Dom tried to smother a chuckle as Shio the Exorcist mistook Chelle Lee for Saylor Twift but failed. A muscle underneath Chelle Lee's eye twitched and her mouth drew into a tight, straight line. "You... she..." she sputtered as she struggled to find the words. "No! I am not that cow of a shitty country singer. We sing rock! Heavy rock! Electric Hazard, look us up!" She reached into her pack, pulled out a handful of business cards, and hurled them towards Shio, sending them fluttering everywhere. "You're both idiots!" she said, rounding on Fox-Face.

Then the self-proclaimed assassin vanished.

Dom's heart skipped a beat as a blur of motion moved from Fox-Face's position, and he stepped closer to Chelle Lee, putting a shoulder in front of her. "I think we might have pissed her off," he muttered under his breath. Behind him, Chelle Lee had frozen solid, unmoving aside from her eyes, which were scanning every corner of the market in front of them. With a whistle from Dom, Spaz fluttered down from the stall and landed on his shoulder while Needles lowered his body towards the ground. "Okay, lady, yeah, we're sorry. We're just gonna go now, yeah?"

"No, Dom, we aren't."

"Yes, Chelle Lee, we are," he said through gritted teeth as he took a step back, forcing Chelle Lee to back up as well. Dom continued to scan the market in front of them, but all he saw was Shio standing there awkwardly, not quite involved but not really detached, either. Fox-Face was nowhere to be seen. He was stepping backwards again when Chelle Lee gave a muffled shriek.

The two spun and found Fox-Face standing behind them, twirling a PDA through her fingers. Chelle Lee's PDA. Dom noticed that a split second before his friend did. He felt a flash of anger was over him, but he forced it to the back of his mind and acted before Chelle Lee lost it completely and did something stupid. Stepping in between Fox-Face and Chelle Lee, he held out his hand. "Okay, you've proved your point. You have a bigger dick than me and Chelle Lee combined." He flashed what he hoped was a disarming smile as his heart slammed against his chest. "Happy? Just give it back and we'll leave you to your... assassin-ing." He forced himself to take a small step towards Fox-Face so that she could easily drop the PDA into his hand.

Shio

Shio picked up one of the cards that was flung at her - assuming that Chelle Lee had accidentally flung more cards that intended - to provide her the proper information on their band.

"I play the flute," she commented, "Our father required it for us to allow us to practice breath control. Is there a difference between rock and country?"

Shio's commented was as matter-of-fact, with an actual small amount of pondering to the tone, a rare inflection of Shio's voice, to the point that the question almost didn't sound like a question. She began thinking about the flute, which she, as well, hadn't brought along with her. She turned yet again, to the shopkeeper, who twitched a bit in response to her motion.

"I would like to see a flute," she told the man, ignoring his physical expression of his fear for her. He obliged, pulling out a small selection. There was little hesitance for Shio, immediately grabbing one off of the cloth. "This one is acceptable."

She gave it a quick run before sliding it into her pocket.

"Normal people don't seem to get my jokes." Kasumi idly commented, dropping the PDA into Dom's hand with a less-than-graceful shrug. It wasn't like she actually cared about the PDA in of itself - it was merely a principle she felt she had to stick to. It was unwise to needlessly insult a potential opponent - especially when that opponent was one Kasumi Touho. Still, Chelle Lee and Dom couldn't have known what they were going up against, so she shrugged the whole thing off, relaxing her posture a little. She could hear Shio in the background, and despite humour not being her strong point, she still found Shio's lack of ability to talk to people properly amusing. She did empathise somewhat with the socially awkward woman given her lack of a propensity towards the finer points of camaraderie, but she wasn't nearly as bad as Shio. At least, she hoped she wasn't.

"Don't worry. I'm not actually going to kill you. I might steal your wallets, though." Kasumi started, before quickly adding, "That was a joke." as an afterthought - it was perhaps a little jarring, but there was the intention of good humour there, right?

"The stealing. I wasn't joking about not killing you."

