause and effect." He's clearly waiting for her to actually say her side of things, now that she's stopped him in the middle of work and tried to corner him with her side of the debate. He doesn't have any follow-up statement or any other response to her, simply holding out the microphone on his tablet with a sort of bland monotone to his face while he waits for her to make a follow-up statement. The only other thing he's doing is, while he holds that tablet out, is protectively attempting to put himself as close to Madoka as he can. In case these people get too rowdy, he wants to be able to cover the girl standing near him.
Theo Morrison	Theo did not count on people being weirded out by Kickotron. He assumes that this is because they think he's some kind of murder machine, having no other context as to what the heck the myr is. Being the progressive sort, Theo goes, "Huh? What's up?" He's American. It's pretty obvious. After a second, Theo looks down at Kickotron. "Him? Haven't you guys seen a myr before? Here, c'mon." He makes a gesture. Kickotron hops over and jumps, landing on Theo's shoulders in a practiced maneuver. The myr is partially braced on the backpack. Theo only winces a little bit. "Gotta work on the landing..." "I'm Theo; This is Kickotron. He's my trusty sidekick. Fights crime, creatures from beyond the veil, giant monsters, that kind of thing." Theo looks at the staring people. "Sooo... someone wanna maybe fill me in on what you folks are doing here? There's guys with riot gear over there," he nods off to the side, "and that's ridiculous for this neck of the woods, especially if you're just demonstrating."
Ayako Hasekawa	Ayako glances through the pamphlet and... blinks her eyes slowly. Hmm... propaganda, huh? Err... wait. Use of familiars for personal escort? Even if she looks very human right now, she could be mistaken for a familiar if she's not paying attention properly so... She quietly, but still with a hint of urgency walks over to Arthur and Riva. Whew. Safe with others! Her head inclines to the side gently. "What do you think of this, Riva? Arthur?"
Gawain	Sir Gawain has gotten the gist of what's going on over the radio, and as the crowd begins to form around him, he decides to ask more questions! He is very connected to magic users, in multiple ways, so he doesn't get fullscale hatred of magic. "What's so wrong with magic that it destroys your rights? Magic users aren't inherently bad! They're people too, just different, but nobody is the same! I mean, I'm all magical myself! Should there really be such a problem over the existence of certain people?" He has no idea what his words might get him into, but he's speaking pretty idealistically, and honestly believes what he's saying. "Some people wouldn't still be around without magic, it can save, or even make lives!"
Kimiko Shinobu	"Arthur," by way of greeting. Kimiko's reaction to Arthur's speech is mainly the sigh of the long-suffering introvert, lacking any sincere irritation. He's not wrong, but that doesn't mean she'll rise further to the prodding. Glancing back, she can see that Nozomi isn't going to be much more talkative, though she doesn't really have a problem with this. Trying to get any information online is proving difficult, and Kimiko is actually a bit relieved to hear Riva's summary. She had thought it was just another instance of her not being very good with computers, and even after she gets the information, she's not clear on a lot of what it's on about. Familiars and augmentation? The words are more understandable than the context. To Nozomi, "I think..." Looking forward, to where Psyber is shielding Madoka while getting an interview, and where Gawain and Theo are independently attracting attention, Kimiko shakes her head, "...that we should keep back from the crowds. The close angles are covered, and we should be in less danger here." That said, she's still edging a bit in Gawain's direction, predicting something terrible occurring.
Konoe Kanno	Konoe, finding herself utterly unable to read the pamphlet, simply pocketed it and looked towards a nearby commotion. Oh, that was...Gawain? She'd heard his voice on the radio. Curious, she stepped a bit closer, approaching the half circle that was partly surrounding the servant. "Basic rights?" Konoe asked, speaking loudly enough to get their attention. "What does magic have to do with basic rights?" She went on to question after, supplementing Gawain's piece. ...He probably shouldn't have mentioned he was all magic, but well...that's a bridge they'd have to cross now. She didn't make any sudden moves, but rather, watched carefully.
Kaname Madoka	Public demonstrations are not at all uncommon in Japan, but they tend to happen around Tokyo. Suffice it to say, Madoka has not been to Tokyo very often in her life, and even if she had been demonstrators there tend to keep a certain 'formation' to keep with such things -- a formation that isn't 'form flesh crop circles amidst a massive churning of people blocking the middle of a street'. As such, this sort of atmosphere is foreign to Madoka for reasons far beyond simply 'being in a future where magic is public', and she gladly takes any opportunity she is given to pack closer to Psyber. It's loud around here, and people are being kinda shovey! One would think that wouldn't intimidate her so much when she's been in and out of witches' barriers for upwards of three years, but unfortunately that isn't the case for her. It's so loud around here, in fact, that she's having trouble making out what most people are saying. She gets the gist of Psyber's comment and is able to garner that he's /probably/ trying to goad her into revealing /something/, though the mysterious ways of private eyes and the ultimate goal of him doing so eludes her entirely for the time being. What she does notice beyond Psyber, though, is Gawain. Like many of the locals, her eyes are drawn to him mainly by virtue of the fact that he's 'wearing medieval armor in a hypermodern city', but also because he, um, seems to be goading people on in his own way. Were she closer to him she might tap lightly on one of his pauldrons to suggest that he -not- do that - people seem rancorous enough around here as it is - but alas, she's a whole sea of bodies away, and she's not going to try shouting over to him. In all likelihood she can't even make her voice get that loud! So a good summary of what she accomplishes in this timeframe is 'swaying in place while awkwardly and nervously glancing to and fro'. She might attempt to look down the street again in the interim, though, to try to get a visual on exactly what all these people are gathered here for. Scarlet was kinda nebulous in her description of why everyone is clustered around here, after all, so hopefully Gawain's 'inquiries' will yield some sort of answer on that front. Or if she could just... see over the crowd a little bit...! Sigh. It really sucks being short sometimes.
