Scene #8137: Quest: Rescue France! (Daily)

Owner	Pose
Xion	Taking quests and odd jobs in the Multiverse was always a mixed bag. Sometimes the leads dragged questants to get embroiled into the conflicts of rural fantasy and little lives, or small dramas. Sometimes it was working the overnight counter at a pizza place, and closing up the register when the sun rose. Today it was saving France. Again. "Again?" Xion asks her phone, as she scrolls through her Watch list of odd jobs. "Why is saving a whole country on the list? Why does it come up so much--" The noirette blinks at her glowing phonescreen, perched on the arch of a bridge, seated atop the cable cap. A normal place to sit, and consider taking up the repeatable of saving France. "Jeanne? Is it the burny one? Well, at least I can probably talk this one down." MOMENTS LATER: Xion emerges from a sworling portal into the 'front room' - or whatever passes for it - of Jeanne's hideout. Since her coat is still at the cleaners, she just wears a black tank top and gloves over black leggings, shorts, and boots, leaving her shoulders, arms, neck, and face vibrantly clear around all the black. "Hey Jeanne!" Her gloved hands cup about her mouth for projection. "Can we talk about you... maybe not burning down France today?" Xion finishes asking, her Corridor snapping shut behind her.
Ritsuka Fujimaru	It's not always sunshine and rainbows in Jeanne's neck of the woods. A busy schedule of magical arson and blasphemous work means there's surprisingly little time for her to just kick back and relax. Even though it may looks like she's just flipping through news channels, she's actually hard at work trying to find the ideal place to disrupt something that everyone's looking at. Of course, anyone actually looking at her in the hotel room she's holed up in will just see someone sitting sideways across a cheap armchair seeming intensely bored by the nothing going on today. "There has to be something worthwhile..." She mutters in irritation to herself, almost half asleep in her oversized t-shirt (black of course) and lounge shorts (purple). "Bigger than a stupid ribbon cutting, at least..." It's only when Xion shows up with a sudden greeting that Jeanne nearly drops out of her seat, scrambling upwards and glaring at the intruder in equal parts confusion and anger for the privacy invasion. "Who...? I didn't order any room service. And why shouldn't I burn down France?" A pause, and then a grin creeps across her face. "What about England, then? I could go for a change of pace, I suppose."
Xion	Emerging out into a hotel room just to see Jeanne flipping through channels in casual black and purple brings a smile to Xion's face while her portal winks into smoke behind her. She gets it instantly. She's felt this too. Boredom. A half-living. Worse, the push! The grind of need, despite the pain. And... A craving! Unfortunately... Xion steps between Jeanne's lounger, pointedly looking down at her phone-screen and swiping up with a black-gloved finger. The text scrolls colorfully to the bottom, where characters read in red, underlined. "Sorry." Xion looks up, still smiling. "It says no substitutions." Interestedly, engaged in her blue eyes across to the lounging goth girl, Xion steps forward, leans over, and pockets her phone in a smooth motion. Invasively close, she grins, and the sly-warm smile reaches her cheeks and eyes. "But hey, you're pretty cute. Do you want to do something -other- than burn down England today?" Her hands rest on the armrests to brace her lean. "Not that I'd normally mind burning down England. It's just, you know. No substitutions."
Ritsuka Fujimaru	If nothing else, having someone show up out of nowhere is several times more interesting than just flipping through different channels hoping for a viable target to conveniently announce itself just as Jeanne's reaching that channel. She's seen it happen in movies before, but she'll have to file that one away as a fictional contrivance. She should also be proud she actually knows what a contrivance is. "No? Ah, what a shame. I'll just have to stick with the original plan, then. A few sparks here, some impalement there." She boasts in that haughty tone of hers that's most certainly more put on now than it would be any other time. The lack of interesting targets in France really has made it a chore to find anything lately, but she's not about to admit that when Xion's showed up to demand she not. What does throw her off her game, then, is when Xion just gets right in her face and calls her cute. There's several long seconds where Jeanne goes from staring right back at the noirette's face blankly, to starting to get the slightest amount of color in her cheeks, then finally gritting her teeth in incredulous anger. "Wh...? Is this some kind of stupid prank show or something?!" That's enough to set her off as she brings her knees in, then kicks out both feet at Xion to try and punt her back before flipping herself over the one-seater for a little more distance. "You're not even taller than me! Ggh... Who put you up to this? I swear, if it's the owner of this place... I might as well start burning it all down from here and work my way out from there!"
