Scene #6445: OFF - Zone 2

Owner	Pose
Priscilla	Coming down out of the library's fourth floor, you're greeted by the receptionist on the way back down. The already nervous-looking man is even paler, sweating and fidgeting in discomfort as he tepidly asks "A . . . Are you alright? You didn't get hurt up there?" It doesn't take a genius to figure out the answer to that. Moderate cat savagery has been passed all around. Not even the Batter deigns bother respond to it. ". . . Well, at any rate . . . I saw a cat . . . I expect it to be by the south entrance . . ." the librarian continues, alerting you to the presence of yet more cats, as of you seeming to have an interest in the first one. Regardless of your intentions when heading out, however, it seems to be the specific feline you were anticipating before, rather than the one you'd now have reason to chase, previously unbeknownst. The Judge is already sauntering around the corner in that distinctively catlike way, turning his big bobble head back to fix you with his toothy grin and uncanny slitted eyes. As if already a parting comment, he says "Greetings, dear immaculate comrades. Has your journey not taken you to a place of optimum conditions? This is a drier area compared to the previous surroundings. I must admit that I for one am delighted. The feline gent is not very fond of rain." Indeed, not pouring plastic is at least a nice step up from Zone 1, as oppressively pink and lukewarm as this place is. "I have heard from an old friend that the shopping mall in the northern part of the city has fallen victim to ectoplasmic assaults, however . . ." the Judge resumes. "Perhaps it would be wise for you to hurry on over there and illuminate it with your purifying light." Then he exercises the well-known Cheshire bent of disappearing around the corner. Then again, he's always been good at getting there in the first place. With very little else to go on, and the notable (if increasingly dubious) claim that the spectres obey Japhet, it's only a short march to the mall, at the north side of the great library as the city of Bismark's central axis, one of its four holy cardinal directions (one of which is just the exit, in which no resident has any interest). It takes you to a cluster of buildings that slowly part inwards, as a series of steps gradually rises towards the north, and the general height of the cityscape lowers, leading to a sort of shrinking corridor feeling that funnels you towards the broad, pink facade of a square building, uncreatively labeled 'SHOPPING MALL'. The inside is a deep, cool blue, much like the library, albeit it somehow manages to have a slightly more 'upbeat' tone, possibly due to the faint, bland store music still piping through the dismally quiet speakers. It isn't much better furnished however. The designer's idea of facade is still mostly comprised of unpacked crates and boxes, at least neatly organized against the walls, like unloaded shipments. There are also posters up, however, clearly advertising things like crude meat, plastic tables, bottles of smoke, and plastic treasure chests (well, now you know where they come from). A little stand-up schedule stand says 'Welcome to the Gomez Galleries! May nothing stop your frenetic consumerism!' and then a fold-out warning stand, like a wet floor warning, says 'Please excuse the deterioration and disorder of our galleries'.
Priscilla	Exactly as he had claimed first you met at the end of Zone 1, Zacharie is here well before you, stood expectantly behind the counter, odd mask tied over his face, and a vaguely knowing chuckle on his lips underneath it. It seems odd for him to show up here, in a spectre-infested mall with no customers, but then there isn't anyone else behind the counter. Indeed, there are no other checkouts. He's the only person here who could hypothetically even cash out an order. "Buenos dias!" he greets you, in slightly off Spanish. "What better place to spend credits than a shopping mall, eh?" he then says, with a very good point. The Batter doesn't seem to be immediately interested, however (or rather, perhaps isn't?). Instead, he's gone from ad to ad, repeating the contents aloud, reading off deals on meat, smoke, plastic, and metal-based product, until he finally comes to one that brings a measure of pause. "This is an ad for baseball bats." he says, and then goes silent.
August Kohler	"We're fine." August replies to the nervous-looking man, barely giving him the time of day, though when he mentions he saw a cat by the south entrance, the redhead immediately heads in that direction. And luckily, it's their friend, the Judge! The Judge gets a glance and a nod, as August listens to him carefully. "Shopping mall. Got it. See you later, Judge." And then they're off. When they arrive at the mall, August glances around, looking for what's interested, but it's just unpacked crates, boxes, and no one there shopping. Weird. Though they do find a friendly face behind a counter. Zacharie. August approaches as he speaks in Spanish, tells them things are for sale. "What do you have? More resources are always nice." Fingers tapping against the counter, before August thinks to ask. "And have you seen the spectres in here? Or where they are?"
Tina Natsumi	"Dry ain't bad. Not as easy to get fun pratfalls this way, but it's sure as hell better than gettin' our hair all gunked up." Tina laughs in agreement with the Judge as she tips her hat back in a sort of greeting. Hearing that there's a mall in this place draws a curious grunt from her, and she smirks after a moment while checking her backpack. "Wonder if that means there's workers actually havin' fun out here. You think they even know what fun is?" That'll remain to be seen. The interior of the mall isn't really as... Mall-y as Tina would hope, and she even sighs when she comes across the advertisement for meat. "Seriously? /This/ is a mall? More like a Lidl than anythin' else." Her disappointment is apparent in her voice, but she doesn't let it keep her down for too long. A smack to both sides of her face, a determined grunt, a sudden Zacharie out of nowhere, and Tina has her gameface on again! "Yo yo yo! Yeah, we can probably find plenty o' useful stuff here. Like..." She slides over to where the Batter's stopped, smirking and nudging his side playfully. "Lookin' for an upgrade, eh? Can't blame ya, with the weird shit we've been dealin' with lately." She takes a look at the ad herself, trying to identify where those would be sold and, if directions are indeed provided, starts heading towards the bat store! "Still, it's kinda weird there ain't other people around. He-lloooo? Anyone out there?!" She calls out, feeling free-er to be as loud as she can compared to that musty old library.
Starbound Flotilla	George is here. He's smoking still, and he leaves a constant trail of the smell of hospitals. He's gone out to Zacharie. "You know it Z, I love me some highly concentrated capitalism. Get it all in one place all at once, like getting your vaccinations in a big ol' grid up and down your arm." He draws in much of his own smoke, then releases it in a great cloud. "Got your products here, or want us to head on in to take a look?" He notices the Batter, smiles a bit, and wanders over. "Hey, Bats. Always wondered what your bats are made of! Harold ain't exactly the sort of thing I'd guess is Metal, huh? These Bats around here imports, or do you snag 'em bespoke local?" He hefts the bat up to his shoulder. Then he looks about... "If I know retail, this whole place is haunted from floor to ceiling, it's just a matter of finding the main bit." George intends to seek out any visible path. Specifically, he has a purposeful look for maintenance paths, underground passage, and other places that constitute the guts, rather than the face, of a mall. What's his intention? Well, these tend to lead to security rooms, administration areas, and other such nerve centers, right? He moves with silent purpose regardless.
Doctor Strange	Among those present when the Judge makes his address is the Sorcerer Supreme, levitating a foot or so off the ground. This is how he appears, and it is also how he travels to the mall. "Bottled smoke," says the wizard with flat, facetious surprise as the Batter lists that one off. "Really a... popular item this year. Kills at parties." As usual, his tone is dismissive and dry--but it is a facade. He loves this place and its weirdness. The sign encouraging 'frenetic consumerism' manages to pierce his sarcastic shell enough for a raised brow and a twitch of the corners of his mouth to escape. The sudden silence from the Batter does give him pause, however. Usually he seems like he knows what he's doing, and this appears to have thrown him off his game. At least, that's what it looks like to Strange. He's only ever seen the guy once before this. "What's the matter? Not used to... targeted advertisement?" He begins weaving a spell, knitting lines of pulsing energy together with complex hand gestures until it forms the shape of an eye. Strange manipulates the scrying spell, sending it flying into the mall's smaller spaces--ventillation shafts, narrow hallways, anywhere someone else might be spying on them. Failing that, he'll float it around to scope out likely spots for spectres to congregate.