Nozomi Houken	Nozomi looks between Arthur and Kimiko with a vaguely puzzled expression, but by this point she's gotten used to how... Arthur, he can be. Instead, she contents herself with trying to watch the crowd without looking like she's trying to get anyone's attention, which ends up balancing out to something like 'glancing up at the crowd nervously every few moments'. However, Kimiko's words in particular draw up her attention, and after a few moments of consideration, she nods. Taiga's voice chimes in over both their radios, "You are also easier for me to cover where you are. I am in a good position to target any hostiles that might attack before you can transform, Kimiko Shinobu. And if you need to go on ahead, I can step in to protect Nozomi."
Riva Banari	Riva gives up on the phone correlation afte a few minutes of struggling with an internet that has long moved past the limitations of mere smartphones. She puts it away and looks over the pamphlets, getting an idea of what these people are about and what they stand for. As she begins to try to read the specifics, however, she perks, listenig. Is that Gawain, and is he... Whe Ayako asks her, Riva almost instinctively gives Ayako a quick one-armed hug of consolation. "Everything will be fine," Riva says. "Just keep close and watch for anyone who might be preparing to do anything they shouldn't be. Can you see down in the sewers, Ayako?" She asks. And that's when she gets a Look on her face and she stalks towards Gawain. She has a Plan. "It has /everything/ to do with rights!" Riva calls out. "Magic is power, and while some people use it for good, some people do horrible things with it! It needs to be properly controlled, and mages should be held to the same standards of human rights and dignity that all people are held to. Familiars can be dangerous. People can't even see them, but they can sure hurt or kill you if they're set off! What about people who can't use magic at all, huh? What about them, when they can't do everything a mage can? Is that what you want the new class warfare to be? Think about it!"
Scarlet Everille	Psyber might have a hard time imagining someone looking any more simultaneously and ineffectually confused and outrage at the moment, the woman who has chosen to confront him glaringly advertise that she's angry at him but isn't clever enough to come up with the words. Scarlet seems to think it's funny though, making only the inversely effective gesture of hiding her smile behind the back of her hand. The woman grabs the corner of Psyber's tablet, leaning way closer than she actually needs to. "You could start with cutting out that bullshit about "rioting" and "civil misconduct"! This is a legal demonstration! How about for a change instead of reporting that there was one, you report what it was actually about, huh? Maybe stop kissing ACOP's arse while you're at it! We're here because every bloody building on this street is owned by a magus and his or her little pixie dust shooting toadies, and it's the same for every other one! How about you report the last time someone NORMAL turned out a CEO? I think we'd all love to hear that!" Someone from behind her puts a hand on her shoulder to try and pull her away a little, looking worriedly to Madoka. Almost as if by magic, Theo's American accent has absolved him of the crime of looking weird and dumb in public. Driving home the irresponsible, over-imaginative kid thing helps, as does the fact that personal robotics are a bigger commerical fad across the pond. "Kid, you really shouldn't be here." says a concerned older gentleman. "You're gonna get detained for foreign sabotage if someone here decides to break a window. Take the robot and go." By contrast, literally nobody here seems to have quite the same accent as the local Heaven or Hell employee.
Ayako Hasekawa	Ayako smiles cheerfully when Riva gives her a one-armed hug. "Eh heh. Yeah... I'll keep close." Her amber eyes dart about when Riva tells her to keep her eyes peeled and- Ayako blinks her eyes slowly. "Huh? The sewers? Yeah, I can. Why do you ask? You think someone's going to come from down there?" Uh oh. Ayako knows that Look that Riva gets sometimes. She's about to do something without thinking about the consequences! She opens her mouth to say something but it's too late! Her mouth slowly closes as she watches Riva stalk towards Gawain and call out.
Scarlet Everille	Gawain, on the other hand, has chosen very poorly, and so has Konoe in supporting him. This is a situation entirely unfriendly to what either of them have to say. The half-circle becomes a full circle as the center of the crowd clears to seal around Gawain, though nobody wearing a polarized visor up the stairs seems to care. "Boy you are in the wrong place at the wrong time right now." "The dumbest shill I've ever seen." "Is it time for a straw man? Nobody here is against magic for medical practice." "There's a difference between being born with a different hair colour and being born with goddamn magic!" "What's WRONG with it?! How about last month you fucking simpleton?! Or are you gonna start victim blaming too?" A couple are more interested in the hoodie now. "How about a right to privacy, right to equal education, right to equal employment, right to personal safety!"
Arthur Lowell	Arthur regards the pamphlet, and then looks at Psyber, as he speaks to Ayako and Riva. "WELL, judging by the BIG MAN'S whole WHALING gig over there, some of the WEIRD HAIR, and this whole thing being NET-BASED, we're lookin' at a 'LISTEN AND BELIEVE' kind of situation." He gives a quick wink and some double-fingerguns to Riva. "ANYTIME, Rivs! Always great, gettin' to HANG with YOU!" Then he's whirling on the crowd, seemingly pondering it. He looks at how Riva's handling this so far, making friends, theoretically... He's sure the others can handle Gawain. Arthur himself needs to focus on the core approach. "ALRIGHT." He mutters, partially over radio so anyone else can hear it. "We gotta handle this RIGHT. We gotta hit the GRASSROOTS at the ROOTS. MOB'S always LEADERLESS, so we move the MOB, 'cause the motivation is SIMPLE. Means givin' 'em a BETTER TARGET. Need some IDEAS on that, hmmm..."
Scarlet Everille	Riva is immediately popular, pulling the Liberal Arts fire. A handful of people begin cheering after every full stop, flashing lights in support, though that only seems to aggravate them against Gawain further. "The hell are they thinking letting them keep those THINGS around?!" "Oh that's right, everyone in parliament is doing it too!" "We were doing just fine without any of this hocus pocus shite!" A badge goes sailing over the heads of several to land fairly accurately in Riva's catch zone. "You! You're in good-lookin'!" Get over here and say that to his face!" Kimiko and Nozomi have little trouble maneuvering to a better position as the crowd focuses inwards. Taiga has a good read for the flow of people up high, being a strictly 2 dimensional layout. More importantly, he can see that the armed men standing as still as the royal guard have almost as good of a field of view as him. He can detect their electronic transmissions too, probably from integrated software suites in their gear.
