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Owner	Pose
Kale Hearthward	FALL CHRISTMAS EVE TO CLARIFY: THE LOCATION IS FALL, THE DAY IS CHRISTMAS EVE Kale's done pretty well for himself. Paladins salaries aren't the greatest, but one part careful(-ish) saving, one part careful(-ish) house hunting, and one part BAH mean he's gotten a nice two-story 3BR in a quiet neighborhood in Fall. One with a nice sized living room, specifically. Perfect for holding small social events. It's no Lilian Rook Ancestral Fail Upwards Old Money Family Mansion (with built-in ghosts, claimable ancestral powerups, and CR 4-6 encounter table) but it makes for a nice venue.The party's open-invite to other elites - a rare of show of non-factional multiversal solidarity, although one tempered by a note that the party is BYOB and potluck. Kale's holding court in the living room, inviting people in. He's got an ugly christmas sweater on that has cartoon drawings of a doduo in goofy poses. There's a surplus of couches, loveseats, and recliners for people to sit - and a decorated holiday tree, albeit one bereft of any wrapped presents. Also in the living room is a songbird, also wearing what looks like an ugly sweater, though it's impossible to make out what the design is since she's sitting with her feet up on the couch and her knees tucked to her chest, obscuring it. In the kitchen, there's a mouse (ugly sweater design: cartoon rat with beer balanced on her head, caption: It's On The Mouse) who's putting the finishing touches on a tray of some sort of festive holiday drinks. Also in the kitchen, grazing on the snacks set up there, is what is clearly and unmistakably three kobolds wearing a trenchcoat. Outside, there are currently no ne'er do wells lurking in the bushes, waiting to cause trouble using plotlines from beloved Christmas classical ballets. None at all. You feel no need to check. What an absurd notion, checking the bushes to see if classical ballet character Uncle Drosselmeyer is preparing to ambush the party using a magical nutcracker soldier. Who would even think to do that, not you, definitely not you.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Madeleine arrives precisely on time. In place of her usual black leather-and-vinyl attire, she wears a brilliant silver-white evening gown, adorned with sequins that make her glisten like new-fallen snow. In one hand she carries a bottle of port wine. Torrie, half again Madeleine's height, looms behind her with a platter of apple-cider donuts ("They're vegan!") and a hearty grin. The huntress is the first of the pair to address the host.     "Well met, General Hearthward. You put up an impressive showing on Cybertron." She is not very good at selecting conversation topics appropriate for Christmas parties, it seems.
Xion	Xion, lounging in a food court in a busy mall surrounded by people not paying attention to anyone's needs but their own, eats a slice of Sbarro pepperoni pizza that she has daubed the grease off of with a brown paper napkin, checks her phone on Christmas Eve expecting a quiet day. Instead, she has a text from Mog. Those are never 'great', but regularly important at least to clear the notification. Sitting up in the plastic-and-metal chair in black jeans, socks, sneakers, a grey t-shirt and a green-red plaid flannel shirt on with a black collar, Xion closes her eyes and wills the notification to be something nice. Free currency in the store, maybe? Such wishful things were less likely than a Christmas miracle. Opening it immediately updates her quest log. The noirette groans and dips her phone-holding hand as her notifications blow up. MAIN QUEST RECEIVED: This Hearthward character put a big kupoing dent in Christmas Cheer - and you're familiar with him. So make sure there's no funny business kupopo - the Santa Association needs this one to go off without a hitch. So if there's anything weird, jingle their kupos and deck their halls or whatever's seasonal.r -Mog Muttering darkly, Xion pulls her black coat off the back of her chair and tucks her phone into her pocket. "Hearthward." -- Arriving at the door with a plastic-topped chocolate bundt cake that was clearly bought from a store on the way over and de-labelled not entirely cleanly but with great diligence, the Nobody is a big smile and a peppermint-breath scented cheer. She wears a santa hat -- but for some reason the red is also black. She has such a gimmick even her holiday hats are black and white! The gathering is a little odd, but Xion knows Kale, right? "I heard you were throwing a party! Can I come in?" She asks, and then skips past anyway to put her cake down at the catering table. She doesn't check the bushes -- she doesn't check anything! She's mostly checking out Kale. . . For signs of Christmas Uncheer.
Ritsuka Fujimaru	"Will it be a problem if we didn't bring any beer?" "Nah, it'll be fine! Everyone likes chips and dip, anyway." "And if they don't, boo hoo. Nobody's making them eat any of this." How did the three from Chaldea even know to come here? Maybe Jeanne got an invite. Maybe she heard a rumor that a certain someone is going to attack Santa again and wants to see the fireworks. Or maybe... Mash and Ritsuka are mostly well-behaved, so they'd find out about something nice and quiet instead. Whatever the case is, the three arrive in their own winter wear, albeit more along the lines of poofy winter coats with boots meant for long hikes rather than pleasant parties. Underneath the coats, however, they're wearing matching Christmas-themed hats, jackets, and boots! Naturally, Mash gets the purple one, Jeanne gets the black one, and Ritsuka's is the classic red. "Hey there, Mister Kale! Huh... Is this the first time we've seen each other without having to throw down with someone else?" "There was that party the other time. And... Um. I don't know if those times in Japan counted..." "Oh. You two never WERE around for that other Christmas, were you?" Ritsuka's curiosity is pretty evident when she stares right at Jeanne, and Jeanne just gives Kale one of those asshole grins as if expecting him to explain. That, naturally, gets Ritsuka looking right at him in wide-eyed hope for a cool story. It might help that she's holding one of those giant reusable bags filled to bursting with chips, jars of dip, and a single box of pre-cooked bacon. Mash, spotting some unfamiliar names and faces in Madeleine and Torrie, greets them with a light wave and only partially diverts her attention to try and listen in on whatever story may or may not be coming from Kale. "Good evening. I haven't seen either of you before... Did you world just recently unify?" Jeanne, meanwhile, cracks a smirk as she catches what's being said as well. "General? Ah, so he's back to that whole business, then. Heh. I was wondering when that would start up again." She laughs, then blinks slowly when she spots Xion, her outfit, and her cake delivery. She nonchalantly puts that coat back on a moment later, as though she's suddenly not self-conscious about wearing a similar hat and that getup.
