Log:Black Friday, Scene 1

Black Friday 2019/11/15 Amelia  Althea  Connor  Lien  Magus  Norah  Union  Black Friday 1

Black Friday. The scene hardly needs describing. People have been camped outside waiting for the doors to open, and now they have they are swarming toward various stores, trying to be first in line to the sales. But no one has been trampled - at least yet.

Last year, the must-have buy was the intricate clockwork automata from 7Dwarves. They don't have such a singular hot item this year, but many people are flocking to their new shop in the mall anyway: since the dimensional realignment, their rivals in the park are no longer about and the way to Undermoon has been more difficult, making 7Dwarves the best place to get goods from the Twilit Worlds.

But it the toy stores that are getting the biggest stampede, with the much-vaunted launch of TeKBriX, which is vying to become the new king of building blocks. Snap them together in any formation, and the smart bricks form ready-to-run robots controllable from your PDA, if the advertising is to be believed. Not cheap, though, naturally.

Connor is in the mall doing some clothing shopping. The university has a few days off, and he's taking the opportunity while he has it. He comes out of the department store with his purchases, and he looks around to try to get some coffee at the local Coffeebucks freestanding kiosk in the mall.

Lizzy is here to find something for Ryosei, probably at Universal Comics. She arrived just as the doors opened, and has been swept up in the swarm.

Althea has arrived at the place of commerce dressed as her not-so-clever secret identity, Althea Constantine. She's even added black rimmed glasses to help with the disguise at Ivan's suggestion. It just makes her look like she's going for a hipster look. The tall woman has a good view over most people's heads as she searches for ideas for this upcoming giving season that she's been informed of.

Norah is sitting on a lot of her ill-gotten gains and after washing a bit of that stash she has taken her profits to the mall for Black Friday shopping. With the introduction of Drone Delivery she can deal with the crowds & not have to worry about lugging her purchases about with her.

For her the madness was something she always wanted to be a part of- something she missed out on growing up under the tutelage of her father- a deadly vigilante (on a good day) & combat sniper. So you could say she's checking another thing off her bucket list after another night of scanning the Earth for Hunter and finding nothing (again).

So she's got her clutch styled bag under her sweater and is well caffeinated- prepared for a fun and hopefully dangerous day of shopping therapy.

She's only after the TeKBriX toy for the challenge. The TeKBriX maybe shiny and new but its not her usual flair, plus her best friend and sister-from-another-mister is a mechanical genius. If she wanted a robot she'd just ask for one. But the thought of getting her hands on one of these in a wave of people clamoring for it is exciting. She wants it. Maybe she'll hand it off to some elderly grandma-looking woman on the way out or tuck it into an orphanage's presents or ... well she shouldn't get carried away yet. She doesn't even have her hands on it.

Amelia is doing advance Christmas shopping. Her far reach is limited in the size and weight of the items she can gather, so the larger gifts need to be bought. And she's not going to delegate gift shopping to a subordinate. So Amelia is in the crowds, heading to a furniture store.

The crowd at the toy store is ridiculous even by the time Norah reaches it. It seems clear that the heavy advertising has pushed people into a buying frenzy that exceeds available stock, particularly at the Black Friday -cum- introductory pricing. And then someone at the front tries to buy in quantity - upsetting the entire rest of the crowd!

The result may vie for the record of shortest time between an item going on sale and a brawl over it starting.

Althea looks positively lost. She asks a person rushing past her, "My Pardons, where does one purchase 'video games'?" She's ignored as the person hurries to a sale. She looks to another, "Pardon, can you help--". Another person blasts past her, bumping her shoulder. "Video games?" she sighs to a third and is ignored.

Norah sees this and decides to set herself a wee little trap- or at least a distraction to swipe one of those TeKBriX off the pile the bulk-buyer is trying to get away with.

She moves around the crowd as they begin to brawl and look for a likely distraction, when one occurs to her. She'll just shout about overstock at the back of the store and use the chaos to strike!

Being shorter than most of the people here does not help Lizzy make her way to the comics shop. Instead she is carried by the crowd toward the toy store.

Happy she decided to go with having the gauntlets on rather than off for the exploratory trip to the mall on this most festive of mall holy days, or at least most populated and chaotic, Gauntlet watches in wonder as the crowds push their way into and around the shops, hovering above it all like some high-profile recognizable (former) super villain. Any thoughts she had about making purchases today have mysteriously vanished.

Connor manages to get his coffee, but after a significant wait in line. Thankfully he's feeling patient today. He saunters through the mall, heading toward the toy story where the crowd is. "Hmm."

Having orders and pair for several large bulky items to be dilivered to her Tower, Amelia is thinking of taking a look at these robot brick toys. On the way she sighs at the lack of manners as a woman asking about video games gets ignored. "Excuse me, you are asking about video games? There two places in the Mall to try. The Games store has the best collection, but the toy store has some of the most unusual titles."