Guest Psyber	"Mmm, I see. So tell me what steps you have taken on the individual level to reach a level of societal success?" Psyber asks as he holds out the tablet to her again while he asks these questions, "Not society as a whole, but you specifically. Your complaint is that more people like yourself are not in positions of power, so I would ask what individual efforts you have made to push yourself towards a more advantageous situation and how you have been denied opportunities despite these efforts. Please also explain how you arrived at your current situation as a result of your efforts towards upwards occupational mobility." He stares at her hard, seeming to not mind the fact that she's in his face because he's relatively sure he can talk a circle around this woman. He's been brought up debating NATHAN HALL about Petty Bullshit. This woman is a featherweight trying to go up against a Heavyweight Contender. The half-angel keeps a calm and level gaze on her as he waits for a response. "I am not discrediting your movement or your beliefs. I am simply asking for you to give me a full explanation of the efforts you have made to change the situation," Psyber continues, "How many meetings with Parliament has your movement been denied that you scheduled? Despite your lack of magic, have you attempted to hone specific business acumen and skillsets, but found yourself incapable of achieving a higher education at one of the non-magical schools?"
Konoe Kanno	"Eh? Uh....Wha?" Konoe took a step back at the obvious turn in mood of the crowd. Whoops. But it was a valid question! "M-Magic is tied to all of those things?" THe bakeneko asked, her mind swirling in confusion. Was magic this important!? Other worlds sure had it tough! "You really mean that people without magic are denied privacy, equal education, employment, and have their safety threatened?" A pause. A tilt of the head. The hoodie's ears flicked suspiciously. "But why is that? Why does it matter if people have magic or not? Does having it really make someone a better person than the next?" She furrowed her brows. "That doesn't seem fair. That's why you're all out here?" Beat. "But what's this going to accomplish? Shouldn't you take your demands to your leaders?"
Theo Morrison	Theo, whose very being reeks of concentrated FREEDOM (actually just the Burger Shogun he had on the way over), is... dismissed as some kind of ignorant American kid. Well, /part/ of that is right. He'll be twenty this year! He totally doesn't look it, though. "'Foreign sabotage?' I'm a friggin' tourist, man!" He plays up the expectation now that he's got the idea they have it. "And we practically /invented/ protesting." Not necessarily true, Theo thinks, but it'll work out. He pulls up the sleeve of his jacket and glances at his ecto, the flexible computer currently worn like a bigger watch. "...ugh, alright. Hey, Kickotron --" The myr suddenly hops up and down to the ground. It seems to have retrieved a piece of posterboard from Theo's backpack. Kickotron wanders into the midst of the staring crowd, then bends down, puts it on the ground, and uncaps a marker. A moment later, he's holding up a sign reading, in text that might as well have been machine printed, 'ROBOTS ARE PEOPLE TOO!' and looking for someone to hoist him by way of hopping in place to try and get above the heads of the crowd. It's very distracting. Theo has taken a step back and turned around, apparently to close his backpack with some mutters. He takes a slow breath, and looks through the crowd to the obvious Gawain. Blue mana wells up from... somewhere. It's silent and invisible, and in some quantity. He only needs a little off the top. Theo lifts a finger, shielded by his body, and points at Gawain. "Unsummon," he mutters. There's a brief effect like a heat haze around Gawain, the thin wisps of white, mist-like Aether manifesting in too small amounts to draw much notice. They fade away almost instantly -- and with them, Gawain should, too.
Gawain	Gawain's getting crowded too close for comfort, but can't do anything at risk of hurting someone, and also continually to forgets he can dematerialize, because he rarely does it. Calling for help over the radio, it comes in the form of Theo's Unsummoned spell...by making him fade away. And reappear right on the other side of the crowd, where he had been about five minutes ago. He's not out of sight or out of the woods, but he's safe from crowding, for now! "Theo, I think things are probably going to go pretty poorly now!"
Arthur Lowell	Normally, Arthur is ALL about this sort of thing. Mortal pride? Hell yeah! But Arthur isn't gonna ditch the princess here. And if there's one thing, one thing above ALL ELSE, one thing that he can do better than ANYONE, it's be an obnoxious jerk in an internet-type way. He's seen enough Familiars to know the way to do this, and he's seen enough internet fads to know how to handle this. In one flourishing motion, he moves up into the air, and discards his mortal form all at once. By 'discards his mortal form', one means, he discards his face. Familiars around this world always lack faces, right? So when he reforms himself into a fusion construct in one swift motion, he makes DOUBLE SURE that he looks as faceless as possible, even conspicuously making sure to remove as much of his facial features as possible. He's also learned a lot of Noble Horrorterror language over the millenia. Enough to speak something that sounds obviously otherworldly and foreign when he pops up. The dialect, of course, comes off as the antithetical being of movements like these: Confident, stereotypically white-male american, and keenly designed to seem just ignorant enough to enrage while being just smart enough to seem like a guiltless target. It is, in essence, the typical trolling 4chan persona. "WHAT'S UP NERDS, I'M HERE TO HAVE A CIVIL DEBATE WITH HAMBEASTS AND WHALES. CALL ME ISHMAEL, 'CAUSE I'M 'BOUTTA SEE A TON OF BLUBBER. HERE'S WHAT'S UP: MORTALS SMELL, TAKE A BATH AND MAYBE YOU CAN GET BETTER JOBS. WASH OUT YOUR WEIRD FACE SENSE BITS AND MAYBE YOU CAN FIGURE OUT HOW IT WORKS." Arthur has, of course, started this at the edge of the crowd, and is already moving away. Not so fast that the crowd will be left behind. No, he's specifically trying to lead the crowd, and make a huge show of absolutely everything. These are bloggers They are going to want to record it, and they are also going to want to get in fights about it. Arthur intends to start taking strategically-placed losses to give them emotional gratification and make them inclined to slowly move away, and towards more harmless areas. Ideally, this can draw attention away from Gawain, maybe take the heat off a bit. There's only so much heat to go around!
