Sofa Shopping

---

Well, the reporters backed off, though by force more than her words. "Huh? Lair? I mean, yes. It should still be there. My parents have been too busy so they forgot about it. Thinking about it gave me episodes of depression so I stayed away... It'll be a little dusty." That was the part she sounded embarrassed about. Se figured Emily would take them all there, so she dragged Vivian over to the serial escapist, Isana, and took one arm and wrapped it around hers. "Is this what they mean by a flower in each hand?" She questioned before giggling. She couldn't let Isana run away like she knew the woman would. Alice's overarching goal was for everyone to be friends again... Perhaps... Perhaps this recent string of attacks was a sign?

....

Maybe she should look into this a bit more. Discreetly. Not like she lacked the time to do so. "Anyhow, Emily, if we're going now would be the time since I have these two ruffians locked down!"

Isana Seiger

NOPE

---

Ah, it was cold. The Chinese food had been sitting too long.

Isana frowned, pausing in her indulgence...before continuing to eat the Chinese. Oh well, it was still great. What to do now though? Alice wanted to go couch shopping and she was bringing Vivian along. Out of all of the other justice hearts that were still active, Vivian was at least tolerable on some level. They may have had a mildly shaky history with the girl, but Isana always at least, respected her attitude. Hmm...maybe she could convince Alice to buy them one of those really expensive and extremely comfortable ones if she went. Seemed like a good idea so she'd stick around and talk with Alice once they were done.

And no, Courtney no one wanted to...well, okay, maybe she took a quick peek at the other justice hearts butt, but she quickly stopped looking as soon as Emily mentioned that place. Oh no.

Before she could make a speedy escape, Alice was already next to her and had her firmly locked in place.

"I'm not a ruffian," Isana flatly stated as she held the half-eaten container of chinese food in her hand. "And I have no desire to go to urgh, that place with those people."

To the bottom of these situations!

---

Truly for that brief moment Isana was a trooper, because who would really want to look at a bloodied buttocks that had a chunks of epidermis missing. Well of course there was the not injured right side of the buttocks, but even that had a bit of the transfer from it. As for how this might prove more of an issue now than it did before, who knew. It might’ve been the fact the impact was so strong and in the heat of battle it did not register. Perhaps it was as Emily suggested and magical girl powers were at play.

But the bottom line was simple; generally being struck by a poisonous barb from a shadow monster was a negative effect. At no point did Courtney ever consider such a thing to be a good thing. Well there was one good thing at least, it appeared they could still crash at a guest house.

Maybe Courtney could finally find one of those old trinkets she lost there that one time! Or maybe, the real pressing deal of course, she could figure out how much she needed to worry. Justice Goldenrod didn't have anything to add, at least in terms of speech, while she was grabbed by Emily.

Some of their members were being held (partially against their will), some of them were passed out, and some had wounds of various seriousness - but as Star Heart waved her wand and the celestial path lit up on the ground it only was a short trip for them to arrive at the lair.

I imagine the lair to be very girly and frilly, candy machines from wall to wall, with one large circular dome in the middle to show mission progress and information. All the chairs are a either a blinding white or blush pink, and would also be small enough to accommodate teenage girls. There would be a magical wardrobe to dress up in the latest cute teen trends, a hot chocolate machine, and a karaoke machine. Plushies and adorable cushions are everywhere, the walls painted white with multicolored polka dots to show the team's unity. There is also a pinboard with old pictures of the girls with the word "Friends!" in super shiny glitter letters.

Y'know, all cutesy, girly, teen girl stuff. Adorable yet out of place for women in their thirties.

As Emily opened the door it was difficult for her not to visibly cringe at their previously terrible taste. At least the place seemed to heal them, and the members of the team with wounds would find themselves recovering from the damage they had taken - their magical girl powers still seemed to feed off the adorableness surrounding them, buffing their ability to regenerate.

Emily dropped a drunken Elise onto a couch with enough plushies on it to give every child in China one before turning to the still awake members of the group. "Alright ..." The fast food worker dispelled her costume and lowered herself down onto one of the couches, taking a deep breath ... if they'd be using this place again, they'd need some serious renovations. "... hello. Again." The adult spoke awkwardly, unsure how to say hello to many of the members after having avoided many of them for two decades. "I assume no one has any clue whats going on? No one summoned the monsters or anything, right?"

The mother hoped this conversation would be done and over with quickly so she could get back home and take care of her daughter.