Starbound Flotilla	George takes a particularly long drag of his cigarette. "Weird, innit?" He asides, to Doctor Strange. "Hard to believe these guys are so damn hung up on the smoke. I mean, even Elsen's asthma aside, I just can't imagine people always breathin' smoke like that." He flicks his cigarette and stomps on it on his way past.
Aoko Aozaki	It IS nice that it isn't raining. It's an understated advantage. "You have friends?" Aoko peers at the Judge, as if doubting the statement. "I hope you treat them better than you treat us, sheesh! You come and go unhelpfully with cryptic advice, I can't picture what it'd be like if we urgently needed you for something!" Awful, probably. Well, the Judge IS sending help that way, so presumably he's a nominally good friend. At least. As Strange mentions BOTTLED SMOKE, Aoko produces a BOTTLE OF SMOKE that she'd been holding onto since their trip in the mine. "Oh, yeah. Here's one! I made off with as many as I could. For uh. You know, research." The ore chunks were also for research. "I think it's kind of like how you can buy cans of fresh air from exotic, tropical places."
Gilgamesh	The faint music, the boring tone, the unpacked crates and boxes, the plastic treasures - it's basically the naked underbelly of modernity laid bare, and as usual, Gilgamesh dislikes it. He's disliked a lot of this madness, but it's been an entertaining sort of dislike, a dislike in the shape of interesting new experiences with plastic seas and talking cats and all this spectre business, so he hasn't yet decided that he's done with it. "Wouldn't something that had friends require it to be able to acknowledge other creatures without submitting them to rigorous tests?" asks Gilgamesh, completely ignoring the many-layered staggering irony of that sentence. Then he goes back to looking around. When the Batter comments on the baseball bats, Gilgamesh glances at the ad, because the Batter's usually saying important things, and then, in a surprisingly uncharacteristic manner, says, "Do you need a new one?" This is much less generous than it appears - Gilgamesh just wants to get out of here as fast as possible.
Yuuki Kuran	"Oh, yeah. Dry is a mild improvement. I only ruined..." Yuuki's eyes unfocus. She had changed outfits many times, but was this still the same dream? Was it all the same dream? "It's either one outfit or six. Hard to remember." She shrugs, the motion of her shoulders slow and the tone of her voice skipping from the two numbers as if neither mattered. Honestly, with a shoujo closet like hers, wiping out a few outfits was probably overall good. The group continues on to a 'shopping mall', which is really a gallery, which is really a garage or storage closet if you look at all the stuff in boxes and not out. "It's not even on display. Hello, Zacharie. Do you take credits, cash, or gemstones today? Last time you did not." George says a thing that ellicits a snort of laughter from Yuuki, as she imagines. "All at once? Wouldn't that turn your arm diseased, with all the reactions and immune responses?" Slightly more privately, she leans in - though her voice isn't lowered more than 'faux clandestine' stage-whispered. "If you see something important, or find a secret, just blink normally." Yuuki full expects George to already know all the top-level navigations of this place. Having a little fun, then, is entirely fair.
Starbound Flotilla	"Or sting like hell." George says, shrugging at Yuuki Kuran. "But hey! Whooooole lot of immunity! If it turns out too bad, you don't just get that, you get to Princess Bride up some necrosis immunity." When she makes that subtle alert to him, his response is strange. He blinks several times normally at Yuuki, then walks away, holding one of his eyes closed and moving fairly jauntily while he does it. Wholesome, positive George shenanigans take the form of exploiting someone else's fun-making to approve of them and discourage negative self-esteem things. Yuuki is important!
Yuuki Kuran	"I'm pretty sure necrosis isn't a ha-ha funny thing, George." Yuuki replies with the light worry of a 'no, uh, really' tone. "For most people." She makes a show of lightly waving her hand through George's hospital-scented smoke cloud. "Then again, you're always prepared for a dozen or two needles to be jammed into your arm." She gives her best 'knowing' smile, which probably comes off as smug or, perhaps, sarcastic coming from her, but... George blinks normally, allowing her to nod and sigh happily. Then he closes one eye and saunters off. "George? I didn't get it, did you mean the first --" She blinks normally, if rapidly. "Or the--" she closes one eye and follows him for a few paces, her inherent doofiness winning out over SECRET CODES.
Priscilla	Zacharie chuckles again, in his characteristically good-natured way, muffled slightly by the cheap mask. "I've picked up a few new things since last time, since you were such good spenders." he replies to August. "Since you were headed this way, there are sure to be phantoms in the galleries, but it's the shopkeep's job to be a friendly face on the customer's way in and out, not to harass them while taking their time with the wares, no? I'm just fine out here. It's a reliable spot, where you can always find me if you overlook me somewhere else." The Batter shakes his head at Tina. He doesn't look shook (he never really looks much of anything but insufferably confident and unconcerned) so much as he appears to be somewhat over-thoughtful about the ad. "Not metal or plastic." he replies to George. Indeed, they look and feel exactly like wooden bats, though it's quite probable they're some sort of abstract purifying apparatus, neither of which would be manufactured here. "Nobody here would buy a bat anyways. It's an instrument purely for a Batter. This ad is strange." he says to Strange. He looks to his Emmanuel bat, then slowly shakes his head at Gilgamesh. "There's no way that an Elsen could create something as powerful as a baseball bat." Zacharie answers Yuuki with "Credits as usual, though if you have something interesting enough to re-sell, I'll take it off your hands as well. I don't think the people of Bismark have much want for gems and cash though. All those sharp edges. Hahaha." When prompted though, he does roll out his inventory, laying the assortment of bogglingly abstract and difficult to grasp items on the counter, lacking a fully realized physical order that makes them feel more like figments of a dream; visually represented, but inconsistently, with more of an understood function and associated feeling, rather than wholly defined sensory stimuli. His previous items (sans the Monday) are on sale, but joining the collection are now more expensive versions that are clearly upgrades, and more worthy of being 'actively' carried, as well as a few new items. Aura of Greatness: An immaterial coat woven of surpassing the transmundane. Begin with 100 Drive. Aura of Perception: An intangible garment that exists only in being unperceived. One attack of level 3 or lower misses. UIna Epidermis: A forearm bone suffused with a saintly aspect. Strongly diminish a single attack. Colour of Sadness: A tenth colour that is visual depression. Lose no Drive for one round. Colour of Hatred: An eleventh colour that embodies hatred to the eye. Recover all Hype spent for one round. Loyal Symbol: A character of undying loyalty. An attack of level 3 or lower becomes a critical hit. Vengeful Symbol: Spiteful vengeance writ in form. Strongly empowers a single attack. Tuesday: The second day of the week. Lowers all Hype cost by 1 (minimum of 1). Min-Woo Tunic: Baseball uniform signed Min-Woo. Moderately powerful.