Nozomi Houken	Taiga is not above shifting his position a little bit to get a better angle on this or that, but he's not going to move too terribly far from where Nozomi is. He's got a good vantage point for his needs, which are 'protect Nozomi and/or obey her commands'. However, with his position, he does have to be wary of the men in armor, so he's careful to stay low to the roof. He does, however, have a brief bit of information to offer. "The men in armor may be motionless, but they are most certainly communicating. About what, I am not certain, but they have active transmitters."
Ayako Hasekawa	Ayako blinks her eyes quickly as Arthur moves up into the air. "E... ehhh?" Here's hoping Arthur knows what he's doing because... well, this is going to very clearly be the sort of magic thing that these people are protesting against! Especially when he reforms himself and very notably Discards His Face. Yeah. That's definitely going to get their attention. And then Arthur's voice. Ayako eeps softly. The panickiness and nervousness slowly goes away when it's revealed that Arthur is trolling the protestors. She still can't really think or say anything to the protestors though! I mean, how do you react to something like that?
Scarlet Everille	Scratch that. Psyber can now imagine someone looking more wordlessly pissed off. He seems to have made a couple of bystanders a little uncomfortable too, turning around and pretending not to listen. Scarlet seems to have been right over the radio. A lot of these people are on a bandwagon. "Oh fuck you!" she finally articulates. "What, so I have to personally get shot to know what police brutality is? I don't have the time to run all of this as well as everything else I do! I didn't even get to go to a nice school! You wanna know why? Because my parents could only teach me how to work hard, not draw shit all over myself so I can read and memorize an entire textbook in an hour and vomit it out ad-verbatim on a scholarship exam! I don't get decent work either because I don't get to fucking teleport shit across the city or whatever! I have to drive!" She's getting more than a little incoherent. "Kid. No, seriously, kid." the older man insists, trying to squeeze between people to get closer. "This is a bad idea. You should go home. You're not gonna get out on a tourist visa. Take the robot and-" The urge to facepalm is almost visible as Kickotron starts up. "No that's not the point of this rally! Kid!" He manages to grab hold of Theo by the shoulder just as Gawain disappears. The disappearing act itself seems to generate more of a reaction, and it is not entirely positive. Everyone surges backwards as Gawain dematerializes, several obligatory screams going out, followed by a moment of silence, and then a deafening uproar. "What the hell, he wasn't even real?!" "So now we're not even worth sending shills in person huh?!" "Fuck was that some mind control bullshit?!" "No you asshole, mind-altering magic doesn't exist." "That's what they TELL you!" "And the police just let it walk in here?!" "Ugh! Where's the one who summoned that! Trying to make me look like an idiot!" "What if there's more of them?!" "Why don't you wankers try arresting whoever's causing THAT public disturbance huh?!" The last line is uttered with a bottle being thrown out of the croud and smashing harmlessly on the helmet of one of the ACOP officers, who immediately levels his rifle at the exact spot in the crowd it had come from, his ballistic computer reverse calculating its trajectory. "You!" he yells through his external speakers. "On the ground, now! Everyone else back away! This is your only warning!" His superior officer doesn't reign him in.
Scarlet Everille	"How stupid are you?!" someone yells back at Konoe, the general volume of the crowd increases just by others picking up on the hostile attitude. "How are you ever going to be sure you're not being followed around by some jerk's invisible spy? The government sure isn't going to tell you, and how are the police supposed to find it?" "Why are they grading those freaks on a curve with people who aren't juicing their brain with goat blood and praising satan every morning?!" "So what do you expect everyone to do when a magus falls off a balcony, breaks his neck and his demons go off the chain?!" There is a fresh wave of indignance at the last question. "What good do you think that's going to do?!" "You think parliamant doesn't know?!" "Even the queen's daughter is a magus now!"
Gawain	Sir Gawain actually feels really bad for making everything angrier, even though it does hurt to be called a shill. So when the gun is raised, and he's told the likelihood of firing is higher than he wishes, he's moving as fast as his supernatural legs will take him, which is pretty fast. And he's stopping right in front of the officer with the gun, standing firm to take the fire. "No, stop!", he shouts for lack of anything else to say, very loudly, hoping he becomes a bulletshield. Shouting out in the general vicinity of the others, "Get the crowd out of here! Go!" This is probably his craziest idea all night, but it can't be his worst.
Kimiko Shinobu	"Stay here. Or further back." Kimiko says to Nozomi, while walking at a quick step toward the crowd. In fact, she's walking in-between the ACOPs and the crowd, though close enough to the latter that she could almost maybe be thought of as being part of it. Enough people here have dyed hair, it shouldn't be an issue. Here eye's on that gun. Like she said--very precse. She's reasonably certain that its pointing directly at the person who threw the bottle, and that means all she has to do is get directly in its path. And then she'll just stand there, an unarmed civilian in the wrong place at the wrong time, not apparently listening to demands she move in any way. If possible, she'll also keep directly on the opposite side of Gawain, but that's not the main goal.
Riva Banari	That's exactly what Riva was hoping to hear. With a snap of her hand, Riva grabs the badge out of the air and pins it prominently on her jacket. Arthur is right, to defuses this they're going to need to handle this from both sides. Riva knows what side she's working with. This is all too familiar, though the look of the ACOPs continue to make the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Still, in order to help try to keep this from becoming a horror, they need to de-escalate this. And the best way to do that is to move it to a place that's less dangerous. As Arthur puts on his Faceless look, Riva looks up at him in shock for a moment, her mind racing as she begins to ad-lib some ideas together. Those ideas break like the bottle that just got thrown. "EVERYONE!" Riva yells. "BACK DOWN! Violence isn't the answer! Our message of jusice and equality cannot be heard if it is stained with blood!" She throws a fist into the air. "Together we will make our voices heard! We will not be denied! We will have our message be heard throughout London!" She then leaps up and calls out, "PEOPLE OF LONDON! FOLLOW WITH ME! HEY, HO, HEY, HO, FA-MIL-IARS HAVE GOT TO GO! HEY, HO, HEY, HO!" She begins repeating herself as she holds her fist in the air, marching deliberately down the street to try to draw people away from the deteriorating situation there. The fact that she seems to be deliberately defying and chanting at Familiar!Arthur might help lend a target to their feelings as they move.