Vivian Everett

Alice's comment caused Vivian to roll her eyes as she was pulled along, Isana soon joining them in the iron grip of the rich magical girl as they were forcibly taken back to their lair. Not that she overly minded the place, she just didn't see a reason to go back there. She might also just have dim memories of what it was like, so her perspective was clouded.

"Isn't this how we broke up the last time?" Vivian asked sarcastically in response to Alice's comment. She was pretty sure that that was indeed the case, or at the very least it was typical enough for Alice that she could confuse herself otherwise.

As they headed towards the base, she shrugged. "I dunno, these attacks were too precise to be coincidental. It's worth talking about at least." It seemed like it might be someone attacking them, but who? There wasn't anyone around, or at the very least they would have heard of it by now

Entering the base, Vivian went along wherever Alice dragged her, left without an option to do much else in this situation. "Which of us would even know how to do something like that?" Magical constructs were one thing, but actual monsters/ That was whole other matter. Besides, she was fairly confident that none of them hated the rest of the group quite that much

Courtney Cartwright

And lo, by the sweet nature of childish wonder, did Justice Goldenrod feel the ailments of the ass alleviate at an astounding rate! With a smirk on her face the magical girl did bend a bit and smack her own posterior. "Aaaaaah....", spoke out Justice Goldenrod as she reached towards her glasses. "...Good as new!"

Flicking her glasses up and down Justice Goldenrod reversed the transformation and returned into her civilian attire. Unfortunately the pants still needed to be mended as they did in fact still have the hole from the monster incident from earlier. But that wasn't the important thing right now.

Striding over towards the hot chocolate machine, Courtney casually leaned against it before glancing among all the members. "Only time I summon monsters is when I have to substitute for a colleague in Vice." Raising a finger she began to point around towards all in the base.

"That in mind, it's totes obvious what we, like, need to do. Sting operations and stake outs. Carefully watch 'em while we set out one of us as bait to attract, then if we can catch any sorta smarty one alive we can interrogate." Courtney clapped as she smiled from ear to ear.

"Who wants to be bait?!"

Carrie teleported into the old lair, and immediately regretted her decision. Any interior decorator worth the name would have whipped up a bleach and cyanide cocktail at the sight. "Ugh. We really need to redo this place. Seriously, I need to keep my eyes closed or I'm gonna go blind."

"If we don't know where the monsters are coming from, then we need to cover ground quickly. Our bait needs to be someone whose abilities make them mobile, but able to fight as well." A disturbing thought came to the blonde as she realized what she said. "Oh, fuck. I just volunteered myself, didn't I?"

Isana Seiger

NOPE

---

Isana was one of the ones being held against her will. Alice practically dragged her up to their 'lair' and she wasn't going to enjoy a second of it. Aside from the terrible decor, she had to be here with those people. Alice was alright, she could tolerate her...but everyone else? Here? No way in hell was she going to be spending any longer time than she needed to here. They were already talking about being all friendly and doing things, just like old times without so much of an inkling of actual respect.

God, she hated these people, and she was going to make that quite blatantly obvious.

"...well don't involve me. I could care less what happened to you fucks." Isana rather bluntly stated, wrenching her arm free from Alice's grip. Normally she wouldn't mind being the bait for something like this, at least in the past...but now, she just wanted to go home and get some sleep. "Tomorrow is my only off day and I don't fancy spending it 'monster hunting' or being bait for you guys." She reached into the pocket of her suit, pulling out her cellphone, quickly looking through her work schedule that she had saved. There was still that meeting her boss wanted to talk to her about the day after too...hmph. She was planning on taking it easy so she didn't get injured or caught up in something so she didn't miss it, and she didn't plan to acquiesce to any demands made by these guys.

Note: Was instructed to add something by Pyro to my post. He is at work.


Alice smiled at the group maniacally as she looked around, making her own declaration. "Bwahahaha! It was me all along! Well. Not really." The mother couldn't help but let out a small laugh at the shenanigans as the group arranged plans and one of their members signled themselves out as bait, but as Isana criticized the group Emily cringed slightly. Earlier in her life she probably would have backed off, but she was an adult now.

"Look, Isana. We know you hate us. There's a LOT of old bones here that have been dug out." Emily took a couple of steps closer. "And we know you are busy. Y'know what? I am to. I have a daughter to get home to. I'm sure the others have adult things to do as well."

Perhaps much to the annoyance of the woman she was talking to, she accidentally adopted the same tone she spoke when lecturing her daughter. "But these events affect you as well, and possibly the entire city. So put on your fucking big girl panties and give us a hand, Vale."