Gilgamesh	The Batter gets a look from Gilgamesh, as if he both understands the sentiment and also thinks that he's kind of a moron. However, there's something much more important to do now. The King just walks over to Zacharie. He orders the Aura of Greatness, the Tuesday, and the Min-Woo Tunic without a second thought. He will probably also buy other things for people if they want, but those he is keeping for himself. He moves back and forth slightly. "Now I shall append King of Tuesday to my titles as well," he says idly as he starts dumping jewels and gold onto the counter out of thin air. The Gate of Babylon...well, it's the Gate of Babylon. Infinite riches. Eventually he'll hit some jewels, silver, gold, steel, or other thing he can trade that isn't an actual treasure.
Priscilla	Scouting around the entry lobby for clever ways to go about things, unlike just walking in like an absolute boss-rushing pleb, turns out to be a too smart by half sort of approach. The mall doesn't seem to have been all that well thought out. There are no useful vents, as it seems nobody thought to properly ventilate it, just letting faintly stuffy warehouse air drift out of the tiny square windows along the outer portions, and the faintly 'limp' air from outside, scented like poppies and sedatives, waft in to replace it half-heartedly. Maintenance corridors and such are also in short supply. It'd be difficult to imagine what there is to maintain. Bismark's creator was certainly abstractly powerful enough to raise an island of metal from a sea of plastic in all sorts of architecturally improbable configurations, but it seems nobody since has ever undertaken the hard efforts of learning how to actually furnish them with useful utilities beyond the absolute basics. There's no real need for engineering access when there's nothing more complicated than oddly self-sustaining overhead lights, and nobody here is an engineer; everyone is a resident. Someone to be protected here and entertained. It's odd that this solid metal building of nonsense even works. There are at least some back corridors in the form of loading bays and stockrooms, which is good, because moving product around the galleries themselves would be a nightmare. Why? Because just going around them normally already is. The inside is a maze in the literal definition of the term, made up of uncreatively joined square rooms snapped together like a lego set, winding obnoxiously around, branching off and terminating in dead ends, stuffed full of merchandise without rhyme or reason to their layout. Advertisements for the stuff already in the gallery is plastered all over the walls, sometimes right over the product, sometimes nowhere near it. Stacks of crates pile up in corners, barrels almost block short corridors, dozens of bottles are strung together with plastic and laid out in rows. Those odd 'treasure chests' pop up, unopened. Everything from metal railings to raw meat to plastic furniture to mannequins wearing variations of white and black business clothes are set up everywhere without real organization. The ads say things like 'Our plastic chairs are specially designed without any dangerous edges.' and 'Build you walls out of metal! In the event of an attack, their solidity is assured!' and 'The freshest air comes from our bottled smoke!' It's oppressive to navigate, despite the overall calming music and ultramarine hues. There also seems to be nobody here, no doubt due to the spectres. Explorations through a rear loading bay certainly involve a shortcut, but to where? It's prodding through those piles of crates that those extra-routers find one single, solitary man huddled up in a corner, behind metal shelves full of plastic crates. "I'm lost . . ." he whimpers, understandably so. "I could make a fire with the boxes . . . to ward off the ghosts . . . But . . . that would be too dangerous." he sullenly concludes. Indeed, the thick, malevolent aura of spectral presence is about, but it'll be hard to even find the damn things in this rat labyrinth. It's the perfect setup for some sort of awful 'run away and collect the eighteen diary pages' horror monster to come stalking you through, but it seems even the malignant spirits are having a hard time running into you by chance, as the maze of bland consumerism goes both ways.
Aoko Aozaki	"What!" Aoko squints at Gilgamesh. She produces her MONDAY, however that works. "No, no! See, I bought this so I'd have something to show off to you and you'd be like, fuhahahaha, you have taste, mongrel! and I'd be like yeah, I have a day!" Agitated. Very much so. Then she just pouts. "Geez, you are really hard to keep up with, King. I guess I'll have to resign to having had a day before you!" It's a small victory. Better than nothing. "Though, I'm dead broke. That colour's looking pretty swank," she says, motioning towards the Colour of Hatred. "I don't suppose I could call in a favor, King of Tuesday? You know, as a nice gesture towards the Queen of Monday?" Points for trying.
Gilgamesh	"I'll pay you double what you paid for Monday," Gilgamesh says offhandedly to Aoko.
Aoko Aozaki	Aoko opens her mouth. Closes it. Thinks. "Alright that sounds fair." It's not like she can equip more than one item anyway. Because this world has no concept of being able to wear multiples things, apparently! How dreadful. That Colour should come in handy, though, as would keeping herself in the King's good graces.
Gilgamesh	Gilgamesh tosses Aoko a bag of gold from out of the Gate. It is extremely heavy. It is probable she has never seen this much money in his life. "Now I am King of Monday and Tuesday." "Five more days and I am King of the Week." Gilgamesh rubs his hands together. "I think I shall rename these days at some point."
August Kohler	As August looks over the items, he chinrubs, and then speaks to Zacharie. "I'll take an Aura of Greatness for myself." It's not because he thinks he's super great or worthy of one, and he doesn't expect Gilgamesh to pay for it. He's minmaxing, obviously. When the others proceed forward, August follows ahead once he has obtained and EQUIPPED his Aura of Greatness, As they travel through the maze of crates, he opens any that look valuable to try and get loot, and then join up with George and Yuuki. "Find any spectres?" And when they have, well, they find a single 'man' whimpering in a corner. August considers being sympathetic, and decides it's free to do so. "We're going to get rid of the spectres. Have any idea where they might be?" Whether or not the man gives any useful information, August brings his mirrored bracelet up to eye level, summons Dietrich the giant powered armor dark knight, and climbs on his back, the Persona holding a massive mechanical sword. From there, August tries to follow the sound of spectres and find his way there, following the others if they have any brilliant plans for tracking them down. "Let's see what this baby can do." He's referring to the Aura of Greatness. He knows absolutely what the Persona can do.
Starbound Flotilla	George stops by Zacharie again, as he discovers that there's a Way Forward. He makes sure to check in, and... he sees no bats. Hmmm. "Nothin' for the time at home plate, Z? I was seeing ads for a bat. Gimmie a hint, maybe? My share always goes to Bats and his habit, ya know." George likes Zacharie. But he doesn't ever buy anything for /himself/ there. "Gotta keep our home-run hitter in the game, ya know." Well, if there's nothing else to be done about it, George is going to head on in. As he wanders about, he doesn't /visually/ seem to care which way he's going, and maintains his jaunty mannerism as he goes. He brings up a scanner and pokes at it, but instead... shrugs, as if going "nah". He takes an entirely different approach, one made with the confidence of someone who might have been here before, or at least who has very often been in very similar places. This place has no ventilation, Strange and George both found that out. That means there's certain dynamics of air. George is DEEPLY familiar with space station construction, and how air moves inside enclosed, un-ventilated areas. So he lights up a cigarette. And he watches the smoke under the intense lights; where it gently flows, he follows. Albeit with detours. After a bit, he runs into the lost man. He doesn't speak much to him, but he sort of calls out, "Heyyyyyyyy, Doooooooooc?" Looking for Doctor Strange. "Got a guy here with a terminal case of being in the wrong place, think you can treat it with your fancy PhD in portals?"