Xion	Xion, balanced primarily on her palms as she leans in and smiles at Jeanne d'Arc (Dark?), doesn't have an immediate reaction to Jeanne's hang. She just hangs too, smiling, expectant. She was expecting a bit more fluster and a bit less bluster, but she is a very potent psychic and heart-searcher. Bringing up her knees, Jalter's braced kick shoves out into her folded legs and shoves the Nobody away, sending her sailing artfully-forcefully back in an arc to -- smack against the cieling and fall into the TV with an 'oof!' and an 'agh!'. Rising from the hotel desk in a jumble of cables, Xion shakes her head and shoves off the tangle and dust found behind one of the media desks in such a location, still grinning. "Hey - is that what you want? You want me to be... taller?" Shouldering off the cables, Xion produces two medallions - both golden-bright - between her right index, middle, and ring knuckles. The top one has a thick-jawed spiked kaiju with angry eyebrows and a crown. The bottom, an angy-determined blonde. "I've got those powers. Here!" Swinging the hand out as she hops the media desk and returns to advancing on Jalter, the medallions tremble and glow, power absorbing into Xion's body. Where she, quite directly, bulks up. Her scale increases, clothes compensating around her growing shape while the golden glow works across her arm, across her shoulders, and throughout her. As it reaches her torso, waist, legs and shoulders, her whole morphology broadens and embiggens, her frame of head-reference gaining height compared to Jalter. The golden-glowing arm resolves back into a black glove and bare (borne) forearm and bicep of Unstoppable Power Crown'ed Xion. Her voice husks just a bit deeper, in bigger lungs. "Nobody put me up to -saying- that. I just thought it was true, and you wanted to hear it. So, I'm taller now!" She giggles. "Still gonna destroy France?"
Ritsuka Fujimaru	If there's a small part of Jeanne that feels bad about kicking Xion... Well, no. There isn't. She's kind of a jerk like that, although she's at least polite enough not to follow up on that, especially if it means wrecking the room even more than she's already doing. Even a corrupted saint can still worry about extra damage fees. "Yes! Gh-No! Shut up!" Despite her quick responses, it's pretty obvious Jeanne is having trouble trying to process what's happening here. The medallions coming out has her squinting, though, as she tries to figure out what it is she's looking at. She can recognize the general shape of a kaiju after her nights of binge-watching assorted things after 'work', but the bottom goes right over her head. "You have the power to... Just... Taller?" Even proper grammar escapes Jalter as Xion straight up enlarges, a strained noise coming out of the back of her throat once the initial shock of that sight passes. That actually looks and sounds pretty good, too, but she's not about to admit that out loud. Instead, Jeanne inhales slowly and takes her hands off the back of the couch, then... Doesn't throw a punch. Or the couch. Or any kind of thing that might be remotely aggressive, even. Instead, she lets out a long sigh, then makes a show of looking Xion's new form over and shrugging indifferently to really emphasize how little she totally doesn't care (even if she's totally still flustered). "Very impressive. Anyway. Yes, I'm still going to destroy France. France, England, the Vatican, all those damnable places full of those God-loving assholes." She spits out while trudging over to the fridge and grabbing some soda cans (grape). "So if nobody put you up to it, why -are- you here? I've got a lot of ground to cover and a lot of places to hit. France won't burn itself down!" A beat. "... Fast enough."