With a wave of her hand and feeling that her point had been made, Emily turned her head towards Carrie. "And do you have an idea of where the best location for that would be? Perhaps a time that works for our schedules? That'd be late night for most of us, yes?"

It was rather apparent that Emily didn't want to be here either, but she recognized she couldn't just ignore an assassination attempt.

Clapping with both of her hands at a very frequent paced, Courtney smiled at Carrie. "Wooo! A volunteer, you'd be surprised at how many times people won't volunteer for something that's like really dangerous or probably really dangerous." She tapped against her temple as she continued on with a bit more dialogue. "So I suppose I'll do some spotter work for that then. I'd call dibs for interrogation, buuuut I get to do that enough as is, so I don't mind sharing it!"

Shortly after that Courtney focused her attention on Emily and Isana. Balling her hand into a fist and then resting her cheek upon it she waited until Emily had finished speaking.

"I'm pretty much always on call, but I generally I don't have to do late nights anymore. Uhh, wasn't there a few places we always got attacked? There were more times than I can count that incidents happened at that elementary, or was it middle school playground..." Courtney Cartwright shrugged as she zipped open her purse and began pursuing through it. Seemingly not finding what she wanted she zipped it back up and focused her attention at the group.

"Buut iunno, though all things considered what happened there wasn't neeearly as bad as what happened at college. ...Amy that little..." grumbled out Courtney before she shook her head. Pausing for a moment and with a few blinks a new thought occurred in Courtney's mind.

Snapping her fingers she turned her attention between Isana and Emily, "Oh by the by! For the quip I woulda used..." Courtney began as she turned to face Isana exclusively, "...It's time to drop that brooding training bra and upgrade to a real one."

"No? Not as good as it sounded in my head?"

Isana Seiger

NOPE

---

"Tsk," Isana's face scrunched into a scowl as Emily continued speaking, shooting a glare that could melt holes in metal towards Courtney. "For your information, I'm being practical, not broody." She retorted, leaning against a wall and as she flipped through some texts on her phone. "For all we know this was a one off thing. I don't have any interest in getting involved in something when I was just basically offered a promotion that could get me a lot of money." An excuse? Maybe just a small one. It was true her boss asked to speak with her on her next work day about something, and she highly doubted that it was for anything other than a job of some sort.

"Unlike you lot, I've managed to be somewhat successful with my life and I don't have any intention of ruining that." She waved a hand dismissively as she put her phone back into her pocket, crossing her legs and folding her arms against her chest. Sure, on her off days she blew off steam by finding some 'bad guys' and giving them a lesson, but she didn't want to make a career out of this again. It wasn't much of a career to start with. Just something to blow off steam and escape from the troubles of home back in the day. She didn't want to get into a fight or argument here, but her patience was wearing thin.

"Awww, someone could use a hug." Courtney said with a smarmy grin as she placed both of her index fingers against the edge of her smile.

Cartwright placed her hand on her hip and continued to speak. "Nah, practicality is getting this done and over with, which means tracking whatever it is and hunting it down as soon as possible. Cause, narrative laws -while not as binding as law-laws, are still a thing. And narratively speaking this is just the prologue bit, the events that spark up an even greater and more dangerous chain of events."

Sauntering towards Isana, Courtney quickly reached over to place a hand on Isana's shoulder. "Dunno if you understood the merit of this; how about I offer you another proposal?" Staring Seiger square in the eyes Courtney continued on, "If you quit your bitching and do your part for this one thing of trapping and catching the bastard, at the very least staying the entire time even if it is fruitless, I will owe you one."

"One favor, whatever you may request and that is within my limits of course. Y'might forget dolly, but I am a member of the Force, that "Thin Blue Line" which separates the animals out there and those just trying to live their life."

Not Sofa Shopping

---

"Wait, wait, wait! You all. Stop fighting!" Alice said pushing everyone apart. Courtney and Isana notably. "Why am I having to be the reasonable one here?" The woman said with a bit of a pout. This was bad though. Everyone started arguing again didn't they? Bad, bad, bad, bad. If this keeps up she might have a breakdown. They had gotten all back together! Just now! "Come on! We're a team! We always were! We are now!" Her eyes... Didn't look good. They looked like they were desperately trying to cling on to some sort of hope... "Isana! You'll help fight at least, right! And keep an eye out on the way to and from work!? Nothing more to take up time in your day!"

She then turned to the others. "That's fine, right!?" Her thoughts impacted her face a bit more than she'd like at this point. It kind of looked like she was under duress... It would probably be best if everyone at least agreed with her and sent her away for a bit even if they didn't mean it.