Doctor Strange	Strange's eyebrows knit together at Aoko's remark, his mouth slightly agape. "People... buy that? ...huh." Suddenly, he feels a lot better about himself. He may have bought a lot of stupid things, but 'bottled air' wasn't one of them. The Batter's explanation tracks. The ad sticks out for a few different reasons, at least to Strange. There are, of course, the reasons the Batter mentioned. Bats also appear to have an obvious purpose. He can't say the same for bottled smoke or plastic treasure chests--if they have uses at all, it's well hidden in the trappings of this place. As his thoughts wander, his emerald eyes do drift over the merchandise on display--it's hard not to, with fountains of gold spilling onto the table. "You can add King of Noise to that, too," says Strange under his breath, rubbing a temple. He dismisses the scry spell with a flick of his wrist. Speaking more clearly, he addresses Gilgamesh. "Y'know, I figured you'd be having more fun. I mean--" Strange cuts a hole into reality, showing the King of Heroes one of the corridors with an advertisment /for/ crude meat plastered right over the product, actively hindering anyone trying to get it. "This place is like some smarmy god got up one morning and decided to make fun of modern earth. I love it." He dismisses the portal, too, having only opened it for the sake of demonstration. Despite looking around the mall for any obvious haunts, Strange has found nothing of interest, save the man August now speaks to. Fire wards them off... he can do fire. IF 'dangerous' just means 'dangerous by the sedate, nursing home standards of zone 2.' He nods to George. "Ahh, yeah, yeah. On it," he says, opening a hole which spews sparks. "Hey! Look through there," he says to the lost fellow. The portal appears to lead to the mall's entrance. "Better go fast, before I start a fire."
Yuuki Kuran	Yuuki looks at the selection on sale, though there's a little 'I wanna be queen of the week' and a distant sadness, a heaved sigh with snowprint-mote backing in her shoujo manga paneled life that she missed her chance at monday, and now the week would never be complete. Truly, the greed of the King of Heroes breaks every heart. Her eyes is caught by the Loyal Symbol, smiling faintly. She tilts her head, checking the perspective as her hair tumbles over her shoulder messily, before bringing out her phone and taking a picture of it, messing with her phone's screen. "Zero, I found you in a store." She mutters as she thumbtypes, before sending her text with attached picture. "I'll have the kanji please." She points at the Loyal Symbol. Clearly, she's reading into it, but she's allowed. Later, with George in the maze, as the two stumble-walk through the area with one eye closed (it became a game to Yuuki about a dozen paces in), they come across a trembling lost man! And no spectres. "George, you blinked that you know a way, didn't you? Is the one eye thing a perspective trick?" August shows up, and then Doctor Strange. "Ah. No, August. we've only found this man." Strange works to portal him, while speaking about fire. "I don't think fire would be good, but... Maybe it's also a hint. Is this one of those 'consume the rich' things that's trending? I don't get that at all." With a clandestine flicker, Yuuki nervously licks her lips. "Not at all..."
Starbound Flotilla	As for the conversation on his particular /habit/, George has a few bits of commentary. "Yeeeep." He says, in an easygoing way, sort of waving the cigarette around between two fingers. It makes a little more visible smoke that way, and also emphasizes what he's doing. "When you get old, you start having to go to the doctor for all kinds of stuff! I've had Sailor's Mouth, I've had Angry Feet, one time I near about tore a muscle in my nose. When you're old as I am, you gotta be... prepared for sudden medical things getting in your life, y'know? Old in the body way, not old in a vampires way I mean." George also answers Yuuki's followup questions about how he knows something. "Nah, I was blinkin' that I was looking at something important." Supportive!! George!! "Not a perspective trick, though. These things aren't just good for killin', you know. Here's a trick. When you're in a bit of a space station without much ventilation, air moves in the directions of the entrances and exits." He lets out a particularly large cloud of smoke, and just follows whichever direction airflow moves that isn't towards the entrance of where they came in, after watching it drift!
Yuuki Kuran	Yuuki smiles warmly at his 'old body' comment, lifting a finger to her mouth in a 'shhhh' sense. "The way we live, George, doing silly adventures like these, it's not an old body problem at all. More of an any body, don't you think?" The blinking explanation ellicits Yuuki confusedly continuing to exhibit nigh-tangible anime floating questionmarks, even after he explains his gaff. It takes Strange vocalizing that people weak to fire should clear out. "Oh! Oh you're saying...!" She lights up, flushing in her cheeks. "George, you rogue." She returns in the vocal tone of punching someone in the arm lightly. "Oh no, George, now you're just supporting arson." She comments, to his 'smoke goes Out' comment and thumbing at Doctor Strange.
Tina Natsumi	Stuff to buy! Tina has no idea what she's looking at aside from names and appearances, so she just goes for whatever looks like it'd probably be the most impressive for streaming: The Min-Woo Tunic. She doesn't know who exactly this Min-Woo is, but... Hey! It's signed. It's probably something worth selling down the line or valuable to someone! Eventually. Maybe. Buyer's remorse is already kicking in. The odd construction of the mall and its lack of proper ventilation and access tunnels has Tina baffled, though. Why would anyone build things this way?! The concept of making something just to keep the residents busy doesn't quite reach her head, but there's bits of it trickling in at a time. She'll figure it out eventually, but not right now. She's too busy laughing when Gilgamesh and Aoko make their trade, resulting in one stupidly-rich magus and one King of Two-Sevenths of the Week. "Let's keep an eye out for the rest of 'em, then. Who knows? Maybe we'll start jumpin' up to months if we stay here long enough." And then SUDDENLY MAZE. "The heck is all this nonsense here? Why would anyone leave raw meat here of all places?" She grimaces at the smell, but soon shakes off that distraction at hearing the voice in the corner. Following August over, Tina calls out her own multi-colored robot Persona, the giant-ish uncle Sam while pulling a submachine gun out of its leg for herself. "I got yer back, Kohler. I wonder..." She glances towards Strange's portal, whistling lightly before wiggling her gun at it. "Say, doc. Y'think that'll work for any weird mazes we keep runnin' into out here? Maybe we can get some extra.. I dunno. Speed points if we use that instead of trawlin' through all these messes."
Priscilla	Zacharie, as indicated, doesn't take gold, or gems, or Multiversal credits, or anything remotely valuable. What he does take outside of weird abstract 'here' credits, however, is the kind of oddball and specific stuff that Gilgamesh, with his treasury of infinite bullshit, is actually able to provide. He's willing to part with his items for oddities like magically comfortable slippers, self-using ironing presses, endless pencils and inks, fancy combs, and other very eccentric yet domestically shut-in artist items. The Batter uses his credits specifically for the tunic, not having to foot the bill for everyone else this time. "Hahaha. I know you'd appreciate my selection." he says when business wraps up. "I'll have even more interesting items for you next time. After all, that's the role of a merchant who always appears wherever you go before you get there." George has actually found a pretty sneaky trick, all things told. Since the atmosphere itself is nebulously also some kind of breathable smoke, it's even more effective for the effort. He can see the thin trail of his cigarette exhalation start to wind through the corridors like the cartoon depiction of the smell of a delicious lunch, unerringly snaking its way towards the nostrils of a talking animal. It's certainly better than nothing. It saves a lot of navigation rolls and repeating room puzzles straight away. The cowering shopper hiding out in the loading bay doesn't seem to have any useful directions; he only repeats that he's lost, and that he is afraid of the spectres (admittedly, two for two on reasonable things to be saying; a new record here). He gets halfway through asking Strange for a portal to the entrance, then decides ". . . No, that looks much too dangerous . . . I'll just keep hiding . . . It's safe here . . . They can't find me . . ." Splitting up through a portal gives people more opportunity to cover more ground, though also just spamming them to look through is good for getting cheap scrying and advanced warning. Following the trail of smoke though, the ads get even more specific and odd. 'Handled carefully by the employees of Zone 1, our meat is preservatives free, and chopped up in the old pedalo stroke style!' 'God time to lose? Visit the Unproductive. Please.' 'Buy fifty gallons of blue paint and get the fifty-first gallon free!' One poster says. 'Buy your clothes at Gomez Galleries! Special discount for Yuuki Kuran!'