Kale Hearthward	"Miss Cadrasteia," says Kale, nodding to her. "And... Torrie, correct?" "Unfortunately not 'General'. Just Mister, Chevalier, Lieutenant, or Captain, depending on the context," he says. "Or Breakfast Boy," says the songbird on the couch, not looking up from her phone. "Well, yes that, but I was hoping not to bring that up - it might invite challengers," says Kale. "Regarding the fight on Cybertron - it really doesn't even bear bringing up. The cybertronians turned out to be capable fighters - and not much else. I shouldn't speak ill of others tonight, though." "(He's going to do it anyway.)" comments the songbird quietly, still focused on her phone. OH GREAT IT'S JEANNE "Ah - that was a long time ago, let's not bring up the past?" says Kale, about the events of last year, where he shot down Santa (well, *a* Santa) and had to stand trial in Christmas Court. > "Is this the first time we've seen each other without having to throw down with someone else?" "Might be - sometimes there's never a quiet moment. Glad you all could make it." Kale manages to say this with a straight face. Xion arrives. "Hey! It's been a while. C'mon in! Oooh - did you make that yourself?" Kale is apparently fooled. Kale seems reasonably cheerful, but... maybe not terribly Christmas-y. Ugly sweaters are sort of in the tradition, but these seem more of the 'general ugly' sort and nothing holiday themed. There's a Christmas tree, but it looks very... box-check-y. Like it's- - yes, if Xion cares to examine it, it's a fake tree with pre-strung lights and a box of random dollar store decorations. There is no actual Christmas spirit in this house (aside from whatever the guests happen to be bringing in). "We were just talking fights, any of you all get into any interesting fights lately?" Yes this seems like a holiday party appropriate topic, just brimming with Christmas spirit. "Oh - here, let me take those, and give you these," says the mouse, emerging from the kitchen with a tray of spiced cocoa lattes, and taking the various drinks/foodstuffs people have brought with them. "I'll go get these set up." It remains peaceful - for now. It might not be so shortly. Trouble is afoot.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Madeleine smiles politely at Mash's question. "Yes, my- well. Not everything came with when I 'unified', but enough of it did to afford me the comforts of home. I've been here a few weeks now, but the Concord took their sweet time to find me." Torrie interjects, "and I came here with the Boss! I guess this is the first world I've really gotten to see, though, since Boss only met me a little while before we showed up here." Torrie begins to detail at length for Mash everything - interesting and otherwise - that she's experienced in the Multiverse so far, and Madeleine slips away into the rest of the party.     Specifically, Madeleine slips away to find Xion inspecting the Christmas tree. "Hello, Xion." She takes a sip of her cocoa latte, and her eyes perk up with realization. "Oh! I meant to bring the flask but I must have left it in my jacket, I forgot this dress doesn't have pockets. Perhaps I could stop by your home sometime to drop it off for you? Wouldn't want to deny you your sweets."
Xion	Xion, apparently not the only one summoned to the Event Quest: Save Christmas!!, smiles from heading to put away her cake with an innocent smile. She doesn't have a straight-up line to deliver for 'hey, isn't the first time we've met without having to throw down', but her eyes roll cheshire in the very possible hanging aura of how this might *become* a throw-down. "Hey Jeanne!" She instead greets, hopping over to the white-haired frenchwoman putting back on her jacket to pop up on her tiptoes and quite directly kiss Jeanne d'Arc on the cheek. With a giggle, she leans back, and points up-- To reveal a hanging and ever-so convenient sprig of mistletoe above the pair. "It's nice to see you again, Jeanne. Would you prefer it to be a 'throw down'?" She murmurs with a soft-giggly tone, before moving to the host's question. "Nope! It looks great because I bought it from a bakery! You can get some really nice cakes if you're willing to look." The honest noirette exclaims, having made her will save against capitalism at the start of the day, and generally unwilling to fault Kale for his utter lack of Christmas Spirit. Instead, she leers around with gazing action heroine eyes, surveiling the surrounds to make sure nothing nefarious is afoot, falling on Madeleine in her scan-of-the-room-for-wickedness, and stopping to soften and smile. "Hey again! You were at the rec center party." Xion greets, stepping up to address and smiling in a forgiving-knowing at the misplacement of the flask. "Oh, it's fine, I wasn't expecting it back immediately. You seemed like you needed it!" The noirette leans forward, eyes quirked. "Are you doing okay? I couldn't tell if you were a party person or not."
Madeleine Cadrasteia	"I'm mostly here for Torrie's sake, if I'm being entirely honest. She was really proud of those donuts. But I don't mind the chance to dress up, at least. And..." The huntress turns just slightly away. "Yeah. I did need it. That place, I know Persephone's trying to be welcoming with the sense of safety, but... danger is what's welcoming to me. It's familiar. It keeps me alert, you know?"
Rowdyruff Boys	There is, abruptly, a blonde-haired young man in a blue-and-white sweater and jeans here. Boomer was not stealthy in his arrival, but he had been rather swift about it, a bolt of blue that had been audible only through a distinctive hum that accompanied it. Like putting an ear against a plasma ball at a children's science center, turned up a little. His sweater is, regrettably, not ugly because he didn't choose his outfits for this weekend. There is, accompanying him, an additional tray or three of cookies with an incoherent design vision that appears to have deteriorated at some point into 'shapes, and then we go nuts with icing and sprinkles'. At some point somebody having a look would get the impression that they were meant to be a uniform series of stylized somebodies that just didn't turn out right, and became an impromptu art project. There might also be some additional alcohol stowed somewhere vaguely visible but not quite front-and-center. It is (or would be, were somebody to look this deeply into it) conspicuously free of fingerprints. "Hey hey, sorry I'm late," Boomer says, despite probably not having been directly invited. //We were just talking fights, any of you all get into any interesting fights lately?// "Uhhhh," Boomer drones for a moment, then snaps his fingers and says, "I had to help stop Townsville from burning itself down during Black Friday! Does that count?" It does, but there's probably not enough context for that to register. His head whips to the side at the sound of Xion's voice. Blinking, he asks, "Hey, I know you, right? Your voice..." They didn't share all that much time in the Watch, unfortunately. His attention flicks towards Kale. "Say, did you want a live tree? I've gotten really good at sourcing them!" This is a much more ominous than it sounds.
Xion	Xion nods slowly, growing with knowing as she thinks about it. "If it's *supposed* to be safe and easy, but you start intuiting danger... It's hard to know if it's real or not. It makes the danger unexpected, and the unexpected is scary too. Sometimes, when you're used to sharp things and danger... It's a lot more comfortable to be in that . . . 'mode'?" The Nobody smiles. "It's difficult to slip a clawed hand into a glove, isn't it? I think it's like that." Party-pleasant with a comfortable lean in her coat-and-coal-black-santa-hat, Xion considers meetups. "Yeah, we can meet somewhere - but I don't really know a 'dangerous' place to go. Is a coffee shop dangerous enough?" Boomer's arrival snaps Xion's attention to the bright blue plasma-spark of a young man in a not-quite-Ugly-enough sweater. "Dooo you?" She asks, considering their times in the Watch, and then shrugs. "I'm Xion. I used to have a title, but I'm between them right now. I like your cookies! They're aggressively frosted."
Ritsuka Fujimaru	"But of course." Jeanne replies, although it's not entirely clear whether she's agreeing with Kale or the songbird there. Possibly both, since she both has that bastard grin on her face while seemingly behaving by not setting anything on fire yet. Indeed, Kale isn't the only one that's a little low on Christmas spirit today. Sure, the trio are all wearing Christmas-y outfits (even if Jeanne's hiding hers now) and they're here for a Christmas Eve party, but the topic of discussion... "We did! Raced a nutty guy up an exploding airship." "And there was that incident with the mech shortly after that..." "Yeah, that one was really rough. But... We're still here!" Definitely not the most cheerful thing to remember. Thankfully, there's cocoa to drink from the mouse, and conversations to be had with old and new faces alike! Mash's attention lingers on Torrie and Madeleine as the former starts to explain what the pair has seen, listening intently and providing some of her own to keep that going. "I've been working with senp.. Ah. Ritsuka and Miss Jeanne for a while now. There's still so much more to see, but I never thought we'd really run into things like giant mecha and building-sized ants from space... How DO you battle, if I might ask? Since we're probably unlikely to see that tonight, but we may end up working together sometime soon." Jeanne, meanwhile, gets caught off guard for perhaps the first time in her.. No, that's a lie. The first time in a while in public when Xion pecks her on the cheek, actually managing to put that deer-in-the-headlights look on her face. It's only for a moment until Xion points out that mistletoe, and then she tries to play it off with her usual boastful laugh that doesn't quite fit when her cheeks turn multiple shades darker than they usually are with how pale she usually is. "C.. Cheeky one, aren't you? It's been a while, Xion. It would certainly have been worse if you hadn't... COULD. Could have been worse."" Clearing her throat, Jeanne takes just a moment to get her shit together before finally nodding once. "Of course a throw-down would be better. It should be a tradition, but somebody's insisting on leaving that in the past, so." Confident that any suspicions have been averted by trying to stuff Kale right back under the bus, that usual smirk of hers remains for all of five seconds until she realizes that both Ritsuka and Mash are staring right at her. Mash's gaze is of wide-eyed wonder, and Ritsuka simply nods slowly before turning to Xion to raise her hand in a quick thumbs-up. Before Jeanne can try to beat some answers out of Ritsuka and Mash, however, Boomer arrives, and that snatches Ritsuka's attention with an excited noise. "Not a problem, my guy! Yeah, that definitely counts. What'd you go up against with all that?"