Isana Seiger

---

Isana almost escalated things. She wanted to just be done and out of this, but before she could make a retort Alice interrupted - and not in her usually happy mildly perverted way. Team? Don't make her laugh. They hadn't been a team since they split up all those years ago. Still...Alice was her roommate, and out of all the girls was currently the one she tolerated the most. It'd be trouble for her later, but playing along now would save her more trouble later it seemed.

"Fine," She sighed irritably, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her dress pants. "I'll use my precious day off tomorrow to help you guys do whatever, but don't expect me to be overly friendly. After that, I'll not make any promises. I am not compromising my life just to help you guys on a wild goose chase." She looked over to Courtney, glaring at her. "And I'll keep you to that, but don't make promises your not going to keep."

Who knows, having a favor might come in handy later....more importantly though.

"So then...what are we going to do? If we think about it logically then this was obviously just a ploy to get us together. Using someone as bait wouldn't solve anything." She was going to help, so she'd help to the fullest of her abilities that she could. Unlike the rest of these fools, she actually kept her word. "If they were looking to kill us then they could have just picked us off one by one instead of forcing us to be together. Even if we all became aware of it after one or two of us had been dealt with, it'd be much safer for them. So unless whoever this is is an idiot, I don't think it'd work." She shrugged. "But perhaps I'm giving someone too much credit."

"Guuuh..." Elise groaned, her eyes blinking open. "Where... What happened..."

And then she actually managed to pick up on her surroundings, specifically their colour scheme, and a splash of vomit flowed from her mouth without her expression changing in any way. She just sat there, almost as if she was unaware it was even happening until she looked down at it on the floor.

"You know, I think that might actually look better..."

And then she lifted her head to look at all the people gathered around, immediately picking out the three people who registered as 'most important' in her mind.

"Oh hey Em... What's going on coughscumcough?"

She looked down for a moment, rubbing her throat, before looking back up to their old leader.

"Huh, sorry. I must have something wrong with my throat. You see, I called you scum. Just worried you might not've heard it with the cough n' all."

She then turned to Isana, a wide smirk growing across her face.

"And as if today wasn't great enough, my number one rival is here as well!" She shouted excitedly. "Could it be that you're here for another rematch? Because honestly, I can't quite see you coming back to this ugly-ass place of your own free will... It's gotta be that hot-blooded fighting spirit, am I right?!"

And then she hopped off the mountain of stuffed toys and fell rather naturally into an over-dramatic pose. The coolness of said pose may have been lost a little, due to the patches of vomit still present on her chin, but if anyone thought something like that would stop her, they clearly never really knew her in the first place.

"Coco!" She called, pointing frantically to her best friend. "I can't quite say I remember why we're here, but join me! Together, let us pose and shout everything we would normally say, specifically so we can annoy the shit out of Emily and Izzy!"

And then she spun around, finishing in a completely different, equally dramatic pose.

Vivian Everett

Frowning, Vivian crossed her arms over her chest as her gaze swept the room while they discussed exactly how they were going to tackle this problem. Isana was reticent and she couldn't really blame her for that. Not like they had done much in the way of group activities for some time now, and this wasn't exactly the best situation to start trying to mend burnt bridges.

Leaving the jokes aside, she added her own two cents to the current argument. "Isana has a point," she noted aloud. "We don't know how they're tracking us or coordinating their attacks. Whoever is responsible might know that the bait is bait, or they might just choose to attack someone else because they better meet whatever criteria they have. Though I don't think they were intending to bring us together, since the one that I fought seemed pretty tailored to be immune to my own abilities."

Frowning, she sighed as she rubbed the back of her head in thought for a few moments. "We should go check out the Dollmaster's old haunts, see if anyone's decided to use them recently. Other magical hotspots from the old days would be a good bet too." Maybe they'd be able to find some clues there.

She ignored Elise for now. That was a can of worms she wasn't going to get involved in.

Even though she didn't want to be here, Emily was glad Courtney had her side. Isana continued to be upset, until their little microphone wielding friend - and her ex - started to have some sort of breakdown. After the girl's breakdown, it seemed the rock smashing heavy hitter finally put their brain to use and proposed something.

It actually made a bit of sense, when she thought about it. But Emily's increasingly peaceful thoughts were wiped out by her other ex's sister. "Hey, pukestain, I-" No, that would be taking it to far. Still though. "Are you going to contribute or not, Elise? Or are you going to keep puking everywhere? Because if it's the second, I have a daughter that's probably at home wanting me to cook dinner." She had been putting up with childish acts for the past 16 years, and she wasn't going to let Elise break her now.