Priscilla	No doubt attracted by the smoke trail, able to trace it back, around that time passing by the unsettling poster is when pastel white shapes with heavy black inked outlines begin phasing through the walls, fixing you with empty black pits for eyes. Hideous, overfed white rats with bulging, flabby bellies, twice as large as a man, come out walking as if they were one, followed by emaciated and starving compatriots of the same size, scuttling through the merchandise with huge, toothy maws hanging open, their protruding vertebrae like spikes, contrasting the bloated and lethargic with the starved and destitute, highly defined and detailed compared to more common, blob-like spectres; spectres that fleshed out have always had human shapes before, so even if rats in a maze is appropriate, it stands out. The lesser kinds are along with them, but it takes a moment to notice, as they come from the ceiling. Empty-eyed, open-mouthed, stubby-armed, amorphous 'sheet ghosts' with long, legless 'tails' phase through from up above, dangling disorientingly upside down, as if dripping from the ceiling like a leak. There's certainly a large concentration of them here, as opposed to the library's almost non-existent infestation. You can hear more arriving by the minute. Elaborate, old-style tesellating graphics ripple over their number, highlighting them briefly in flashing florals like digital targeting indicators The Batter used Wide Angle! Massu x12 Ghoul of a fulminant chakra. Light weakness against smoke. Gilles de Rais x8 After all, a very mundane ghoul. Strong resistance against Add-Ons. Upside-down Spectre x30 Inverted ectoplasmic incarnation. Light resistance to Gilgamesh. Strong weakness against Strange.
Gilgamesh	Gilgamesh parts with a few items of (to him) mundanity in exchange for two days, an Aura of Greatness to stack with his already-existant aura of greatness, and the vest because it interests him. This is a fine trade. He has endless garbage nothing magic items to throw away as he sees fit. None of these are even fit to be called 'treasures' or he wouldn't part with them, simple gewgaws he gathered on the path to real treasures as part of his instinct. He's like an ant when it comes to real treasures, gathering them mechanically and on instinct. "I expect you to reserve Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for me," Gilgamesh says bluntly to the shopkeeper as they part, "I will pay handsomely for them when we meet again." He moves to rejoin the group about the time the shadows start showing up. These are gross, disturbing things, dripping from the ceiling like a leak, blobby, and just...dirty-looking. The King sort of watches them congeal into their mass before he decides. "These things are disgusting." "I won't dirty my prizes on such things. Especially the skinny ones. They remind me of something foul and unpleasant to the touch." "This whole affair is nothing but the lowest of the low. Hardly fit for me to take action." The King instead pulls out his ridiculously complex magic tablet and starts waving his hand around. He'll just buff everybody else this time around. Magic circles burst into the world around the party, primarily around their weapons. Gilgamesh isn't really reinforcing anything, he's just providing some Babylonian enhancement. Something something Mystery something something.
Starbound Flotilla	"It's cool, it's cool, doc." George speaks up, alerting Doctor Strange. "Think I got it off your idea with a littler fire." He waves his cigarette at the man, then moves on. He spends about... thirty seconds staring at the poster with Yuuki Kuran's name on it. "Sheesh." He says, leaning towards her a bit. "Google's getting a little excessive, don'tcha think?" He moves on, following the trail of smoke. "Boy, Doc, you sure weren't wrong about smoking them out." George mutters, as threats emerge. He takes up a batter's stance with his bat, mirroring the Batter in a way that seems looser, more relaxed, more casual, but ready to strike. He can't match the Batter's way of interacting with these things though. He better close in fast! He goes for the shadowy silhouettes! While he might count as smoke in an attack against the Massu, he should focus on supporting the Batter as much as possible, being an un-reisted add-on himself. He pulls the bat back and seems to "cock" the magic circle that Gilgamesh has granted for enhancement, as if it would load a shell, before diving in and going for big, wide, enhanced swings to to give the Add-Ons some clear space to work on the others!
Doctor Strange	Strange frowns archly at the cowering shopper. "O-kay... whatever you say." He turns to face George, then shrugs in his direction. His expression says 'get a load of this guy.' There is a moment in which Strange considers strategy. Where is the best place to lead the spectres to? The entrance was nice and open, and if Zacharie can't get out, a portal can get him out. His thought is interrupted by the arrival of his future self. "No more time, fighting here," says Future!Strange urgently as various misshapen spectres are drawn towards the smoke. He levitates, assuming the lotus position. The Eye of Agamotto burns brilliantly upon him as numerous arms appear to... sprout from his body? That can't be right. And indeed, it isn't. No, they're all Stranges pulled from other points in the future, called to do one thing: make portals. Numerous burning rings surround August, just far enough so that he can move without inadvertently stepping into it. Each opens upon a different, sufficiently spooky area of the mall, with the goal of providing August line of sight into as much of the mall as possible. If they're going to fight, Strange would seemingly prefer the hammer blow to the thousand cuts. All of the Future!Stranges disappear. "Ah... that's gonna be a bitch to pull off," he says with annoyance. "Well... be right back," says the sorcerer, traveling back in time, first to warn his past self, then to break causality over his knee. When he reappears, it's only for a few seconds at a time, blasting stragglers with rays of burning orange energy, or appearing for a brief moment to make a timely attack with a conjured sword. After each such attack, he vanishes again, traveling back to join the Strange Squad which earlier appeared.
Tina Natsumi	First things first: Trying on this weird tunic. It's weird, but Tina might actually like it! Not really. She'll keep it on for now, but... Wait. Just how many of these things did this Min-Woo sign?! No matter. More importantly, there's mazes to explore! Even though Tina had suggested speeding through them, she can't just leave potential valuables left behind! Except there's... Not really much in the way of valuables. There's ads! Those aren't valuable at all, although the one aimed specifically at Yuuki rather strange to say the least. "Huh. This is startin' to remind me of those stupid internet ads now. You still got your wallet and ID on you, yeah?" A pointless warning overall, but she can still try to be somewhat helpful. It's easier to be helpful when the ghosts appear, however, as Tina flicks her hat back briefly to get a better look at the hideous things. They are much more hideous than expected. There's also an excessively large number of them, and only so much room to maneuver around them. "Hooo-ey. Whole lotta buggers comin' right for us! Heads down, people, because it's time for an airstrike!" Tina whips her submachine gun forward with an overly dramatic flourish (and eyeing the enhancing circle surrounding it curiously), then starts firing into the crowd of rats while Uncle Sam looms overhead. Uncle Sam has a bomb. It's a fat bomb. The Persona raises it overhead, tilts backwards, then tosses the entire thing forwards as Tina fires into it to detonate it within the crowd!
August Kohler	As Strange opens the portals, August is working in conjunction with him, as Dietrich raises its sword, points it... And starts setting fires around the mall to draw out the spectres. Flames surge out of Dietrich's blade and blast forward to ignite small bonfires to attract any hiding spectres, before August moves to join into the fight once the main group swarms around them. Dietrich wreathes the sword in fire, burning it hot enough to create smoke thanks to the Wide Angle, and moves to leap into the swarm of Massu, buffed by Gilgamesh. The sword swings around with heavy blows and incredible strength, as August attempts to knock any he takes out into the Batter's direction with his own 'batting' motions. "Let's get this done quick, alright? There's a lot of them tonight, it seems."