Madeleine Cadrasteia	"A clawed hand into a glove..." Madeleine curls and uncurls the fingers of her free hand. "Anywhere can be dangerous if *I'm* there. Coffee is... I used to go for coffee, but had to break the habit for some friends' sakes. Someplace that serves tea would be nice, though."     Meanwhile Torrie beams at the mention of battle. "Oh, I, well," she pats the battleaxe on her hip. "I hit things really hard. I'm kind of the muscle, Madeleine's the brains. She's all tricks and traps and sneak attacks, that stuff's kind of beyond me but it's sure handy when we fight as a team."
Kale Hearthward	> "...but somebody's insisting on leaving that in the past... Sorry Jeanne, Kale doesn't have sufficient Awareness Points to pick up on a Subtlety Level Two Bus Throw, if you were hoping for a reaction. He just assumes Jeanne's talking about someone else. > "Nope! It looks great because I bought it from a bakery!" "Oh, well, you're a good shopper, then," says Kale. "I don't know if I could have bought a cake that nice." I totally could have, he thinks. Boomer arrives. "Oh - no worries on being late," says Kale, trying to remember if he's spoken to Boomer before. Or any of the Rowdyruffs or Powerpuffs. He knows them by reputation, and by them speaking on the radio, but he hasn't really met one before. > "I had to help stop Townsville from burning itself down during Black Friday! Does that count?" "Oh, that's... burning *itself* down, like... huh..." > "Say, did you want a live tree? I've gotten really good at sourcing them!" "Honestly - no, we just have this one up for the party, and I'm going to take it back down afterwards. I don't really like Christmas all that much." Xion's alert eyes can spot a bearded stranger peering through the room's front window. He's simply radiating holiday cheer. Also holiday malice. Actually, mostly just holiday malice. "Ahh - confirmed, the target has no Christmas spirit still..." He pulls his arm back and throws something at the window, and then starts running off. The thing breaks through the window - and lands squarely and neatly in front of the tree, on its feet. All of the East Wind crew are instantly alert - expecting it to be some sort of grenade. But it's just... "It's... a toy." says the songbird. "Why the heck is someone throwing toys through my-" Kale starts to say, his eyes going to follow the bearded man who's running away down the street. And then, from the kitchen, screams. "Mice!" yells the mouse. "I mean - the animal kind of mice!" Mice (normal sized non-person mice) are *pouring* out of every crack, crevice, faucet, drain, and other opening in the kitchen - and flowing out from there into the living room. It's a swarm. It's a swarm that's not content simply on consuming all of the food and drink that's been set out, and is going after anything else edible in the house with claws and teeth. (Meaning you.)
Rowdyruff Boys	"Oh, I'm Boomer! Nice to meet you," Boomer exclaims, evidently taking at face value that thre is no familiarity to be had here. In answer to the compliments, he vanishes ever-so-briefly into another VRRRR and produces a tin of the same cookies, passing them to Xion. They are completely separate from what was brought for the party. "Thanks! We like playing around. With colors. And stuff. Also sugar." He glances over towards Jeanne. "Hmm... fights just sort of come to you, if you let them, so I don't think--" But his attention is dragged to Ritsuka. "Oh, uh. A bunch of abominable swamp men, one of my dads in a mech suit, the mayor, the amoeba boys, you know, all the quirky weirdos that a city accumulates once it's been around long enough. Also, the random citizenry. They can be pretty vicious! Some old lady pinched Fuzzy Lumpkins so bad he had to go to the hospital..." //Oh - no worries on being late// "Oh, nice, see I'm kinda on probation when it comes to the whole holiday thing, and--" Boomer trails off, looking a little disappointed that he doesn't get to bring a Real Tree. Perhaps he is in some way obligated to spread Christmas-y... things. He hears something that's relevant to that though, and looks around in confusion. A window breaks, something comes through. Drifting through the air, Boomer reaches down to grab it and-- There are mice everywhere, and they are biting him. "Ouch! Hey, stop that!" Boomer exclaims, jerking back into the air and minimizing possible contact points. But he doesn't move to actually HURT the mice that are biting him. This is probably because biting his skin is a lot like biting into granite-- even with some give, it doesn't have an edible 'consistency'. He probably doesn't feel endangered. Pulling out his phone, he speed-dials... someone, and puts them on speaker. "I'm not doing favors for Santa, Boomer," Brick answers, immediately. "NO, THAT'S NOT IT, TELL THESE MICE TO STOP EATING EVERYTHING!" Boomer shrieks. Somebody asks Brick who he's talking to in the background. He sighs. "Excuse me, could you please stop?" He squeaks, in absolutely flawless Mouse.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Mice! Hundreds, thousands of them! Madeleine has fought swarming animals before. Without setting down her drink, she hops up onto a sofa, her silver pumps stabbing into the cushions. With an outstretched hand, she yells:     "THE FLOOR IS LAVA!"     The floorboards in the living room begin to glow and buckle as they superheat. It'll be a moment yet before anyone with shoes is in danger, but these mice are *very* low to the ground...
Xion	"It's nice to meet you!" Xion excitedly answers Boomer, getting a good vibe from the just-slightly-buzzing boy's energy and excitement. In a whisking lift of her hair from the blur of speed, she's offered a tin of cookies and looks in sugar-hopeful wonder at the container. "Thanks!" The box disappears into black fading-dark voxels as she inventories it and wheels back to Jeanne while Ritsuka and Mash look on (and thumbs up) her antics. It'd been *months* since she had seen Jeanne! "Cheeky, huh?" Xion begins, looking something up on her phone while lingering near the dressed-down-for-absolutely-no-reason-and-definitely-not-season's-embarrasment-reasons Jeanne. Thumbtyping while looking around, the party seems to be decently going, and, if all goes to plan, Kale won't leave for the next few hours and the gift giving won't be threatened by bird-based ground-to-air interception. The noirette's vigilance passes over a sneering set of eyes in the window, filled with cheer and malice both, because it's all a delaying tactic now. Xion had softened Jeanne d'Arc Alter's heart towards the world by taking a personal interest in her actual growth as a person. That the white haired goth was the sort to like a girl to just power up and throw Jeanne into a couch (to hang out and watch movies, via force) was a known trait. Xion was that powered up girl! Taking holiday cheer into her own hands was a specialty. Just like hanging mistletoe. Kale was a Christmas Cheerless sort, but Xion knew the old magics. "Aren't *you* the cheeky one? Seeing as you're the one who got one on the cheek? Hold on--" Jeanne and Madeleine get a glance at Xion's phone as she lowers it ('what is the cooldown on mistletoe' to which there isn't a useful result) and jumps up to grab the sprig (that she planted earlier via inventory-magic) and land holding the sprig. Looping her arm around Jeanne's shoulders, Xion aims a second kiss right at Jeanne's pouting-flustered lips. She keeps it clean -- that's a rule! It's rule #3 on the list she's consulting, in fact -- smirking and offering a quick "There - now I'm cheeky--" before a scream belts out from the kitchen. Holding a big whisk of mistletoe out like a ready weapon towards the ratswarm, she is immediately bite-nibbled at and her swished light- and heavy-sweep span of wood is swiftly snapped away by the bites of the all-consuming mice! That is, until the floor becomes lava. Xion hops backwards to land one-footed in a wobbly balance on the catering table, sweeping a kick out as she lands to defend the deserts. "Hey! I think I spotted a guy at the window!" Well, only now does she remember. "Kale, are you cursed?!" She asks, drawing a fresh broom from inventory in a flash of wooshing-dark to continue to batter mice away from the fingerfood before it becomes vermin-tainted. Unfortunately, she has a feeling she'll have to find another dinner anyway. . .