Xion	"I have lots of powers! I borrow them from other people, make some of them my own. The ones I can keep, that are close to me." Xion explains, at Jalter's stammeringly improper grammar. Her black-on-black outfit is gothily spiked now, a belt on her shorts with two rows of silver spikes, her boots thickened with extra rubber on the sole and jutting bits of metal. Around her biceps and wrists, more bands of black purely to add more spikes strain gently against the exertion of her upper arms. It's immediately obvious that the Kaiju-like transformation has sharpened her teeth, grinning in zigzagging cartoonish W's. While she's looked over, Xion's thumbs drop to the belt at her shorts and hooks under the band, presenting and turning at the waist to wave her cocked elbows back and forth. Power stanced. Taking up space, amused and pleased to be seen. Jalter throws a can of grape soda at Xion for all her posing, interrogating the nobody on why she burst into this specific hotel room. Power Xion's right hand comes up, just catching the sloshy-fizzy can in a 'k-thok', and thumbs the tab with a twang before chugging the soda in greedy gulps, and crinkling the spent can after draining it. "Where I'm from, there are people who stop people who are infected with anger and hatred, inflicted with it, with love and luck and... actually a little flirting. And, you know..." Xion steps forward, disappearing the can to reaching thumb and curled index finger towards Jalter's chin-tip. "You're really pretty. And I think you should hear it." She murmurs gently, guiding the witch of black flame's chin up to her eyes, her smile, and the little puff of flame that escapes the corner of her mouth.
Ritsuka Fujimaru	"Oh. So you're a mimic, then." Jalter concludes without a hint of shame as she inhales sharply again to maintain her composure, thankful for having that second can to sip from and distract herself for a brief moment. She's still understandably annoyed at having someone just barging into her room without so much as opening a (normal) door, although the sight of those monstrous teeth and that wide stance does have her snickering before long. "Anger's an infection in your world, then? Well, I'm sorry to say it's a little different in my case." A beat, and then she adds. "Not that sorry. But no, my hatred isn't an infection. It's the reason for my very existence!" As she's about to launch into a dramatic diatribe about all that, though, she gets caught off guard by Xion coming closer, then taking hold of her chin. There's all those compliments, that gentle contact, that look in her eyes, and it's enough to really get that flustered sputtering going. It doesn't start up immediately, though, as there's that all too obvious widening of the eyes, the burning of the cheeks, and the mad scramble of hands that could only come from someone not knowing where to actually put their hands in such a situation. It's only when Jeanne finally gets her hands on Xion's shoulders that she finally catches herself, steadying her mind just enough to shove her forcefully with all the strength only a panicked peasant confronted with mental overload can muster. "I-I don't swing that way! We're both...! A-and besides, that's not even my type!" She blurts out, lying as easily as she breathes. It takes her several more moments to try and steady her mind again, before finally being able to get herself back on track. "Besides! Denying this anger, this hatred... That would be denying why I was born. France, England, everything... I won't stop as long as everyone only remembers me as the saint!"
Xion	Xion doesn't listen to Jalter's words, specifically. Power stanced and advancing, she listens to the beat of Jeanne's furious heart, and the flush of her cheeks, and the teakettle whine of her burning black kettle cry. Jeanne's hands find Xion's shoulders, and Xion's hands drop to the witch's long-shirt-covered-hips. For a moment, she hangs, there, as Jalter denies and denies. "Jeanne. It's okay. I hear you." Xion's arms wrap around a little more, hugging Jeanne close to her chest. Taller, her lips find the witch's forehead, to place a kiss on the bare brow, around a few strands of white hair. "Forcing you to feel this way, they should pay. They should, but they might not. But you live because you want to live. Don't do your enemy's work for them, and hate yourself."