Aoko Aozaki	A free gallon of paint when you buy fifty sounds like a great deal, honestly. Aoko feels a sudden urge to have this absurd quantity of pain. For reasons. Alas, it will have to wait, because specters. They look as generic as ever. Of course Aoko is semi-distracted by promises (or threats) of food and various levels of banter, which forces her to immediatly dive for cover... behind Gilgamesh, as a sheeted specter brushes her and draws some of that weird non-blood-that-still-leaves-a-wound. One day she'll figure out how that works. Aoko, however, does not have weapons for Gilgamesh to Reinforce. She does have fists and feet, though, and that's good enough. She channels that energy into them, her extremities glowing a bright blue. "You are FULL of surprises, King! Well, don't mind if I try this out for a few swings!" She darts out of cover, aiming to immediatly spin-kick a specter into a second one, leap up after it, and then come down with a downward punch to crunch them both!
Yuuki Kuran	Yuuki stares at the ad, printed out and placed... in the back... of a warehouse? Yuuki stares at her phone, still in-hand, suspiciously. "I'll have to have IT look at my phone, I guess. I told them to get rid of stuff like that." She murmurs, nodding at George. "It IS a little strange..." At Tina's suggestion, she checks her pockets, producing a wallet full of cards in golds with black print and black with gold or red print, flipping through them quickly. "Well, I've got all my cards, but I don't carry ID. Really, it's too easy for it to get stolen, and it'd be irresponsible of me to have an ID like mine get stolen, so, I just don't." But carries around a semi-unsecured average modern smartphone like a college girl. The spectre attack finally comes, though, with a number of different types including: RATS! SHEET GHOSTS! and A GHOST THAT IS UPSIDE DOWN x THIRTY. "Why is that one much better put together than the others?" She points at the WELL-DEFINED RATS as opposed to GHOST and UPSIDE DOWN GHOST, shortly before being mobbed by the floating, dripping upside down spectres and having to protect her head as if from a pile of seagulls. "WHY ARE THEY UPSIDE DOWN? Does that matter when they're floating ghosts?! Shoo!"
Priscilla	When Strange opens portals into all different parts of the mall galleries, revealing mostly much of the same in deep blue painted rooms, occasionally with a plastic chest here and there, and then August completely firebombs all of them, the place rapidly begins to fill with the wrong kind of smoke --specifically, the kind that smells like charred meat and burning plastic, and makes it hard to breathe. It also certainly 'smokes out' the spectres, though as the fire spreads, it's hard to really agree that they're afraid of fire. That may have been the fearful assumption of the clueless shopper trapped in the loading bay, like trying to keep wolves at bay in the dark. The number of spectres rapidly doubles all around, as corpulent rats of excess and starving rats of poverty waddle and crawl from the walls, and ghosts of upside-down-ness leak from the ceiling like droplets of bloodthirsty tar. Of course, it's the concentration that Strange wants. Makes it easier to purify the whole place at once. As 'mook' grade spectres, they aren't tremendously impressive at first, largely making the place a target rich, if crowded, environment. Even firing fully automatic with an SMG and without the training to be using it that way, Tina manages to hit plenty, perforating ranks of spectres and leaving holes of black oily goo. August's, or rather Dietrich's, chainsaw sword bites into them and splatters the inky paper mache substance all over the bannered walls, carving them in half and deflating them like balloons, or hacking bony pieces off the starved rats. Aoko can barely swing her fist without hitting something and punting it through a pile of instantly shattered merchandise. Dropping a bomb in the middle of their ranks immediately bursts several rows like shredded pinatas, halted completely as they pause to pull their tattered corpus back together. It's impossible not to notice, though. These spectres are tougher than before. For seemingly no good reason, they resist more damage than those of Zone 1, about the same difficulty even with Gilgamesh's buffs contributing a lot. They're quicker and more aware too. They also hit harder. The bites and claws of the pressing hordes of rats make for the unmistakable feeling of tearing through people's inside bits, leaving the malevolent apparitions coming away with bloodied maws to go with their vacant eyes, and involve sharp stabs of pain and copious bleeding. The upside-down spectres, lacking sharp appendages, use the stranger sorts of attacks that are gradually becoming less rare with time, singling out and hitting Elites with a magical Heavy Silence. Ephemeral pointing fingers, like what one would find on a grainy photocopy of directions, suit cuffs and all, appear to point towards their targets and jab them, not only becoming some kind of searing electric discharge, but immediately muting all sound that comes from whoever they hit, and making spellcasting, especially, very difficult.
Priscilla	The Batter, now with his twin halos, joins in the effort. Alpha and Omega go flying into the melee, the former attacking with phantasmal conjurations of grids and lines and numerals, and the latter warping the perspective of its targets in a variety of photo lens ways, while their owner comes flying through without really moving his feet, zigzagging in his batting stance as if a paper target propelled on rails. Where George picks out his select targets, the Batter flits through and smashes them with guided sequences of obscenely brutal swings, caving in skulls and contorting bodies with cartoonishly grotesque force and turning the walls red with fatal damage after the Elites have turned them black with wounding damage. It seems as if he's gotten stronger too, albeit given the sheer density of enemies, his Add-Ons occasionally flit back to intercept blows aimed at him with their . . . halo-ness. "The elder children of sin take forms that suit the punishment they are owed." he replies only to Yuuki. When the number of violent phantasms begins to die down and the last are being crunched and curb-stomped like so many blood-filled soda cans, a deep, reverberating, echoing warble comes ringing through the halls, almost song-like, yet hauntingly eerie at the same time. The entire front corridor disappears, completely consumed by the massive, paper white shape pushing through it. A gigantic, box-like snout protrudes through, over a yawning maw of hundreds of tiny teeth, with only the barest, almost tacked-on eyes dumbly staring out of each side of its head. Enormous flippers propel the beast through the air, letting loose another round of eerie song as it expands its ribbed throat with a colossal gulping motion of its mouth. The Batter examines the strange ghost that looks and sounds almost exactly like a poorly drawn whale. Whale x1 Marine mammal of the order Cetacea. No weakness/resistance. Instead of sucking you all in however, the interior of the whale's mouth lets loose a deafening, whining buzzing sound, and then disgorges a torrential outpouring of tiny black flies, each one's wingbeats comprised of rapid, high-pitched, teeny-tiny whimpers and sighs, distorted to the exact frequency of insects buzzing over the carcass of a beached animal. The flies pile on anyone and everyone in the enclosed space, ripping at their flesh from a thousand angles, murmuring in their ears like a crowd of terrified onlookers at 20x speed.
Gilgamesh	This is one of those moments where the King's stubbornness and ego really come back to bite him. These are vile things, grotesqueries. He avoids the touch of the Heavy Silence quite well, leveraging superhuman strength and superhuman agility, but when the whale comes, there's nothing he can do. Well, no. That's not accurate. He could open the Gate of Babylon in equal measure and cut through the flies. He could pull out his Defensors, or his glorious golden armor, or any other number of things that could be used to defend against this oncoming horde. But he won't. He won't because it's beneath him. Because it's vile. Because it would dirty things that he cares more for, arguably, than his own life. Rather than open the floodgates of the Gate of Babylon and pour forth destruction onto the flies and the whales, the King tries to weather it. He picks up nearby furniture and swings it wide like a baseball bat, aiming to swat away as many of the little bastards as possible. It's no use. There's simply too many of them. A thousand cuts spread across his skin. A thousand slashes spread across his arms. The King grows angry, but he still won't do the simple thing that would solve his problem. It's hard to tell if he's angry at them, or at himself. Eventually, however, enough is enough. The King slams his foot down on the ground. It's hard enough to crack it, to send out a shockwave immediately around him, to give himself a moment of repulsion from the little bastards. He's covered in wounds, but that's irrelevant. They'll heal. They can't marr his perfection. Nothing can. Well, it's not irrelevant, but by now he's too angry to notice or care. And it's obvious that the King is too angry to care. He starts punching outwards, hitting the air with the force of fifty men. He stamps his foot with the force of fifty men, going high into the air, to build enough clearance. He raises both fists above his head. He comes down on the whale like a hammer, both fists slamming downwards, strong as a star from Heaven. This is going to hurt him a lot. It leaves him wide open for reprisal. But he still won't spill his treasures for things this repugnant.