Ritsuka Fujimaru	"The muscle? Oh, please don't sell yourself short, Miss Torrie. I can't say I don't know how you feel sometimes, though." Mash replies to Torrie with a chuckle, looking over at Ritsuka and Jeanne briefly. "Ritsuka's certainly the br... Strategist of our group, and Miss Jeanne's the heavy hitter. My job is just making sure nothing gets to them while they do all that. It really is so much more effective than fighting alone, though." Jeanne's only slightly disappointed that her comment doesn't get a rise out of Kale. She stil sighs dramatically, of course, but she can't dwell on that too long. She can't recall why, exactly, but she's pretty sure there was someone else she wanted to smack first. "Fights do indeed seem to find me... It's such a pain, you understand." She replies to Boomer in a slightly distracted, but still just as haughty tone that suggests she doesn't find it painful at all. "Sounds like you've got it rough... I don't even know half of what those names are, but it sounds busy!" Ritsuka replies as well with a more eager chuckle. "Makes sense that the citizens would be tough, too, if fights keep happening like that all the time. And.. Whoa. Your mom let you have TWO dads? Cool." Before Jeanne can remember who she wanted to smack, though, her gaze gets redirected to Xion performing much of the same antics that had her somehow drawn to her so many months ago. "Hm? This is how I always am. Unless you're talking about the-" Suddenly feeling self-conscious again, Jeanne takes a moment to flap out the back of her coat to make sure it's nice and loose, but that just gives Xion the opportunity to get her head down in range for that second kiss! There's the pre-requisite sputtering that lasts for about three seconds, of course, then settling into it (cleanly, of course) with a light grunt that almost sounds... Pleased? That's definitely not what Mash and Ritsuka expected as they keep watching, but before Jeanne remembers that Ritsuka was her fist's target... They all hear the mouse squeaking about mice, and it's just strange enough to get them looking over that-a-way. The actual threat becomes more apparent when swarms of normal mice start coming out of the kitchen. Without another wise-crack coming out of her, Jeanne conjures up her banner, and it might not actually fit depending on how low the ceiling is in here. Whatever the case is, though, she sets the banner down as flames spread from it towards the swarm, aiming to consume them entirely in a literal carpet of fire. She seems rather focused on trying to incinerate them, too, even staying in place as some of those critters starts swarming at her and biting at her knees and hand and stuff. Mash brings out her own shield and might very well cause Kale further distress when she slams it down on the floor to add a sizable obstacle between the swarm and everyone behind her. It's an attempt to slow the tide, but she's not sure where they're coming from! Ritsuka, for her part, is scrambling to save the food, either shoving a table towards the door furthest from the swarm or just bundling up the more expensive looking food in tablecloths and such to since her magic isn't quite suited to swarms of rodents. When she hears Madeleine shouting about the floor being lava, she even starts scrambling atop tables and clambering onto shelves and cabinets to make sure she's off the ground as well.
Kale Hearthward	> "Kale, are you cursed?!" "I don't know!" Jeanne swings the flaming banner, setting mice ablaze. "Hey! Careful! You're gonna catch my house on fire!" complains Kale, because he just has to find some picky little detail to complain about. What's a bit of arson between friends, after all. Attempts to shield the food are made - between Ritsuka, the person-sized mouse, and the three-kobolds-in-a-trenchcoat working together, they manage to shield about half of it from the swarm. > "Excuse me, could you please stop?" "Stop doing what?" says a mouse (in mouse). "Wait, why are we in this house?" says a second mouse (in mouse). "There's people!" says another mouse (in mouse). "Why is your phone making squeaking sounds?!" says the person-sized mouse (in english). The mice stop swarming aggressively and just start swarming around confused and then in a panic, which is a great improvement, but still not ideal. The 'floor is lava' rules being in effect push the 'panic' factor up more. The mice stream back *out* of the house, via any opening afforded - including the door hastily opened by the songbird (ugly sweater design: badly artifacted grumpy cat jpeg), and sped along by Xion literally sweeping them out and away. And then - relative peace. "... We're going to have to fumigate..." complains Kale. "And I just got-" The toy that was thrown through the window and into Boomer's hands - a classical style nutcracker - comes alive. It's not very animated - it's still a toy, it's lacking multiple points of articulation - but it's clearly moving on its own without clockwork or electricity. The head moves, the arms spin, the jaws clack together... and the eyes glow. And everyone starts to shrink. Down - down, down down... the process takes a few agonizing seconds. Down all the way to about the size of the mice the group was dealing with earlier. Down to where tiny crumbs on the floor are now the size of basketballs, where the underside of the couch is high enough that you can't quite reach the upholstered fabric (unless you're flying), where the lost nailclippers in a corner of the room are now a two handed melee weapon, where the tiny knotholes in the wood floor are tripping hazards... ... The sudden shift is unpleasant and disorienting, on its own. If that was all that the partygoers had to deal with. But there's also the Nutcracker - which remains normal size and did not shrink, and so is now relatively speaking a 12ft golem lumbering across the room with arms swinging and wooden jaw clacking.
Rowdyruff Boys	//Fights do indeed seem to find me... It's such a pain, you understand.// "Uh, I don't really experience all THAT much pain in my life, to be honest!" Boomer says, clueless as to the actual tone being employed by Jeanne. Mostly it's because he's distracted by all the mice, though. From the ongoing video call with Brick comes a little bit more attention towards Xion: "The cooldown on mistletoe is individual-dependent. For some, it is at least three hundred and sixty four days. For others, or most, it is situation-dependent. However--" "Please focus on the mice for me, Brick!" Brick, who is not very interested in controlling mouse swarms, just sort of makes a disgruntled noise. There's too much motion going on to get a good look at his face, but he doesn't look terribly thrilled about 'being' here, either. After a moment he actually disappears from camera. While he's hopefully-being-helped by his brother's intervention, Boomer replies to Xion, "You're welcome! Glad to share. We uh, we made way too many. We kinda get carried away sometimes." To Ritsuka, he replies, "Local troublemakers, locals, just a whole lot of regulars in our life I guess. Sometimes it's rough, sometimes it isn't. Heroing usually isn'y my job, so it isn't THAT bad... //Wait, why are we in this house?// "Shenanigans," Brick comes back into frame, squeaking and vocalizing strangely again. "Don't worry about it. This isn't a place to be." To the person-sized mouse, Brick switches back to English, "I speak to animals. My brother lacks this ability. I am 'squeaking' to communicate with them." Boomer blinks at the nutcracker. He's shrunken, which... isn't actually all that threatening to him, all told. It's just sort of irritating. He looks up at the surroundings. He looks at Ritsuka, and then points at the Nutcracker and says, "This is about a normal Holiday for me, actually!" At which point the characteristic VRRRRRR of Boomer engaging his super-speed in flight follows, a streak of blue zig-zagging through the air as he simply attempts to uppercut the Nutcracker.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Madeleine, from her perch on the couch, hastily recalls her lava-floor-game as she slips in between the couch cushions and disappears. Torrie, not *so* much shorter relative to the nutcracker than many of the other partygoers, hefts her two-handed axe and rushes the construct. Madeleine pounces from between the couch cushions, hefting a... sewing needle!? Who let that fall into the couch, that's dangerous! Regardless, the square-cube law allows her to leap many times her height into the air, attempting to come down on the Nutcracker's shoulder with a well-placed plunging attack.