"Unusual and rare, perhaps?" Althea asks with a sly smile that gives her idea. "That must mean it is special. I shall brave the...hmm?" She's attracted to the sounds of battle. "I hear an altercation," she announces, heading for the sounds suddenly.

Norah's gambit causes some, but not all, of the crowd to start stampeding to the rear.

Norah just needs most. She begins to deftly dip, twist & dodge toward the Bulk Buyer so she can snatch one of them from their pile before the crowd figures out that she was lying.

Connor peers into the store, but isn't quite inclined to wade in to stop the brawl. Instead, he pulls out his PDA to make a call to the police. Surely they have someone working here at hte mall today.

Amelia stands still briefly, "Why," she asks herself, "did I come on Black Friday. It's not like I need the discounts." Shaking her head she resumes her way toward the toy store. From the sounds she's hearing it might be her healing that will be needed.

With a few well-placed elbow jabs and ankle kicks, Lizzy finally manages to force her way to the edge of the crowd. As she finally starts making progress toward the comic shop, she sees another girl (with blue hair) heading toward the toy store.

Althea beams happily at the battles ahead. "Thank you for the information," she says to Amelia excitedly. "I must prepare to do battle for a prize for a friend. This is more fun than I anticipated!" She tries to make her way into the thick of it with a battle-eager smile.

Amelia pauses as she plucks out her PDA. Quickly typing she sends an alert to HeroNet. "Ghostly spirit at toy shop in Mall. It's amplifying emotions. Brawl in progress."

Norah manages to get close enough to grab a box - but not without being scene. "Queue-jumper!" shouts someone. And he next moment about half the crowd is descending on Norah...

Amelia scans the crowd around the shop, looking for Lazare. This seems like just his type of thing.

Norah looks up at the one who spotted her. She looks surprised for a half a second before taking her prize and turning and running away from the crowd- hoping to get around the corner and down a wider toy isle. An unquenchable smile spread over her face. This is even more exciting than she imagined!

Lizzy stops as her PDA beeps. She reads the alert message, which prompts her to quickly find an unobserved spot and change to Union.

Gauntlet decides she can take the brunt of the displeasure pointed at the queue-jumper, and interposes a wall of force behind Norah to ease her escape from at least a good part of the lynching crowd. Plus it's funny, and she kind of favours the daring.

And some people may wonder why Lien drinks. Obviously, they don't have scenarios like this in mind or they wouldn't be confused. She makes her way without any rush, letting others eager to throw money at things charge past.

A good section of the crowd starts chasing Norah like a scene out of Benny Hill. Others try to seize their own from the bulk buyer. Others break into fights over them main stock, and over the imagined stock at the rear...

The front of the chasing crowd slams into the wall of force.

The woman in the leader ends up with a bloody nose - and murderous rage in her eyes.

Union runs around the edge of the crowd toward the toy store.

Amelia casts a spell. Most of her magic is more suited to taking down villains and demons hard. Far too powerful to use on ordinary shoppers. But there's one spell that might be effective in dampening the fighting mood. She centers the spell's area of effect on the midst of the brawling masses. Suddenly a myriad of small pixie like spirits appear wielding dripping wet faceclothes and start washing the faces of everyone within sixteen meters of the spell's central point.

The sheer surprise of this shocks half the crowd out of their immediate rage.

Amelia was a tiny bit rushed. "Not me you pixie moron," she tells the spirit busily washing her face.

Union bats a pixie away from her face, only to have it replaced by two more.

Althea's face gets washed abruptly, but she just goes with it, smiling and closing her eyes. "Ah, refreshing, thank you." She opens her eyes and catches a flitting movement. "Swarmer?" she asks hopefully, but is only left with disappointment when she sees it's not her. "Well. Thank you for the bathing, all the same," she smiles sadly.

A good chunk of the crowd turn narrowed eyes on Amelia.

Amelia's face twists in a scowl. .oO(I'm the most powerful wiych I know of. Why am I pussy-fototing around with these mundanes? They deserve no consideration.) she thinks.

Althea turns her gaze to Amelia and scowls. "You summoned these pixies to do your bidding as if they were slaves? 'Morons', say you? Have you done the same to Swarmer! Tell me what you've done to her, foul fiend!" she roars as she pushes through the crowd towards Amelia, anger and emotion swelling as she shoots a hand to grab at Amelia's throat.

Althea's hand snaps forward to grab Amelia's throat, perhaps hindering her from saying any incantations--or really answering--as she lifts and squeezes. "If you have harmed a leaf or hair on my Little Friend's head, by all the highest hallows, you shall know the wrath of the Godflora!"

Amelia turns her scowl on Artemis. Amelia's Chosen One defenses negate almost all of that crush. "Unhand me you fool. Don't you know who I AM?!"