Theo Morrison	Theo waggles his finger as if to shake it from a burn just as he gets his shoulder grabbed. He looks back up, startled. If the older man is really perceptive, he'll see the interior of the backpack just as Theo closes it back up. Is it bigger on the inside, or was that just a trick of the light and the pile of stuff packed into it? "Huh?" He is kind of actually startled; he was concentrating. He recovers and tries to make it directed in the right way. "Oh, crap, sorry, my, uh, roommate likes to mess with the code -- Kickotron!" The myr stops his shenanigans. He turns to one of the more stunned-looking men in the crowd and hands him the sign. People love being handed things, and by love we mean will usually blindly accept. Then, he wanders back over, and takes up a position at Theo's side in a much more docile manner. The bottle gets thrown, and Theo looks alarmed. "Oh, crap. Um..." He turns to the older guy. "...don't suppose you can maybe show me a good way outta here? I think you might not want to be around in a minute, either."
Guest Psyber	"Pass," Psyber says in response to the 'Fuck you' comment, watching her blandly, "That seems to be your objective if you're out here, however. Your poor management of the rally is causing it to become increasingly more polarized and it is presently on the verge of violence. If you truly wish to accomplish something, you will disperse, reorganize, and attempt this another day with a more tight-knit watch on who attends." Psyber tells h er pretty flatly, taking the tablet back and putting it in his jacket. "The validity of your movement aside, it has now been officially tainted by violence," Psyber calmly informs her, watching her with an unnatural blandness to his face, "If you wish to accomplish anything positive, it will not be today. Please take my advice when I tell you that your best option is to take the people who believe you and your words and disperse now, so that they will not be caught in the crossfire between the police and the instigators, as was likely the intention of this violence in the first place." "If nothing else, while you lack magic, many of these people listen to you. Will you have them die for your belief, or will you have their lives used productively?"
Konoe Kanno	"Geh-How rude! Do I look stupid?" And now Konoe was getting irritated. the ears on her hood flattened forward in time with her mood. "You're standing here in the street complaining about your rights, but it sounds more like you're just looking for an excuse to whine about mages!" She stretched an arm out, indicating the street. "What's this going to do for you? What does standing out here with your signs do? Nothing! You're just distrupting the flow of things to no good end! Why don't you people actually do something constructive to change your environment instead of throwing a fit in the streets? You can hollar and yell here all you want, but you're not ruining anyone's day by doing it! It's insignificant! Take that passion you have and put it towards something useful to your cause!" Whoops. Angry cat was angry.
Ayako Hasekawa	Ayako glances around slowly. Way too many people against magic. She can't really make a barrier right now. They would all freak out over that! Just like they did over Gawain vanishing! She can't really help convince the crowd to disperse or help protect them directly. There is one thing she can do, though. She saw where that bottle came from! "Ah. Excsue me! Sorry!" And so she picks her way through the crowd as she tries to find that one person that threw the bottle.
Scarlet Everille	Arthur has a hell of a mixed result. A lot of people are so plainly uneducated that he assume he is some mage's grossly offensive Familiar and start to book it. Others are ready to believe the more likely story that someone is being incredibly insensitive and projecting an image to voice their internet troll behaviour in the most tasteless manner possible. Many begin yelling after him, with a surprisingly varied collection of catchlines from different internet social circles he wouldn't normally ever see together. Some begin actually following him. Nobody throws anything at him, thankfully, because they all think he's either not real or something incapable of experiencing pain. Kimiko getting in the way doesn't seem to be about to stop anyone for long though. As the paramilitary officer gets the firing negative from Kimiko wandering into the path of his laser rangefinder, he signals a compatriot at the opposite end of the line, with a clearer, if more distant angle, who raises his gun instead. It doesn't look like anything produced in her world, but the chance of it being an entirely non-lethal weapon seems pretty low, the best she can hope for likely being that it's currently loaded with rubber bullets. At least they're very disciplined about crossfire and crowd control here. Riva appears to be getting equally mixed results to Arthur though. The more educated, older, and/or more responsible members of the crowd seem to know she's right, and recognize her attempt to control the situation, mirroring her in isolated pockets. A good deal seem to be ignoring her however, to chase after Arthur. Not quite the majority, but still a worrying amount, seem to be ignoring both in bloody-minded determination to inconvenience any mages in their offices for as long as possible.
Kaname Madoka	This got really bad, really fast. People respond so negatively to magic users here that Madoka is a bit scared just knowing that she can use her own variety of it. Just think: if she were to light a flame in her palm, even -accidentally-, she might suddenly have as large a swarm around her as Gawain had around him earlier. And the paranoia! People think that mental manipulation magic can be affecting things behind the scenes, without their awareness, and the people with the loudest voices are using that fear to spur the ever worsening rancor at every opportunity they get. As Madoka shrinks further and further behind Psyber, she immediately begins to see: there is absolutely no way to win in this world. Either you're with Septette and trapped with a horde of snobs, or you're down here with people too afraid to think rationally. In a way that's just as eerie as it might be depressing, this actually reminds her of the way people act when witches are present nearby: paranoid, angry, afraid, even sad. By the time things have escalated to the point where Theo's 'Kickotron' is lashing out at other people, she has probably grabbed Psyber's free hand outright. This... this really is her world with magic in the open. It has all the same flaws, and people respond to danger in the same exact way: they form enclaves against difference and demonize what they can't understand. And then this happens. Riots crop up; innocent people die or are arrested; nothing changes. The magical people in power probably tolerate it because they know it won't ultimately amount to anything, but... but what would happen if someone on this side ever -did- think of something that could rival magic? That answer is simple: it would be unthinkable. The only thing worse than the status quo is the potential Armageddon that would come of two sources of infinite power clashing like that. There presence in the mere thought in the back of her head makes her quiver even more -- she hasn't felt this helpless since she saw Mami fighting a witch alone, or when she later saw her and the rest of her friends die. The weight of the situation here crashes down on her, and before she can even begin to hope for some sort of solution, the sheer immutability of the affairs here utterly suffocates her. In the final moments of that quandary, her soul gem might actually start to accumulate corruption. Her grasp on Psyber's hand squeezes tighter, too. In Heliosanctus, she couldn't have understand just how much was wrong with this world. Now, though, she's beginning to grasp it in full. And it's driving her insane all over again. She knows exactly why this world reminds her of Mitakihara now.