She hoped that stung a little as she turned her attention to Vivian. "I agree - it seems like my monster was intended to kill me. I was never the rock smasher of the party. If they wanted to get us together, they would have had to known all of our schedules put us in a similar area." Star Heart looked at Vivian. "I think a little investigation wouldn't hurt - it's possible someone malicious is somehow using the Dollmaster's power again."

She turned back to Isana. "Although I wonder why you'd think someone would want us back together. This can't be good for anyone meaning harm."

"Oh speaking just from narrative's sake probably for some big moment like oh, totally destroying our base and thus hindering a lot of our ability for further communication and to make it a lot harder to recover from any damages in case the designated killing monsters failed." Courtney just blurted out as she listened to the various threads discussed by the group. "So you girls want to divvy it up then? A few going to old lairs of villainy to check while others go investigate the usual spots we got attacked at?" inquired Courtney as she began to ponder the other things that needed addressed.

She cocked her head as she glanced towards Isana, "Noted. You may call it in whenever you may see fit." Whatever that favor might be, it probably would be worth it in the long game. Or maybe she made a deal with a devil she wished she didn't. Whatever at the moment that did not matter to Courtney.

Nor did solving the problem at had and getting the plan together, she already asked those things. No what mattered now was something far more important.

Courtney glanced towards Emily and soberly spoke, "You could've prevented this...Buuut that first liiine of address..."

Dramatically pointing towards Elise, Courtney Cartwright spun around on her heels before jumping up in the air. "You've got it Elly!" Landing down on her knee she extended out both of her hands to the side, each one having a finger gun readied.

"Prepare yourself! Faster than the speed of love~" Courtney declared as she sprung up extending her legs. Running side to side Courtney began firing off imaginary strikes, "Armed with the firearms of the faeries! Valor conquering villainy!"

Performing a pirouette and striking a pose extending out a pair of finger guns, Courtney's eyes shimmered with an spark of energy. "THE GRINNING GUNNER AND PIXIE PISTOLEER, JUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSTICE GOOOOOLDEEEENROOOOOOD!!!"

Isana Seiger

---

Isana merely glared coldly at Elise. She was looking to start something, obviously, but Isana had no intention of fighting at the moment. She just wanted to be done and out of here. While she might have roughhoused a bit with Elise had they met anywhere else, for now she just wanted to get through this with as little conflict as possible. So she ignored Elise, instead focusing more on Vivian and Emily. The two at least seemed like they both wanted to get this over with and go home without getting too much into it.

"Because," Isana replied with a grunt to the question of why she thought this was a ploy to get them together. "Seeing you morons is giving me high blood pressure and detrimental to my own health, that's why." It was a sarcastic wise-ass reply to be sure, but she thought she could afford to be a little sarcastic with this. If the others had a problem with her attitude, they could get over it.

"...but more seriously," She continued with a sigh. "Simple. They gave us monsters we couldn't fight by easily ourselves so do the math - unless any of us had a death wish, it'd be obvious we'd go and find another Justice Heart to help. Don't ask me why." She grunted, ignoring the two neanderthals...'posing'. "Or we'd just fight and either destroy half the city in the process, or exhaust ourselves." To what end though? Isana hadn't a clue. Maybe whoever it was had some bigger plan in mind. Maybe she was just overthinking it after watching to many mystery shows and objectively terrible anime. Could go either way, really, but exploring every possible avenue here was better than simply writing one off as wrong.

Heh, maybe they were banking on them not helping each other and having them end up being a scapegoat for damaging the city in some way. Well, whatever.

"Either way, if we're going to be investigating we should go in pairs so we don't get jumped again like this." Isana said, glancing over at Alice. She still didn't look like she was doing to well. With a sigh, Isana walked over and grabbed the womans ear and gave it a gentle tug to get her attention. "If that's what we're doing, then I'll take Alice and look at some of the old haunts. We can come back tomorrow evening after finish our investigating."

Plus they could shop for that couch while they were out too.

"Hmmm... I agree with Isana, as painful as it is to admit," Carrie commented. "We should all go in pair, as often as possible, and keep our cell phones handy. That way, if something nasty does show up, we can meet and take care of it, just like this time."

She thought for a second, sitting back in the oversized chair. "As for how you all can keep track of me, what with the teleporting and all... perhaps some of us could requisition one of those ankle-tracker thingies? I mean, I can keep it in my purse, so I don't look like a parolee."

"This keeps getting worse and worse, doesn't it?"