Ritsuka Fujimaru	Perhaps trying to physically force off someone specifically transformed into Kaiju mode with the appropriate power-stancing girth wasn't Jeanne's greatest plan. In retrospect, she probably could have even set everything on fire, but for some reason she still can't quite comprehend, she hasn't so much as even created a spark yet. Or maybe she does know, and she's just refusing to acknowledge it. Whatever the case is, she still hasn't set Xion on fire, and she's even slouching a bit in that hold with her frantic scrambling dying down the more she actually hears what Xion's saying. There's still some token squirming and leaning away from the hug, and there's even another choking inhale at that kiss on the head, but... For whatever reason, she's still refraining from setting things on fire. Hotel damages can't be that bad to warrant this sort of non-reaction. "I have to hate mys.. My other self. The one that everyone remembers for forgiving the people that destroyed her. They used her, they betrayed her, and then they called her a saint for letting it all go instead of giving them what they deserve!" The anger is still loud and clear, but there's a growing frustration in her tone, too. She squirms in that hold again, although it only lasts for a few moments before she gives up again while still in Xion's arms. It might even feel like she's slouching forward a bit more, too. It's totally a coincidence. "... It never sticks, either. It's never enough to change who they remember."
Xion	Power Xion rests her palms on Jalter's back and exerts only gently to keep the squirming goth witch corralled in the hug. The struggling creates a swaying to the standing embrace, Xion stepping gingerly around the room until the back of her knees folds against the edge of the couch and the embiggened Xion falls back heavily on the couch, still smiling, still fond - though now her cheeks gained a molten-healthy glow as curls of hot white smoke rolled from her nose. Her neck likewise glows, orange-hot to skin around her core. To Jeanne, even, the heat is familiar - like a dragon whose bellows was comfortably full of flame. When Xion falls, she tugs Jeanne down, to sit the now-smaller woman in her lap in a two-armed hug. It'd be a lot easier to struggle out of Xion's lap, but with her last bit of control Xion settles Jeanne against her chest, facing out towards the (fallen, slightly damaged) TV, and sets her chin atop the crown of the furious witch's head. The TV turns back on, with a puff of dark motes at the controls on the front, having switched to a cooking network where an angry chef yelled at people about how bad their food was. The voice drones. Xion speaks over it. "You don't have to hate them, even if you're defined by not being them. Disagree, and disagree strongly, but love yourself becuase you're not what you hate. Right? Become yourself, and not someone's angry shadow. Be angry, for yourself!" Laughing lightly, Xion leans back in the couch - Jeanne is free to go, clearly. If she wants. "They want to love her more than they want to hate you. You've already figured it out. Plus, this job I'm on expires at midnight, so we can go break some laws in London for breakfast. Sound good? Just staying in tonight?" More laughter. "We can watch TV..." A wince. "After I fix it, probably. You really kicked me into it! Well, it was my fault for showing up, so I'll make it right. We can call that... Even."
Ritsuka Fujimaru	With that difference in physical bulk, it's not that hard for Xion to pull Jalter wherever she pleases. It's certainly easier than the witch's constant protests and angry noises might imply, too, especially since it's nowhere near the amount of force she put into that earlier panicked kick. There's plenty of those angry noises, too, although they're less 'legitimate murder' noises and more 'goddammit what the hell is this' noises at all the affection she has yet to actually pull herself away from convincingly. "Love myself for the differences, eh? Hmph... That's not hard to do. I've already learned plenty of things she couldn't even hope to know since coming here." Jalter boasts with some of her usual bluster returning, even managing a short huffing smirk-noise in the process. "I even managed to get a computer working the other day!" Coincidentally, there's a laptop on the far desk in the corner. There's pieces of a broken mouse next to it, and a small dent in the wall. "Those people can do what they want, but I'm not going to like it... Short of them groveling or cowering, anyway." A beat. "Wait, what's this about breakfast?" Jeanne finally sits up, but she doesn't slide off Xion just yet. Instead, she just narrows her eyes with another frustrated huff. "When did I ever say you could stay? There's only one bed! And..." She turns her back on Xion abruptly, then lies right back down against her chest while crossing her arms. "Do what you want. You're not going to leave me alone even if I tell you to, anyway." Despite the cold words, Jalter seems rather comfortable right where she is.