Xion	Taught a new thing about the cooldown period of mistletoe, Xion nods knowingly, before fluttering her eyes and sputtering a disbeleiving "Three hundred?!" That's too long between smooches. That's a Christmas Crime. 'Fights do indeed seem to find me...' "If you weren't looking for something to crash into your life, Jeanne, you wouldn't throw yourself at so much." Xion shoots over the violence, frontflipping over the the fried foods to broom-thrust. "I knew I'd have to save christmas if I came here, Kale!" Xion announces at the other end, swishbuckling with her broom away from the food, joining Three Kobolds In A Trenchcoat for a team attack that carries mice safely away from lava-floor and calmly out the door. It's not necessary to use lethal attacks on little animals, and a little Christmas mercy for the clearly misguided mice is well in order. Twirling her broom and couching it under her arm, Xion hops back down to the floor and smiles to Ritsuka, another food-saving warrior, when the whole *world* starts falling away! Or... No, they're getting smaller? Lifting her hand to her head and changing her stance as if in free-fall though her feet never leave the ground, Xion still stumbles a bit when her perspective steadies. "Oh come on, you had to make us small? -- Wait! Is this so you don't break Kale's house? That's very thoughtful of you, Christmas spirit!" Xion praises, though drawn down to a tiny size there's not much her ensmallified broom can do against the mighty swing of the CRACKER (of NUTS). Handle splintering after one block, Xion retreats a step with shocked eyes. Tossing aside her broken broombits as she dives aside through a dark portal-hole and re-emerges behind the clattering wooden titan of twelve inch menace. Rolling to a crouch that smoothly transitions back to an open handed dash, Xion is mid-leap and motion and a stroke before striking before her Keyblade forms in her hands with a metallic 'shwink!' and a sudden flare of shooting-star explosive power that holds her clashing blade against the back of the golem. But Xion doesn't stop! Reaching a hand out towards the besmall'nd Jeanne, a darkly-burning ball of energy leaves the Alter-Saint's chest and sails into Xion's opened hand. The reaching fingers close around the power sphere, and hold ''something'' there, that she sweeps across the edge of her blade. Thanks to the power of special attack animation frames, this all takes a subjective split second, empowering her shooting star rising slash with a nut-cracking ground spike of a rising ground 'pillar' spear-spike wreathed in perpetually burning black fire.
Ritsuka Fujimaru	'Uh, I don't really experience all THAT much pain in my life, to be honest!' "Oh. How nice for you." Jeanne says in the blandest, most deadpan tone with the dullest expression she can muster for Boomer. It's not as though he can help that, but it still rubs her just the wrong way to actually hear it. 'Local troublemakers, locals, just a whole lot of regulars in our life I guess. Sometimes it's rough, sometimes it isn't. Heroing usually isn't my job, so it isn't THAT bad...' "I get the feeling... Kinda. Sometimes! But... Really?" Ritsuka purses her lips, staring at Boomer quizzically at some vague point in the mid-mouse-ousting conversation before shrugging and returning to that usual grin of hers. "Well, if it's not for you, then it's not for you. What IS your job, anyway?" 'If you weren't looking for something to crash into your life, Jeanne, you wouldn't throw yourself at so much.' Jeanne opens her mouth as she often does, ready to utter some kind of witty response, but she doesn't actually have anything for that one. Sure, she could go on about how it's just more interesting to do things than not, and it wouldn't be wrong, but... It's different, in Xion's case. "... Maybe. It's certainly worked out better than it had any right to." She finally replies with a brief noise of affirmation. She's losing her edge. Better make up for that. 'Hey! Careful! You're gonna catch my house on fire!' "That's the...!" No. Jeanne has to at least behave a little, even if she really really wants to say 'point'. She'll just have to settle for roasting some mice, but even she can't feel too good about so many rodents making away with that hard-won food that she put almost no effort into obtaining. She'll have her chance later.
Ritsuka Fujimaru	Not all of the food can be saved, but Ritsuka's still feeling pretty good about the results when the swarm finally getting ousted from the house. Breathing a heavy sigh of relief, she sets the tablecloth-sack back onto a nearby table before dropping onto the closest couch. "Whew... I'm beat! But a little exercise before a good meal never hurt, right?" "If it's safe to eat inside here... Er. W-with that smell and all." "Please. It's not like you haven't smelled a little burnt-" Wait. Maybe that's not the right thing to bring up. Thankfully, that all seems to go right over Ritsuka's head as she sees the nutcracker in Boomer's hands, and the shrinking that follows has Ritsuka scrambling towards the center of her chosen couch cushion while Mash and Jeanne both group up somewhere on that burnt flooring with everyone else. "Are you okay up there, Master?" "All good, Mash! How about you and Jeanne?" "Aw, are you lonely? We'll be up there soon enough." "Nah, no need! You and Miss Xion enjoy yourselves!" The only thing stopping Jeanne from leaping up to where Ritsuka is and beating her up is the fact that the nutcracker is still presenting itself as a (relatively) massive threat. Mash takes the front, of course, bringing up her shield to meet the giant head on and taking its strikes right against the surface of her shield. She has to wrestle with it a fair bit when that wooden jaw clamps around her shield, though, bobbing and weaving around to keep her movements unpredictable as well as using the momentum to keep it from taking her shield entirely! While Mash handles that, Jeanne picks up her banner and sets it aflame again, glancing over at Kale first instead of rushing back in. "There. Small enough it won't wreck your floors. You're welcome~" She taunts with a brief Look at him, then at the ball of energy coming out of her towards Xion. Raising an eyebrow curiously, she cracks her trademark(?) bastard grin before gripping the flag in both hands and rushing forward with it. Her path is pretty obvious, but fast: A straight charge with the flaming spear/flag aimed right at the nutcracker's oversized face to try and wedge it open alongside Mash's shield for that spiked flame pillar from Xion.
Kale Hearthward	> "This is about a normal Holiday for me, actually!" "We should hang out sometime," says Kale, finding an unexpected kindred spirit in Boomer. "Is this the best time for discussing that?" calls the songbird. "How does this effect work?" says the mouse-sized-person-sized-mouse-person. "It'd be really convenient to replicate - we'd stretch the space inside the East Wind even further!" "And this isn't the best time for that, either," says the songbird. UPPERCUT THE NUTCRACKER! > "There. Small enough it won't wreck your floors. You're welcome~" "Still be careful about scorch marks!" The Nutcracker is made out of wood. Nutcracker does not like fire! Fire bad! Madeleine comes in from the side, slamming her spear into the nutcracker's shoulder, and jamming the mechanism that makes its nutcracking jaw move when its arm moves. Now that it's broken, nobody's going to feel like a nut, so they shouldn't want an almond joy. With that, and Mash's shield keeping the jaw open, Xion has a clear shot with her attack - but the Nutcracker goes berserk mode as it reaches its last HP bar, and charges off at the last second - not towards any of the other combatants, but towards the living room's end table, slamming into its leg... ... and causing the extant plate of apple cider donuts perched atop it to come crashing down onto the floor, sending the donuts rolling everywhere. Donuts that are several times the size of anyone in this room, as a reminder. At least your pending demise shall be sugary and apple-flavored.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Torrie falls to her knees, bellowing in frustration and grief for her lost donuts: "They were VEGAN!!!" Madeleine, meanwhile, is completely bowled over by one, then another, leaving her more than a little worse for wear. "We have to end this soon," she calls to anyone nearby as she... pulls something out of her shadow? A floppy, black discus which she tosses into the Nutcracker's path. The circle expands, and deepens - a portable pit! At this scale it's not wide enough to catch the whole nutcracker, but with luck it'll trip and smash its head on the rim...