Gawain	The chance of firing on Gawain and Kimiko goes down, but another cop pulls his gun up. Since Kimiko seems to have this guy dealt with, Gawain's superspeeding again towards the next one, stopping in front of his gun. He's going to use his overall difficulty to be moved to make himself into a brick wall and hopefully stop the guy from firing, or if he does, to get him to hit Gawain, instead. Gawain's not even considering the possibility of getting arrested after all of this, only the potential casualties.
Arthur Lowell	"BORING COPYPASTA. ALL I'M HEARING IS," Arthur says, and then makes bored, otherworldly fart noises with his mouth. "PBBBBBTHHHT PBBBTHHHHHT PBTHT. COMPLETELY WORTHLESS. CAN EVEN ONE OF YOU COME UP WITH ADVANTAGES OF MORTALS IN A WORKPLACE? ANY IDEA HOW MANY NORTAL JOBS ARE LOST TO FAMILIAR NOWHERE-SOURCING? I BET IT'S FUCKIN' NOTHING ANYWAY." Arthur expects that many of them can, in fact, and is specifically hoping that many of them will want to follow for Easy Outrage Points; someone they can spit internet facts at and seem better than, that's someone they'll keep following. He's trying to synch this up with Riva's direction. If he can get the instant-gratification sorts to follow along the same way Riva's trying to get the older, more mature audience that intends to actually do some kind of action, then the whole thing might start moving... Just need to get a little more than half on the road, and the rest will inevitably follow.
Scarlet Everille	The woman dealing with Psyber seems to have had enough of him, lunging forward to either shove him, or smack the tablet out of his hand (it's difficult to say) before another lady grabs her from behind, wrestling her back like a smart and responsible adult while actually apologizing to the "reporter", dragging her off the scene, along with a teenager who might be her son, seemingly glad to leave. A middle-aged man with a gigantic beard shuffles out of the spread, leaning down slightly to look at Madoka. "Are you with him? If you're scared, it's probably best to leave. I don't think they'd do anything to a reporter, but you can never be sure..." Konoe is not nearly so lucky. Talking that particular kind of smack to these people is a very bad idea. Partially because a good deal of them really are do-nothing slacktivist who'll only exercise any agency in a huge crowd. Partially because the rest are tired, angry, and frustrated after everything else they've tried didn't work. With so many voices speaking at once, the response she gets is more or less incoherent aside from a handful of choice insults to her physical appearance, intellectual capacity, and sexual promiscuity, even for her ears, but the rocks she starts getting flung her way speak more than enough. None of them are really dangerous to a youkai, but they sting regardless. Gawain is who makes it much, much worse. Displaying that kind of supernatural ability so aggressively and overtly towards an armed police officer used to dealing with dystopian civil violence is an even worse idea than before. Already on edge, having the Servant leap into his face triggers a reflexive reaction from him, followed by the officers adjacent to him. All five of them open fire on him in a heartbeat, dumping entire magazines at point blank. The good news is that the guns are, in fact, loaded with less-lethal munitions, and so while a human would probably be killed, a Saber shouldn't experience much more than severe pain and widespread superficial injury. The bad news is that if he doesn't go down, they'll immediately dogpile on him, and that full-body armour apparently incorporates a performance enhancing exoskeleton, as should be military standard by this era. The crowd alternately screams and jeers as he is brutalized, depending on who they think he might be. A hundred different streams go nuts at the same time as thousands of pictures are taken simultaneously. A handful of idiots resume throwing things, possibly even aimed for Gawain instead of the police, but their accuracy is bad enough that it only prompts the first wave of gas grenades into the front row. The regular domestic police outside get the message, and begin erecting their barricade.
Gawain	The bullets streaming at Gawain rip his suit apart, and also hurt very badly, his screams loud and clear. And then, reflexively and instantly, energy swirls around him, his suit quickly replacing with a suit of armor, floral printed and looking much like a knight's armor. He does not summon his sword, because that would make things so much worse, but he's going to try and resist the bullets and keep the men on him, so that the chance of other people getting shot is incredibly low. "No lives will be lost today!" Gawain /is/ going to resist being pinned, but he's doing nothing but taking their bullets, and no other sort of resistance!
Scarlet Everille	The person Ayako is looking for can't be any older than 16, dressed in a school uniform. A nice one too. He doesn't appear to be bad off at all, though he seems to have specifically left his smartcollar at home, coming with nothing more than nice glasses and a nicer backpack. He looks to Ayako defensively, but with obvious resignation, as if he'd given up before even coming here. "What do you want?" he asks quietly.
Kaname Madoka	Madoka only has so precious little time to break away from Psyber before getting caught up in the attempted shove. As she stumbles back, she likely comes close to walking in to the bearded man, but luckily she catches herself before then. She's... actually incredibly relieved to see a friendly face in this mess, or at the very least someone who isn't screaming their head off; really, the presence of even one person from this world who seems to not become entirely caught up in this climate of violence is enough to bring her back out of her rather dismal fit of reverie. This is signified by a series of mystified blinks in response to the man's kind warning at first before she finally pulls herself together. When she does, her expression evens into something much more unerring, much more steafast than her norm. After a fairly deep breath and an ensuing exhalation, therefore, she has to shake her head 'no'. But she does manage a smile, eventually. "Thanks," She says, "but I have to stay. It's... it's a part of my job to help calm people down when things like this happen, you know? And even if it wasn't, I can't let my friend get hurt. I'll be okay." She gives a nod of her head in affirmation before echoing, "Thank you." She hears what Psyber says on the radio, but she doesn't say anything there; instead, she respond to Psyber more quietly in person. At first that response manifests as but a tiny shaking of her head. "Even if I'll only end up being moral support, I'm not going to leave. I was scared at first, but I think I'll be okay now. And if I think there's any way I can help when I see what you're doing, I'll pitch in." Seems she's come full circle, because now she's giving a little thumbs-up with one of her winning smiles again. Let's fix this.