August Kohler	Well, setting everything on fire was a terrible idea, August realizes, as he coughs heavily. "Well, that's sure a lot of smoke." Regardless, they're tearing through the monsters...with side effects. For one, August is bleeding pretty heavily, his healing factor repairing him but it's still nasty. And two, after that one mutterance, August can't speak. He's also having slight issues with Dietrich's abilities, but mainly he just can't speak or make any noise. So when the whale appears after they tear through the monsters... August points at himself, points at it, and then, Dietrich, with his cracked armor and bleeding oil, suddenly leaps into the air, thrusts forward, and moves to land on top of the whale on a different part from Gilgamesh and slam that insane sword straight into its back and start carving it up like a christmas ham. The fire is traded for pure corrosive darkness, which moves to help make it slice like butter, as August and Dietrich try to gore through the horribly-drawn whale together. August would probably make some sort of noise while he did so. Too bad he can't!
Doctor Strange	Normally, Strange would laugh in the face of a 'silence' spell, because his magic is martial. However, silence spells aren't normally obnoxious giant hands constantly poking him in the sternum while he's trying to cast. The first one takes him by surprise, as he was too busy making a smarmy remark on the radio to pay attention or take his enemies seriously. The electric shock knocks him onto his back, and winds him. This wouldn't be ideal without the risk of smoke inhalation. With the acrid stench of burning plastic--really, the stench of his own wizard hubris--stabbing into his lungs like a thousand needles, it's far from ideal. He noiselessly coughs, eyes tearing up as he tries to rise. His trembling hands make finding purchase in the fray all the more difficult, and twice his grasp falters, sending him back to the ground. Strange must have skipped fire safety class. He manages to get his second wind and get back to his feet, though the fumes still sting his nostrils. It's just in time to see a cloud of angry black murmur-flies mumbling their way towards him. The Cloak of Levitation drags him backwards, and he tries a counterspell. Nothing. He tries to voice his annoyance. Nothing. Okay, pay attention to the Monopoly Hands next time. Well, it takes more than that to get rid of the Master of the Mystic Arts. Since his sorcery is knocked out, Strange counterattacks by trying to lead the flies on his tail through the various portals he'd opened for August, flying dangerously close to the fires to try and cook them alive.
Tina Natsumi	Tina makes a mental note to use more of Uncle Sam's guns when applicable, especially as applied to ghosts that need to die and stay dead. The 'whale' that appears next draws a laugh from Tina, but that laugh doesn't last very long once the creature does something distinctly whale like and vomits flies at them. Flesh-eating flies making disgusting noises and making everything smell, feel, and sound disgusting. "Gyah! Get these buggers off me!" The blonde screams while swinging and flailing her arms wildly at first, only realizing that the real threat is that shitty looking whale in the first place. Kill the boss, and the adds die. Probably. Spitting out a mouthful of awful murderflies, Tina turns Uncle Sam on the whale as it busts out a submachine gun similar to, but appropriately larger than the one that Tina had drawn out of it earlier. Despite Gilgamesh and August/Dietrich hitting it from close range, she's all too ready to start firing on the whale! More specifically, she fires around the whale. Following Uncle Sam's lead, the pair let loose a spray of lead that bounce off the walls, floor, and ceiling just so that the bullets are all (mostly) converging on the main target without putting their allies right in the firing line (mostly)!
Starbound Flotilla	George takes the hits as they come, rolling and diving and trying to stick with the Batter. He eats a Heavy Silence at one point, and if we're being honest, 'twisted fucked-up pseudo-reality' was the only thing that was ever going to get George to shut up. Not to stop talking to himself, though. "Never gonna listen to Moonfin talk shit about whaling ever again." George mouthes under his breath as he sees the specter, slamming his helmet shut just in time for the deluge of flies. It's not enough; environmental seals are chewed through, and while he can limit it with fancy heating/cooling maneuvers, he's gotta deal with the brunt of the issue. He kneels, both from pain and in focus. His bat is dropped. Out from his Matter Manipulator comes what looks like a big, hefty fuel tank. He pulls out a tank of pure oxygen. He pulls out a pipe. He pulls out what looks like an industrial welder, and a small electrically-wired module. "Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck, this hurts." He mouthes tensely, feeling his joints being gnawed on. He cuts a fast hole in the pipe. He unscrews the cap on the fuel. He twists the nozzle of the welder into the pipe, and attaches its feed to the oxygen tank. He jams the igniter module at the end, and screws it in place. He picks up the whole assembly. He blasts the swarm of flies with the flametheower. He starts first in bursts, then starts just blasting a constant gush of fire with his hideously unsafe kitbash contraption. He intends to blast the fire straight up the thing's mouth, and ruin whatever interior ecosystem it has quite thoroughly.
Aoko Aozaki	How very kind for the narrative to let us know what a whale is! Aoko, for her part, disagrees that whales breathe supersonic flies, or anything even remotely similar or deadly. At least, she's pretty sure. Aoko uses her arms to protect herself, rerouting all of the enchantments and mana into them and letting the Reinforcement do its thing. And it does, mostly because she manages not to lose her Normal Human Arms to that swarm of extremely loud and angry... whale-flies. Her ears are another story. "HEY KING, DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING IN YOUR VAULT FOR CRIPPLING EAR PAIN?!" Hopefully he does. But as for that whale... Aoko does as Aoko tends to, and snaps her fingers, turning the Reinforcement active on her arms into raw magic that immediately forms into spheres and then becomes lasers. A lot of lasers. Screw you, whale. Aoko resolves to support poachers in the future.
Yuuki Kuran	Thanks to the Add-Ons, Yuuki is relieved from her flock of shitty ghosts, instead elucidated on her question. Which does dovetail neatly into the follow up question 'the fuck kind of person's eternal torment is being upside down? I'm upside down, like, maybe half the time on the inside, it's not even that tormenting, just disorienting' from Yuuki's Inner Manga Monologue. Obviously, the sheet ghost's eternal torment is being such low-tier garbage in the hereafter. Truly, forever is a very long time to be a shitty jpeg ghost. Such META-BURNS and narration monologue and internal thoughts and the authorial flourish around a quizzical, 'r-really' look do not actually mitigate a FREAKING GHOST WHALE showing up and exhaling buzzing anxieties. Anxieties that tear off your flesh! NORMALLY ANXIETY LEADS YOU TO A SLOW, STRESSFUL BREAKDOWN, NOT BEING DEVOURED BY WORDLOCUST! Yuuki moves from shoving and ghost-yeeting to rolling on the ground like she's on fire, trying to smush the locusts as she's torn up - yet always staying just shy of a bloody mess, even if she's not as adroit as George in getting his helmet down and building an entire flamethrower. Eventually, like Strange, she leaps towards the fire. This time, instead, she just sort of rolls around in the fire for a quick moment until she's good and immolated, and then hops out like nothing's the matter, RETURNING to drop-and-roll to douse herself. 'Thank goodness for this arson!' said nobody. In fact, after Strange zips by, Yuuki picks up the giant flaming box and just overhand hurls it towards the whale, aiming at its big stupid locust spamming mouth. If she could vocalize, there'd be a 'chew on//eat this!'