Rowdyruff Boys	//Oh. How nice for you.// Boomer shrugs. "Just how my body works. Though, my brothers did a good few numbers on me when we were younger..." He grimaces a little at the thought. //What IS your job, anyway?// "Social media personality, basically. I do a lot of performing stuff, but it's a little nonspecific. I'm not much of a conventional job kinda guy. But Brick insists we don't do the hero thing, and I don't really WANT to, even if I'd probably do it more often than he would..." Boomer explains, a little airily. He seems uncertain about a lot of this; it might be more accurate to say that he doesn't know what his place is, exactly. //Three hundred?!// "For mistletoe? Yes. Some people are very strange about it. Or private. There are many modifiers," Brick explains, simply. It might be getting a little hard to hear him, since the phone he's speaking from is pocketed and in motion. //We should hang out sometime// "Uh, sure!" says Boomer, who is a people-pleaser and doesn't really have a reason not to in an immediate sense. The aggravation noises coming from his phone is suggestive of Brick not approving for some reason, though it might not be all that directed. He seems like a cranky person all-around. As an aside to Xion, Boomer says, "Brick's kinda weird about that stuff, I think he people-watches too often and lets his numbers skew to really uptight people, or his worst expectations..." There are donuts falling towards him. Boomer engages in the very simple solution of eating the damn donut, which he can do because he is an absurd superhuman; it doesn't occur to him that he can just size-shift back up if he really HAS to, so he doesn't do that. Instead he simply catches one of the donuts in mid-air with an aggravated OOF! and then goes to work on it in super-speed. Afterwards he is very uncomfortable because proportionately he just ate several times his body mass. "Uggggh. I need a driiiiink," he complains, stretching both hands out in front of himself. Arcs of electricity dance between his fingertips, and after a moment he unleashes a wave of lightning towards the Nutcracker that's more of a field of static electricity at this scale, but still-- good enough.
Ritsuka Fujimaru	"You have insurance, don't you?!" Jeanne, ever the sometimes-careless one, doesn't relent in her fire-slinging ways as the battle with the giant nutcracker continues. Instead of giving chase when it rushes off, she holds her ground with Mash, and they both stare at the rolling donut wave with the same dead-eyed expression despite the impending danger. "That... Can't be too bad, can it?" "They're donuts. Who would get hurt by a donut?" "They're still huger than us! It'd be like getting rolled over by sumo-wrestler, I bet." "I suppose.. Wha. Master?! Why didn't you stay up there?!" "I wanted to see this up close." With one more person to protect, MAsh takes a deep breath to steady herself (and let her brain recover) before bracing her shield on the ground in front of her. She looks over her shoulder at Ritsuka (who nods firmly) and then at Jeanne (who isn't paying attention at all), then starts putting out even more energy as the air around her glimmers. "Deploying Noble Phantasm!" Mash shouts, and the light enveloping her shield intensifies to the point of making it look several times larger, creating a one-foot safe zone behind her as she takes on those oncoming donuts head on, steel and magic clashing against giant the doughy death avalanche! That leaves Ritsuka and Jeanne to collaborate on the former funneling even more mana into the later. Taking a cue from what Xion had done earlier, Jeanne starts conjuring those eerie flames from below as she raises her sword like she's about to direct an arrow volley or something. Rather than arrows raining from above the moment she points her blade forward, however, the inky flames instead surge out from beneath her towards the Nutcracker. Once they reach the towering figure, the flames start lapping at its legs while over a dozen of Jeanne's spears stab upwards into it, aiming not only to impale and immolate it in one massive surge of power, but to provide another opening for the noirette to put the finishing touches on the hostile doll. "First the rats, and now the donuts... All this wasted food is-" "-unforgivable! Whoever's out there, you'd better watch closely! The next one is going right up your-" "As soon as we're done here, we should be back to normal! Um. Right?"
Xion	A dash-off on the last health bar? Right before the juicy setup finisher? Xion's seen the terrible malice-filled monsters like this before, the very worst of the Heartless. No wonder the Nutcracker was trying to defeat her on Christmas at Kale's house -- he wasn't just normal cursed! "Kale you are Powerfully cursed!!" Xion hollers, her voice up-pitched from being so tiny at scale. An ant, shouting truths at the sky. Falling from her rising slash and cartwheeling through the air over hardwood, Xion lands in a shoulder roll that transitions into a bouncing series of steps to walk out the last of her momentum. Shouldering her keyblade over her left shoulder momentarily as she watches the nutcracker smash the table, a leaning look forward becomes a backleaning look up at the falling form of massive doughnuts. With her right hand still being closed around the painted-dark energy 'flames' of the item she drew from Jeanne, Xion gains an idea. It's not a very good idea, but, it's a pretty Jeanne-inspired idea. She's *actually*, really, big! Therefore, the doughnut won't actually kill her to eat. So Xion turns her head to return Jeanne's trademark bastard grin with a sidesmirk of her own. "Sometimes, Jeanne, you're right. The best thing to do is to just force your way forward. It's better than standing still!" Moving her right hand over her chest, Xion breathes in the 'dark fire' that lifts harmlessly from the medallion in her grip, leaning in to the particular power of the Dragon Witch momentarily more fully. Sharp black horns split the skin on her forehead and lift her bangs aside. Between and around them, a scattering of scales replace where once was skin. A shudder of changes occur under her clothing, two wings pushing out from her lower back and spreading leathery and talon-topped. Aiming and leaping into an onrushing donut, the transformed Xion distorts, twisting to take a big bite out of the donut and simply defeat the threat via anti-cartoon logic behavior when-- that's not how calories which are very large work, you Christmas dummy. Xion goes from great idea to 'oh I've just taken an enormous dragon-bite out of something that's hyper-dense calories and sugar' to me and goes into a momentary moment of sensory arrest. The donut hurtles towards the ground, and then-- Disappears, with several of the others around her, voxeling away just like her broomhandles before, unpreturbed by the relative rescaling. She accepts a full baker's dozen (Biggest Apple Cider Donut X12, Biggest Apple Cider Donut (Bitten) x1) of the things, averting both danger AND awful cleaning of sticky stains as the things roll all over the place, landing her back on the ground coated with sugar and... vibrating unhealthily. Xion's eyes snap to the Nutcracker, which had evaded spanking before for CUTSCENE RUNNING AROUND. "No mmore gammess." Xion stutters, lips vibrating a little too much around too-large dragon teeth to stay entirely within natural diction. In a practically stopped-time (sugar-)rush, Xion dashes, slides under bursts of lightning and dances between crackles and beam-arcs just to lay a stop-motion beatdown on the nutcracker with a collection of suddenly generated jet-black spears of (borrowed) fire.