Guest Psyber	"Nnn..." A riot is literally UNAVOIDABLE. That much is totally clear. So if these people are literally going to riot no matter what, Psyber is going to change WHAT they riot about rather than the fact the riot is ocurring. The logic being that if it's not a violent riot about societal stations, this one won't turn into a GODDAMN SLAUGHTER. So... how to create a riot on a new topic? Well... Psyber bends over and picks up a rock off the street. He then proceeds to... hock that rock into the middle of the brewing riot. He's trying to hit someone who looks particularly loud and opinionated, because he knows that will draw the most attention. "LIVERPOOL SUCKS, CHELSEA SUCKS. SOCCER IS FOR PUSSIES AND A SPORT FOR LITTLE GIRLS AND CHILDREN. REAL MEN PLAY AMERICAN FOOTBALL AND FUCK YOUR STUPID NATION." Making sure the crowd literally sees him be the one shouting this, Psyber then takes off at a jog to try to lead the ensuing riot after him.
Kaname Madoka	... and right when Madoka was starting to feel confident in the situation again, Psyber does -that-. She stares blankly at him a moment, still as a statue. She has no idea how exactly she plans to play off of that one.
Kimiko Shinobu	There's no way for Kimiko and Gawain to entirely block the firing lines of every ACOP there unless one of them is standing very close to the target, or the ACOPs bunch up. The latter isn't happening, so Kimiko turns and tries to make her way inward, just as Ayako is doing from another direction--but then they DO open fire, and it's all on Gawain. Kimiko's head snaps back to watch, as does probably a fair few others if they were looking at anything else. Have they forgotten the first thrower? Considering all the fresh projectiles, probably. Things only get more chaotic from there, but she shifts priorities rapidly. First--is Nozomi okay? She was further back, and Taiga is watching her. Should be safe. Psyber? Can handle that. Gawain? ...probably fine, he's a Saber-class Servant, and Arthurian knights have pretty strong legends backing them. She picks up speed at a dead run for Madoka, grabbing her hand and then urging them both to book it in a direction entirely apart from Psyber's goading.
Ayako Hasekawa	Ayako smiles softly at the young man. "Now why did you go and throw that bottle? This was supposed to be a nice peaceful protest..." She glances slowly over his school uniform, backpack, and glasses. "You seem to be a smart, good student. That one bottle is going to..." She stops in mid-sentance as her amber eyes glance back towards Gawain and the ACOPs when the rocks and bottles begin to fly from several people in the crowd. Uh oh. Things are about to get very messy! "Make things violent..." Ayako swallows slowly and she glances back. "You better run! It's only going to get worse."
Konoe Kanno	"What? Excuse me!? What does my-OW! Are you literally-OW!" Konoe took a step back, a hand to her forehead after a rock bounced off of it, throwing her head back and incidentally knocking down her hood, revealing NON HUMAN ears to the crown. Of course, it's not like rocks would really seriously hurt her, but... ...It still stung! And then Psyber went and did a thing. "...Ow!" Another rock bounced off of her forehead as she thought. But she got an idea. "OW! ARGH! YOU'RE ALL A BUNCH OF WHINY GOOD FOR NOTHING BABIES!" She began to dodge left and right, avoiding a few further rocks as she yelled. "I BET YOU COULDN'T DO THE RIGHT THING EVEN IF IT WALKED UP AND SLAPPED YOU ACROSS THE FACE!" And then she turned and waved her behind at the crowd, her tail swishing this way and that. And then she booked it. In the same direction that Psyber was going.
Kaname Madoka	When she said she wanted to help, she didn't expect Psyber to literally plant a beacon on himself to make him the focus of aggression for the entire group. And much as she hates to just leave him like this, there's... not a whole lot she can do. With something of a pained look, she accepts Kimiko's hand, running off in whatever direction she deems safest. The old cliche is that you should 'never look back', but Madoka does anyway. She just hopes he's gonna be okay...
Nozomi Houken	To say that Nozomi is a bit frightened right now would be a gross understatement, but Taiga leaping down from the rooftops to land right in front of her with a heavy /WHUD/ is enough to jostle even her back to reality. "Nozomi. On my back." She nods wordlessly and climbs on, and just like that they're back out of the street, on the rooftops, and most importantly out of the way of any rampaging mobs. As soon as they're up there, however, Taiga paces from one edge of the roof to another, leaps to a second roof, checks several different directions, and then begins relaying instructions to Kimiko on the clearest path to safety.