"I know ye not, insignifcant mortal!" Althea hisses back. "But you shall release these enslaved pixies and tell me where Swarmer is!"

Connor initially starts to feel suspicion toward Amelia. She summoned these pixies...and the way she's acting...perhaps Grimm was right about her? But then he fights through the mental compulsion, and he looks around, unable to find what he's looking for. Instead he goes over to Althea and Amelia, "You have to fight this! I could feel what it was that affected our minds! It's a powerful ghost! Fight it!"

Althea doesn't even register Connor's reasoning. "My Mind has never been clearer, Mortal."

While some wet-faced members of the crowd seem to be regaining their senses, others moving in to bat at Amelia...

Swirling round above Amelia, a shadowy shape begins to become visible even to mortal eyes, at least when they don't look right at it....

Union yells out, "There's the culprit!" She points at the shadowy shape, and charges toward it.

Union leaps at and strikes the shadowy figure - and get a feeling of chill as she passes right through it.

In spite of not making the expected contact with her target, Union lands safely on her feet.

Norah takes unusually long blinks, plotting her movements based on the ebb & flow of the crowd. Its during one such blink that she senses Gauntlet & her helpful energy wall. She smirks before dropping low and dodging a fist that wasn't even aimed at her.

She slides across the thinly carpeted floor, ripping her tights but as soon as she's clear she's back on her feet and moving. She tucks her TeKBriX under her arm like a football player and laughs and laughs as if this was the height of amusement for her. Now she thinks she understands why people do this- but in truth she has no idea. Most people don't move like she does.

She dips & dodges her way around another corner when she spots the wave of energy strike the area Amelia is in. She recognizes Amelia. 'William' worked for her. Not only that but she can recognize the crowd has suddenly turned on her & a big Amazon of a woman looks like she's getting first dibs on face punches. She takes a deep breath and cuts back towards the back of the store to loose the crowd & slip on a mask & out of her chunky sweater.

Once she gets back there she'll flip the light switch off and use her ninja skills to loose the normies.

Norah gets through the door after leaping up and rolling over the shoulders of an angry man chasing her. She rolls through the door to the stock room and flips the switch as she passes as if she worked there for years.

She takes a few leading steps into the darkness then shuffles up the thick stockroom shelves like a cat.

She slips into the rafters above and finds a perch for her butt so she can pull off the sweater, pull out her mask and stow all her belongings (and the highly sought after unpurchased item).

She uses the darkness to hone in on her ESP- sensing the people searching for her as she moves slowly and silently.

The spirit seems content for now, with the mage having her own trouble, to feed on the negative emotions. Barely perceptible shadowy strands seem to lead from the heads of angry or otherwise distressed shoppers, weaving together into the ever more visible swirling shadowy form - now distinctly a woman - pitch black with glowing green eyes.

She laughs as she gains some semblance of physical form. "I live - I - Black Friday!"

Amelia half move teleports out of Althea's grip, appearing close by the amazon. The Amelia lifts a hand and traces out a complex sigil with a fingertip. Where the finger passes it leaves a glowing line in the air. As she completes the sigil the glowing glyph flies through the intervening space at Althea. "I said UNHAND me you serf."

The glyph seems to sink into Althea's body and an instant later the amazon is flung backwards over ten meters. Fortunately, and it was just by fortunate chance, the amazon doesn't hit anyone or anything on her way.

The glyph sinks into Althea and discharges, but does nothing to the Godflora. "Trickery and parlor tricks. You have no power over me, sorcerer!" She charges at Amelia with a fist drawn back and prepares to swing away at the evil mage who speaks down upon mortals.

Black Friday continues to feed on the emotions of the heroes - and frightened shoppers trying to escape the fight...

Amelia takes the punch on a deftly interposed shoulder and although rocked is not knocked over, "You hit like a girl." Amelia tells Althea contemptuously..

Althea scoffs, "Disparage not by resorting to gender roles."

Connor can see that Black Friday is a bit more solid now. Maybe distracting the ghost might help? Not that he has the presence to actually be the center of attention like SOME heroes. But he takes a swing at the ghost using his obscure martial art, Kampfringen.

Union tries again to strike Black Friday.

Union still passes through the shadowy body and feels chill - but this time there is some resistance. Parts of the shadow are broken away and she makes some signs of main.

Lien is annoyed, perhaps angry... though not necessarily at someone she does not know and may not even be able to see amidst the horde of shoppers trying to grab all and/or already throttle her and/or each other. On the bright side, the rush has left a bench free, so she drops down to do what she often does when she is angry... or bored... or excited... She pulls a flask from her thigh pocket and wets her whistle. Weapons aren't really allowed in malls. Alcohol is a little more passable. On the other, other bright side, she pulls her qPid out from her other thigh pocket to point at the festivities. Drinks AND a show. Ah, 'tis the season.