Kale Hearthward	Lightning. Fire. Spears. And, finally, a giant pit, which the beaten-down Nutcracker finally topples backwards into - and stops moving. And with that - everyone grows back to their original sizes. Some furniture gets pushed around in the process, and it's likely everyone's inside everyone else's personal bubble till they spread back out, but the effect reversing is a largely non-violent process. The Nutcracker seems to once again be just a toy. Kale takes stock. There's the initial broken window, the mess the rats left behind, the much depleted stock of food and drink, the scorch marks and other bits of wear and tear from the battle, and everyone's general condition. "... That... could have gone a lot worse." "I'm not entirely sure what all that was about, but - I'm sorry you all got caught up in it. If you want to go I'll understand, but if you are up for staying I'll order some pizzas and new drinks." Boomer gets approached by the mouse. She's got a bottle of OTC stomach meds in hand - she glances at it and him, trying to determine what the correct dosage would be for his superpowered metabolism, and then ultimately just hands him the entire bottle.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Torrie sniffles, staring at the wreckage of her donut platter. "C-could you also get some breadsticks from the pizza place?"     Madeleine's eyes are on Xion after the Nobody's tremendous dragon attack, but she adds to her cohort's request, "I guess the two of us are staying a while."
Rowdyruff Boys	Boomer takes the bottle of stomach meds, looks at it, and then offers it to Xion because he thinks she probably can actually get some use out of it. "Thanks. I might just uh, fly it off? I don't know. I don't know how eating that much works, proportionately. I guess Butch might... but he's not answering his calls. "Speaking of," Brick says, and then his call with Boomer ends. "Er, anyway... I can probably get more cookies... but I think maybe part of your problem is the lack of Christmas cheer." Running a hand through his hair thoughtfully, he surveys the house in contemplation. "I think it might be a sincerity thing? Going through the motions isn't really the same as the thing itself... if pizza and drinks is more your style, that might count more than this did before. I'm not sure..."
Ritsuka Fujimaru	"Sometimes? You wound me, dear xion." Jeanne feigns a wound and clutches her chest briefly, but still has that same grin on as she watches her turning into a familiar shape. It's almost enough to distract her from adding more fire, but not quite, and soon... The Nutcracker is defeated! And then everyone starts going back to their original sizes, and things finally seem to calm down after all that excitement! 'Though, my brothers did a good few numbers on me when we were younger...' "Sensible. That is how siblings grow up, isn't it...? Could've done worse, I suppose." Jeanne finally answer Boomer as she winds down from the battle, shuffling over a bit so she doesn't end up in a tangled pile with Ritsuka and Mash as they return to their normal sizes. 'But Brick insists we don't do the hero thing, and I don't really WANT to, even if I'd probably do it more often than he would...' "You'd be good at it, but yeah. Don't, then. You'll be happier finding something that really screams at you!" Ritsuka answers, not bothered at all by the possibility of ending up in a tangled pile with Boomer in comparison. "Like... Oh. You ever do stunt work? I bet someone that does his own stunts and FX would be real popular!" "Speaks to, not screams at." Mash corrects Ritsuka, already moving to tug her away from/off of Brick and offering him an apologetic bow of her head. "Maybe... Some kind of quieter work? Photography or painting could be a nice change of pace." Dropping onto a couch, Jeanne instinctively kicks her legs up to prop them up on whatever table or other things are nearby. "Pizza's fine. After all that..." She pauses, looking over at the burnt mice and the Nutcracker-hole being so much smaller in reality than they were moments ago. Jeanne stares for a while longer, then sighs and finally takes her coat back off, then holds an arm up while totally not looking sideways at Xion like she's expecting something. "... We still have those beers, right?" "Count me in! All that fighting really worked up an appetite." "We shouldn't... Mmn. Make sure to eat enough before drinking any of that. We need to stay sober for story time." Jeanne doesn't quite get it, but both Mash and Ritsuka are looking right at Xion during that last comment.
Xion	Growing back to her original size, Xion's transformation smears off of her, like it remains at-scale and she is suddenly bigger. She still has the zoomies something fierce despite, the chemical effect on her body still thundering through her. The logic - and the magic - did not entirely work to her benefit... But thankfully, a super-guy with a bottle of stomach meds is there to sweep in and offer her. With an apologetic (and slightly tummysick) smile, she bob-nods and jitters slightly - audible in the rattle of the bottle to the near-surrounds. "Thanks for this. I think I might actually pass on more cookies? I think I might have hit 'okay' with sweets, actually..." She admits gently to Boomer. "I recognize you now - you joined the Watch around the time I left. Might've heard of me before then too. It's nice to see you, and... It's nice to see you showing your own version of Christmas cheer. Kale needs tips sometimes, and he's got, you know..." Xion works the top of the pill bottle off with her palm and pops a pair of pills in between her teeth, checking the label before cracking down with her jaw and chewing the pills. Finally turning her attention to Madeleine - and her cohort's ask for breadsticks - Xion's slight sickness clears. "I guess we are, huh. Do you feel the right amount of 'in danger' now?" Finally admitting it, as she wheels around to slightly jitter her way over to the couch and drop down next to Jeanne. "Yeah, I could go for pizza. We can also stick around to make sure your ornaments don't go for a round two across the living room, Kale." The Nobody declares. "That's plenty enough Christmas spirit to appease whatever powerful curses you've gotten yourself into over the year. But Christmas day, you're on your own! I got *stuff* to do." The hyperactive noirette adds.
Rowdyruff Boys	"I thought it was kinda awful, at first, even though things got better later," Boomer admits to Jeanne, uncomfortably. "I was always the nice one, so I got picked on." //You'd be good at it// To this, Boomer perks up a little, though he doesn't say anything. Instead, he moves on to the other questions and suggestions. "I mostly do various streaming things with my girlfriend. We try not to feature in actual films, since our lives are already kinda riddled with people making films about us to start with. Two of our siblings had a real firm grip on that for a long while, since people got really nosy..." "We play games, review movies, sometimes do game show-y things," he continues, ticking off items. The idea of being in a tangled pile doesn't actually seem to bother him, but since he's moving three-dimensionally if it happens he just lets himself get pushed out of the way. Brick is not actually physically present, having been on a video call, so there's no need to pull anybody off of him. //I recognize you now - you joined the Watch around the time I left. Might've heard of me before then too. It's nice to see you, and... It's nice to see you showing your own version of Christmas cheer.// Boomer grimaces. "Brick talked about it, some. He likes the freedom of the group, but the organizational flaws might be fatal by his reckoning. We haven't really decided. I understand why you'd take off, though." He actually doesn't, he missed the important bits. Perking up, he says, "I'm glad I've got the right idea here, though!"
Kale Hearthward	> "I think it might be a sincerity thing?" Kale considers this. "Piersson, cancel the pizza order," he says. "I never made it?" says the top kobold of the three-kobolds-in-a-trenchcoat stack. "You're the communications officer, you should have gone ahead and - nevermind, we'll talk later." Kale clasps his hands together. "Okay. Sincerity, then." "Skye, grocery run. Get some apple cider and baking supplies. Hazelthistle, get the kitchen cleaned and sanitized, and get the oven preheating. Piersson, grab some wine from the basement and whatever beers we have down there." "As for me... I'm going to make breakfast." Kale's team gets into motion. Skye returns with shopping bags full, and Torrie gets ushered into the quickly-cleaned-up kitchen, and invited to recreate her creations (with help). Piersson comes up from the basement with some of Kale's personal alcohol stock to hand off to Ritsuka and the others (and nobody on the team comments on him having extra hands to carry it all in). And Kale gets to work - and quickly enough, two stacks of fresh, fluffy waffles (vegan and non), and similarly vegan and non-vegan sausages, and regular and egg-like omelettes all up for grabs, along with fresh coffee made to order.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Madeleine nods and smiles at Xion's joke. "This is what I meant. You never know when someone who has it in for you will show up with a bunch of rats and a nutcracker. Or other seasonally-appropriate threats, like some kind of man-eating Easter bunny."     Torrie practically jumps at the chance to show off her donut skills for an audience, the floor-based tragedy of only minutes before all but forgotten. Madeleine skips the waffles and gets herself a plate of sausage and eggs.