Scarlet Everille	The protestors unfortunately appear to have lost interest in Arthur with the sound of guns going off. Some break to stop, stare, and even film, but some simply get the idea and keep running in the direction he was leading them, skipping past the barricade while the city police are still setting it up, and before they're properly in position to stop and detain anyone. He can hear sirens in the distance, though nobody believes he is actually possible to arrest, and so no attention is spared towards him. There is a wave of confusion more than anything at Psyber suddenly blurting out sports teams, followed by a scattered handful of "'ey fuck you buddy!"s, and finally some real action. Some people seem to just want to take the excuse to start something. Some are entirely uninterested. Some are offended he'd bring up something so stupid at such a serious place. Some are even entirely aware of what he's doing, and play along immediately. Effectively, between himself, Riva and Arthur's efforts, something like half of the crowd is either away, or fighting about something stupid and inconsequential. The other half though, are doing something uncommon for civilian protestors: sticking to their guns despite how terrible of an idea it obviously is. It's left to the imagination how strongly these people must be if they only move so far as to choke their way out of the tear gas. The one Ayako confronts merely shrugs helplessly. "As if anything else was going to happen. I'm done. Whatever they do after this doesn't matter. If I take up a cell, someone else can't be arrested." Madoka and Kimiko, making the wise decision, look like they're going to be the last to slip past the barricade before the intermediary police force arrives and starts walling people off, blocking the road with their cars and getting out the megaphones. Konoe could probably physically clear it anyways with her capabilities, but she's being pursued by angry civilians regardless, mob mentality prevailing. Nozomi makes a clean getaway, but via the least subtle manner possible. Importantly, as Taiga takes to the rooftops, he can sense the arrival of actual magical signatures. Though they don't hold a candle to Scarlet outside, they're still fairly signifcant, and there are quite a few of them. It really seems like they're planning to detain and process something like over 100 people still remaining behind, something normally associated with Soviet-era China more than the United Kingdom. Finally, Gawain appears to have made a further wrong move. As he magically summons armour to start deflecting the plastic-composite blunt rounds, the police response escalates in a manner that suggests these guys are closer to the SAS than the SWAT. With the less-lethals spent and their target still right in their face, now demonstrating more magic, they don't take chances and swap right to what their guns were built to fire before the underslung add-ons were attached. The popping bangs are replaced with whining cracks as plastic is replaced by hypervelocity flechettes, military-issue futuristic rifles now drowning him in anti-armour, automatic fire. There's no question now that they intend to kill him.
Gawain	Gawain may actually /die/ if he doesn't get out of there. He starts by moving quickly, so that there is no one behind him, no matter how far he has to move. And then, in the midst of being rained upon...he vanishes in a magical blip. Dematerialized, like he wasn't even there. He still /is/, and those who can sense magic will still notice he's there, though he can't do anything, nor can he be hit anymore. Then, he uses his full speed, and despite the immense pain, he takes a run for the quickest way home. In the end, he really feels awful. He caused all of this, by saying too much, and then using his powers, and really, he could have avoided this if he was more careful. He'll have to make this up to Scarlet, definitely.
Ayako Hasekawa	Ayako sighs softly at the young man's response and shakes her head slowly. "If that's what you choose to do..." She glances at the other people that are actually deciding to stay behind and actually confront the ACOPs as she starts to run. These people... really are that fed up about the situation?! She glances at the setup police barricade and reaches into her little star-shaped purse. The broomstick that usually accompanies her while she's dressed as a maid or a witch is swiftly pulled from it and ridden. Not side-saddle this time! Traditional witch-style. After all, she needs to depart swiftly! And so Ayako tries to depart the scene by swiftly flying away. Mostly in the direction that Psyber went in!
Arthur Lowell	Arthur's lost control of the situation. Can't handle everything himself, he supposes, at least not without tipping his hand more than a bit too much. He needs to wrap this up, in as much as anything can be wrapped up. He's going to continue to try to kite the group through insults, but at this stage, he doesn't expect them to care more about trolling than they do about guns. His core focus is to scramble this so that whoever's trying to abuse this whole thing as a screen for whatever nefarious plot they have won't have any chance to do it in the specific way they planned, at the very least. Gotta focus on the salvagable results, for now. He'll likely disappear dramatically after a while, but...
Konoe Kanno	Konoe looked back, swerving slightly aside to avoid a bottle. Sheesh, what were these people? Cavemen? She sighed and looked on ahead at the police barricade that was forming. Ugh. Well, she /could/ just fly, but that presented the problem of continuing to lead the people following her. There was only one thing to do then. The miko produced an ofuda prominently. It took on a white glow in that moment before Konoe threw it forward. As it went, the single seal multiplied, becoming many. Those thrown fuda arranged themselves into two 'walls', wedging between two police cars and then moving apart, creating an opening to run through before dissipating. Well, she just demonstrated magic to a mob of angry anti-magic folk. That should be enough to keep their attention. To top it off, her body left the ground and began to hover as she took flight a few feet off the ground, bursting forward through the barricade's opening. "I bet you NORMAL people can't catch me! Bleeeeeeh!" Konoe looked back and stuck her tongue out mockingly, then proceeded forward and away. ...She probably shouldn't come back to this place any time soon in the future.
Scarlet Everille	As the police line fully closes and Gawain diseappears, the hardened and heavily armed officers begin issuing loudspeaker orders, fanning out to police the crowd. Those that stayed behind are, for the most part, aware of what they're getting into, and don't cause much of a scene, and the few who just want to keep causing chaos swiftly fall in when a sizable black van with some kind of dish mounted on the top shows up. Those that Arthur and Konoe had separated seem more than eager to resume their chase rather than stay to be arrested and charged. Though Arthur will find his crowd slowly breaking apart as people sober up and try to get out, Konoe's crowd continues to pursue as far as they are able to just to record proof of magus abuse. The magic signatures detected earlier appear to be public servants, judging by the cars that drive them to the scene, and the fact that they're all in unassuming uniform. To those that are familiar, the eye colour alteration corresponding to passive sight magic should instantly mark them as mages without the need for extra senses. Despite this fact though, the dozen men and women who show up look startlingly... ordinary. As if corresponding to their modest degree of magical power, they look more like every day people who pay taxes and work a 9-5 than a born celebrity like Scarlet, if only in their general demeanor and bearing than anything else. They don't appear to be heavily equipped, which makes them more likely to be some kind of utility team, meant to track down any magic use that may have happened while aiding the police. Scarlet, positioned around the corner where they first arrive, takes the opportunity to head them off before they pick out the dematerialized Gawain, or the other obviously magical beings fleeing from the scene, such as Ayako, Konoe or Arthur. It's difficult to tell what she's saying for most, but the way she just strolls on up to government workers and starts talking at them, infrequently gesturing at some of the other Heaven or Hell employees, says a lot, as do the reactions of her audience. The mages look distinctly unhappy to see her, but far from dismissive, as if putting up with an unpopular boss. The armed police avert their weapons immediately just at the sight of her uniform, trudging onwards to join the others.