Priscilla	Fighting a whale inside a shopping mall is less than ideal for a number of reasons. The flies do at least chase Strange off through his cheaty portals, and in great volume, alleviating the insane fly density in the immediate surroundings. According to his maneuvers, and George's ridiculously unsafe improvised flamethrower, the murmuring biters burn up pretty well, fizzling away into whispering ash on the spot. The flies mostly just suicidally burn up on Yuuki, rather than realizing that they should maybe not approach someone who is on fire. It's dubious that they're living bugs at all, rather than some sort of abstract attack vector. Flaming crates and other such incendiary attacks wind up wedged in the whale's maw, neatly blocking the gushing torrent of flesh-eating anxiety. Without the ability to either spew horror or swallow everyone parable-style, the whale can mostly only thrash and chomp as the rest of the Elites descend on it to beat the living shit out of it. It's very big. It has a lot of HP. It takes an amount of pounding entirely suitable for a horrid ghost whale graphic. Between Aoko's constant, Aoko-like laser cannon barrage, the giant machine gun fire, the ridiculous chainsaw brutality, the flamethrower roasting, the Add-Ons whizzing around it and blasting it with blistering flashes of Pure light, and Gilgamesh actually going apeshit on it and beating it with his bare hands, the whale eventually falls out of the air and rolls onto the floor, beached and moaning. The batter takes a big, circling wind-up swing, and then smashes it in the snout, causing the thing's entire head to collapse inwards like the crumple zone of a car hitting a wall at a hundred miles an hour. A visible hydrostatic shockwave passes through it, before it ruptures at where it intersects with the wall, and explodes out all its blood, before deflating like a big, shitty, whale-shaped hot air balloon in tatters. Thank god that's over
Priscilla	Continuing along the trail of now much more substantial smoke, funneled towards the necessary windows and exits, you eventually find yourselves at an interior bend, stocked haphazardly with scores of heavy oil drums filled with who knows what, almost crowding out an advertisement that seems to be actually painted on the wall. It depicts a great big cat, blue as everything else, making a simplistic happy face, right next to an opened can that is radiating shiny 'good thing' lines. Underneath it, it says, 'For silkier hair: The meat fountains of Alma.' Apparently fascinated by the display, the Judge is sitting beneath it, tail swishing back and forth in contemplation. His head turns just a little too far to grin at you, purring out "Ah, there you are. Is not this publicity so effective and efficient whilst defying the basics of consumer marketing?" he asks you, letting it be read. "Anyway, I am glad to have found you. Maybe you can help me unravel the mystery that fate has placed before me." "It turns out that my brother has been living in this area for many years. He has a special affinity for colours of the cool kind. Unfortunately, I have so far failed to cross his path. I have tried to betake myself to the roof of the library, where he resides. However, I found the door closed. Even the long hours of intensive, repeated meowing and compulsive scratching did not do a thing. My request is as follows: If at the bend of a corridor, you happen to see Valerie, give him my greetings." He then goes back to staring at the advertisement. "What exquisite composition . . . What subtlety in form . . . This is truly a masterpiece, a work that will be remembered." the Judge mumbles to himself. Unbelievably obnoxiously, the door around the bend somehow leads back to the start of the galleries, from a side of the corridor you could swear didn't have a door at all before, but seems to now. It, at least, makes the exit, being the way you came in, extremely easy to reach. The only thing that seems new, as any kind of reward for your purifying efforts (with all the chests arson'd at least) is . . . it's one of those pedestrian symbols painted on the wall, with the little button underneath it. Exactly like the pedalo stations in the meat fountains. It in fact prompts you if you wish to summon a pedalo. How on earth you'd make use of a pedalo here is uncertain, but it certainly makes the warpy buzzy noise when you activate it. Logically it's summoned a pedalo . . . nearby? To go . . . somewhere? It's some really tenuous and slipshod direction. There's only so many places where there's liquid to cross, though. On the way out, Zacharie, having not at all moved from his spot despite the fire and pitched battle, waves at you. "Adios." he laughs. "Come back again any time."
August Kohler	Once the whale is down, August hits the ground on Dietrich's back, soaked in blood, wiping it off his face and moving to try and clean it off himself. The Persona can be bloody, that's okay. The redhead is exhausted, though, so once they're out towards the Judge, he desummons his Persona, leans against a wall, and glances up at the display. "Huh." That is a bizarre ad, alright. But the Judge tells them about his brother, and what to say to him, so August just...nods. "Valerie, got it. Thanks again, Judge. Enjoy your...advertisement." When they exit out to the start, with the fire going on everywhere and stuff, the bloody redhead steps up to the pedalo button, pushes it, and then turns to Zacharie once he remembers he's there. "Sure. Thanks for the business earlier. I felt really Great!" And then, he'll head off to find a pedalo. Lack of loot is sad, and he feels guilty about it, telling anyone who mentions it or notices it, "Sorry about that." But, he's not going to let it hold him down. After all, life's too short to beat himself up over some slabs of silver meat, right?
Doctor Strange	Strange touches down. "Yeah, sure," he says hoarsely, wiping some soot from under his eye. He nods at the Judge--but he doesn't step through the door. No, someone has to stay behind and undo this mess, and it might as well be the guy who caused it. Besides... if there's a chance those chests can be salvaged, he doesn't want to hear the gripes from the Grabby Hands Committee. With a sigh, the Sorcerer Supreme opens the Eye of Agamotto and begins turning back time, repairing what he can of the now-scorched shopping mall. It might not work, especially since things don't always work the way one expects here. But, hey, he never said he could completely fix it, he only implied it, so, technically, he's got an out. Whether he can salvage everything, or just make the place not on fire anymore, he's the last one to leave.
Gilgamesh	Gilgamesh emerges, bleeding from nearly every part of his body. The cuts are already starting to heal, but his healing is not combat-fast, merely superhuman; he'll look like disturbingly sexy diced meat for a while. He stumbles out of the battle and runs his blood-slicked fingers through his hair, leaving a trail of red in the gold. It suits him, despite everything else. "And what if," Gilgamesh says, his voice somewhat strained, "We meet your brother somewhere that is not the bend of a corridor?"
Starbound Flotilla	"'The Meat Fountain.'" George says, now that he's actually capable of speaking. He takes off his helmet to examine the marketing. "Pretty sure I went to a wedding where they had one of those once. You'd twirl corn dogs through it. Think it's any good for gray hairs? I'm getting my fair share." He laughs a bit. "Valerie... Valerie... Can't say I know one. Though I saw a cat before. Must be a lot around here." He slips a cigarette into his mouth and lights it. "Always tough to pick out a friend in a crowd. Don't be too worried if you can't find them." With all that said, he moves on, heads forward (back?), and leans against the button as if it's the most natural thing in the world to progress along this path by way of such a summoning. He undoes his hardsuit's sections, disinfecting his wounds, wrapping them with bandages, and trying to ready up for what comes next outside, as they head out to the pedalo, somewhere. "Well, I know that advertising convinced me. Let's get out there. I gotta get that silky hair, ya know."