Rowdyruff Boys	"Oh, the easter bunny is okay, but you have to watch out for the equinox hare," Boomer weighs in, towards Madeleine. He is dead serious. With all the sugar that's in his system now, his interest at breakfast is 'savoury' and 'bitter', with an emphasis on coffee and eggs. The shift in style gets an enthusiastic double thumbs-up, "Yeah, that's it! Gotta go with your own style, share it around. Brick always says that these seasonal festivals are pretty same-y, and it's hard to do them wrong so long as 'celebration' and 'shared meals' get observed. I don't really get it, but finding a personal emotional center is easy for me to wrap my head around!"
Xion	Gathering up a plate and considering waffles, Xion contemplates a sweet breakfast. Can she do this? Can she bring herself to? Really? No. Moving through desire, to scheming, to near-action, to hitching, to sadness and pause, the noirette goes through every emotion. Dejected, Xion turns to the omlette -- and smiles relievedly. Though rich and egg-based (she chooses not to confont that Kale made an egg dish carefully, as much as a mouse woman shouting 'mice!' from a swarm of vermin in her kitchen) it is not sweet, and so she can tolerate a meal. The action team pays off! And a few sausages don't go bad places. Satiated to chase something more calming than fat and sugar, Xion leans back into the couch and the arm over her shoulders, eating quietly. "I really don't want to do the Easter minigames right now." She sighs pointedly. There is something about 'rabbit + egg + seasonal minigames' that makes Xion experience a distant ache of pain.
Ritsuka Fujimaru	Jeanne's smirk shifts upwards just a bit when Xion sits, but she avoids looking over right away even though her arm finally comes back down around her shoulder. "Get a cross if you'd like. I can burn it later once the curses are gone, and then everyone'll be happy." She recommends with another laugh, eventually realizing Ritsuka and Mash are still staring right at them. Before she can snap at them again, they both wisely turn right around and join Kale('s crew) in passing around drinks! Mash is a little more direct about encouraging Ritsuka to pour and pass them around, too, as though doing that might keep her out of trouble from drinking any of it herself. It doesn't, but Kale's breakfast work means it'll control how much of it hits any of them at once. "Streams, huh? And it's not exciting stuff, either... Heh. Sounds fun! Doing normal stuff like that's important with the kind of work we're involved in." Ritsuka affirms to Boomer, both to try and sound wiser than she is and also to keep her mind revving as she considers... "Getting watched even when you don't want to be sounds rough. Sorry, dude." "At least the cameras are away in here. No wild.. Er. No more wild and hectic things going on, just a peaceful night among friends and co-workers." "And not a single man-eating or moon rabbit in sight!" Jeanne, for once, doesn't have something snarky to say after that. She seems to just be enjoying herself quietly, finally, with food and that arm squeezing Xion a little bit more firmly after her comment about the Easter minigames. Not that it's on purpose or anything! Totally a coincidence.
Kale Hearthward	> streaming things "Streaming? I tried some of that, didn't really go well. People on the internet can be weird, intense, or weirdly intense." "Or intensely weird?" pipes in Skye, who's gone back to sitting on the couch browsing her phone while the rest of the crew works. "The money was good but at the same time it didn't really seem worth it," adds Kale.
Rowdyruff Boys	"My uh, my brother and my girlfriend's sister made people who got too hostile... really, really uncomfortable until nobody was willing to do it anymore," Boomer says, his expression growing progressively more grim as he goes. "Honestly, it's pretty shitty. People should just learn to act half-way nice at least. It's not that hard, most of the time." "And sometimes it is exciting! We do music and stuff, periodically. That's more Buttercup's main thing than ours, but you know how it is," he elaborates. To Xion, he wonders, "You ever got the minigame with the little white chocolate guys and having to match them to chocolate world trees? That one's so weird. I think something is wrong with the equinox hare."
Madeleine Cadrasteia	"I have been considering this 'streaming', of late. An elite by the name of Petra encouraged me to stream a hunt. I should check if her tip about that robot cat-twink-creature has come in to the blog yet..." Madeleine holds out a hand to Torrie, who pulls a phone from a pocket of her tunic. The huntress unlocks the device and pulls up her internet browser. The homepage, visible to anyone looking over her shoulder, is some kind of cryptid-oriented blog. "Ishirou... strange name for a species of monster, that."
Kale Hearthward	Kale fumbles his whisk in the bowl of waffle batter, and has to fish it out. "Um - Ishirou is a person. I think Petra was putting you on a bit." Better to phrase it like it was a joke than try to explain that whole thing.
Rowdyruff Boys	"That's... not a monster," Boomer deflates a little when he realizes what Madeleine is talking about, just after Kale comments on it. "Ishirou is just kind of a dumb jerk who runs his mouth a lot. I'm not gonna stop you beating him up, but you probably won't get paid for doing monster-hunting work if you go after him."
Madeleine Cadrasteia	"Oh, I'll hunt dumb jerks who run their mouths too, if sufficiently compensated. Maybe not for the blog, though." She sighs, and hands the phone back to Torrie as the minotaur devours another vegan waffle. "So Xion, if I may ask. Wherever did you learn that dragon technique?"
Xion	"Streams are a great way to reach people if you want to show something." Xion explains lightly around her omlette, having added a few dashes of hotsauce out of bottle she pulls out from a sleeve and dashes a few squirts of festive chile habanero green and red to turn her eggs festively caliente. "Do you want to show people something, or do you want to do something?" It's something that's known to Xion, but she's a lot more of the kind of person who went out and did things, and didn't have the particular personality to be a real lifestreamer. When Madeleine brings up Ishirou, Xion has to process how she feels about that without the automatic answer she previously had compelling her. "Do you want to show off hunting someone? Maybe Ishirou would like that, I can't know. He seems to flip between someone who likes being hunted and someone who wants to do the hunting. He's got a lot of ways of seeing but he can miss a lot. I think Boomer pretty much has it -- you won't be paid as a monster hunter for it, definitely." Being squeezed about the shoulders, Jeanne being fairly exceptional for her attention to Xion's stress, the Nobody deflates and relaxes both. "The minigame I was worried about involved getting trappd in eggs, or, abducted by eggs and taken to weird places. It's not really a problem for me, it's just... creepy? Offputting? I think I'd take the equinox hare over's chocolate world to the pastel pink and fluffy white world of grasses I've been to." Madeleine's question gets Xion's attention and a squinty-thoughtful scrunch of the face. "Well... Just the right now?" Her blue eyes flutter-blink, and then shift to look at Jeanne besides her with a smile. "Jeanne's the Dragon Witch, and can grant power to dragons. So," Her tone extends the 'ooo' longer, as her eyes shift back. "-when I borrow her power, I can draw more out of it by 'filling the criteria' when I do? I get a lot more out of it if I let it take me places, often, so... That's where Jeanne's power takes me."
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Madeleine listens attentively. "Fascinating. I'd be curious to see what you do with *my* abilities, should the occasion arise."