Situations like these made Kasumi remember why she'd given up trying to deal with normal people in the first place - thieves that travelled together typically spoke only about missions in order to achieve maximum safety, there was very little time or desire to get to know one another on a more personal level. There was the issue of trust, of course, but thieves (at least, the kind that Kasumi hung out with) were by definition careful people, and it was fairly easy for people of such high calibre to judge one another to satisfactory levels. Kasumi had never met someone that she disliked in her circle of thief buddies, but she'd never really gotten to know people on any level that wasn't necessary for the job at hand.

"I'd tell you my name, but I won't. The mask is there for a reason. You can call me Fox, if you like. A variant of that is also acceptable. Maybe Fox-Mask. I train Natrelmon because I'm bored. I also steal things because I'm bored. I usually give them back if they're petty. Like your PDA. And your attitude. That was a joke." Kasumi began, quickly losing herself in a superficial state of being engrossed within a train of thought. Constant vigilance was essentially hardwired into her system at that point, so she was ready to react to the hot-tempered Chelle Lee if necessary. Dom mostly just seemed a little dim, so he was immediately dismissed as a potential threat.

Dom's fingers closed around the PDA tightly as it fell into his hand. He gave it a quick glance to make sure it was unharmed before handing it back to Chelle Lee. As he passed the device, he looked deeply into her eyes, willing her to calm and collect herself. Dom knew that these people might prove valuable allies in the future, if they played their cards right. But to do that, they would both have to be amicable.

Chelle Lee seemed to more or less get the hint. Though she was practically shaking with rage, Dom watched as she took a long, shuddering breath, held it for a moment, and released it, along with a good portion of the tension in her muscles. She was a long way from being friendly, but it was a start.

"We haven't ever had a flutist in our band, but maybe we could try it out," Dom said as he faced back towards Shio and Fox-Face. "And yes, there's a distinctive difference between rock and everything inferior. We'll have to show you sometime." He looked towards Fox-Face. "Both of you, maybe. In the meantime, Shio - that was your name, right? You said you were interested in perhaps trading for Chelle Lee's Velare? She's mostly interested in Poison, Dark, or Ghost-types."

Shio

"Okay," Shio responded to the commentary about her flute abilities and the offer to provide an education on the different types of music.. She was unsure if it was a genuine offer or not, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway - as she would have reacted the same in either instance.

"I do not have any of those types of Natrelmon to trade," Shio responded. While it wasn't clear, Shio was very interested in the Velare. It was an intriguing Natrelmon that had a variety of interesting capabilities - abilities Shio felt she could utilize well.

"It would be a good Natrelmon to provide cover while I am in fighting."

It was Shio's best attempt at conversation yet, adding a bit of commentary to her interest in the Natrelmon. After thinking through what Kasumi had advised her earlier, she was trying to provide avenues for the conversation to go down, items that were slightly more on topic than usual. It had occurred to her that her earlier discussion of lasers might have been slightly off topic and awkward to involve someone in. GIven her assessment of Dom and Chelle Lee, it was highly unlikely they would be able to, let alone be interested in, a conversation on anti-assassination tactics. Without that, Shio had a relatively limited breadth of conversational topics.

“Lighten up, Trynd!” Kasumi shrugged, pointing a finger at Chelle Lee. Shaking with rage was obviously a sign of the rare disease Tryndameritis, which was especially known to infect Lifanese people - though it could easily infect other people if they were angry enough. At the given point in time, Chelle Lee definitely looked like she qualified for the disease. It was a little scary, to be honest, but given that she had already proven her dominance over the other two in the arts of stealth and generally being a tool, it was not really something she felt the need to worry over. She did, however, keep an eye out for lasers. Even a trained tool like herself could not prepare for the awesome power of lasers - especially not Suzaku’s Sun’s Ray. That was a truly fearsome laser that everybody should be afraid of.

“Hey, fun fact. Pinehearst tried to make drones based on Nakumo. They made them red, and for some reason they were immune to heat and electricity. It was really strange. Now they’re used as portable heat sources and lamps. I heard somebody made a sphere of them and wandered into the crystal forest. Apparently the Red Nakumo would break down the poison particles. They died. Of poison.” Kasumi opined, pointing towards the restaurant that she and Shio had eaten at.

“I bet if we launched a fireball at it, nothing would happen. But it’s probably weak to particle physics.”