[IC] MASKS - Ghost Gate City

[eldest]

The problem, as the adrenaline drains and the shock wears off, isn't that it'd be hard to sleep. It'd be too easy. Deep in the earth has always felt safe, to Rain, in a way that it probably shouldn't given the sleepless hordes of the dead and, also, people coming down to stick said sleepless hordes into batteries for cool technology. (Laser beams! Powered! With! Ghosts!)

But after the whole... everything. She'd found it way too easy to just drift, when she's sitting down here. Relax and let her mind empty, and just experience the quiet. She's made sure not to, and is stripping out of her coat, and mask, and hat, and everything into her cute leggings and tunic under it, brown and green emerging from grayscale like a corporate screensaver being shaken off and showing the desktop wildlife background. She scowls at that metaphor. Not her best.

But! But the point is. She sleepy. Which is why she's used subpar metaphors, otherwise a banishable offense. And, and, she's going to need to emerge back up into where she's hidden her ornithopter and then meet up with the other two again, probably, sometime soon. So she leaves the muttering of the lost behind, and starts up a ladder to a back room of a bookstore that closes early, opposite a good bahn mi place, and... hm... she could probably bring bahn mis for everyone as an excuse to have one.

Cheered, she scrambles up the ladder faster. So much easier to do this when you're almost weightless. Gym class could never.

[Tatterdemalion]

Foxpearl!

Oh, Shifu. She definitely needs an explanation of why it is vital to preserve the Princess’s virtue, and why she needs to be kept safe from the temptation of cooperating with cops. Fortunately, you have a lecture prepared (probably) and visual aids! (And Shifu’s the one person greener to this stuff than you are, you might admit, if you were not already perfect.)

Though Shifu does have a point. You might need to move her into a closet. Or under a bed. Or in a box of some sort as you prepare an even more secret secret hideout.

---

Shifu!

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to be smart. Now, smart people do two things: they learn and they come up with ideas. So all you need to do is absorb everything Foxpearl explains to you (which is very smart) and then hit her with the biggest, best idea you’ve got. Chase that thought exactly where it ends up, and then commit as hard as you can!

---

Rain!

It’s raining.

Foxpearl’s run off with the Princess. (This is probably fine.) Shifu probably left with her. And that leaves you. Enjoying the rain, hopefully, as it patters against the windows down the corridor. The twang of a stringed instrument being played in a classic style comes over the speakers of the banh mi place, one of the few places in this commercial zone still open at this hour.

But there aren’t many barriers in SGC. Of course stores close down for the night, but the commercial zones of the towers are still open for late night wanderers who might stumble across a late night shop (like said banh mi place), and so it just so happens that you’re not the first person in line here tonight.

“Oh, hey, Rain!” Bai Xiuying gives you a friendly wave, her round face breaking into a warm smile as she sees you. Doesn’t look like she’s out walking the city post-gig; she’d have her bass over her shoulder in that case. Still has the pin-festooned jacket, though.

Normally, she’d be clearing her head after a hard day of helping out Dr. Huan, same as you. But the lab’s a Scene of Civic Interest right now and Huan’s neck-deep in committee meetings that she’s doing her best to shield you from. Good for vigilantism. Bad for feeling normal.

But you’re the normal one. That’s why you’re here in a dark commercial zone and why the two magical beings have run off with the superhero’s protege.

(Off in the distance, the heavy-duty police patrol craft prepares to fly Xingtian across the city to the HOUND Detainment Center. Its red and blue lights are still visible from here.)

[Thanqol]

"You are onto an important principle," said Hsien, arm still stuck inside the vending machine. "If Izi discovers us, she will be tempted towards intemperate action. I have seen this many times. Great heroes are dragged directly towards the Hells, inflicting great spiritual damage on their souls, as they swear and curse and condemn an inn- a fox who is just following her - who has wronged them in a way that they cannot do anything about." She swallowed. Virtue was hard.

"So it is with the Vermillion Princess," said Hsien, stretching luxuriously up with her foot to bap the Princess on the behind, sending her into slow circles, squeaking all the while. "If she is given agency she might feel bad about not snitching on us to the cops. So she must be denied it! A truly virtuous world is one where the virtuous relieve everyone else from the dangers of temptation." She paused. Did that really sound right? Maybe those hadn't been the Buddha's exact words. "Anyway you reckon we can fit her into this vending machine? It might be coming with us anyway so may as well."

[Balmas]

Smart?

Smart?!

She's never been smart before! Oh, this is going to be fun!

Because, you know, it's occurred to her that they don't exactly breed celestial lions for their smarts, right? It's probably bad for the job. Qualifications: must be able to stand for years in a garden, doing a whole not of not very much except glowering at anybody not on the list. You don't want smart guards--you want stolid idiots who can't be talked around or persuaded that they're allowed in the garden, and certainly never convinced that actually, cookies are great before bedtime.

Mind you, champion glowerers. Won't find a better glowerer here or there than celestial lions. Glowers for days.

You know, glower is a fun word. You say it enough times and the word just stops meaning anything. Gllllll-ower. Premium mouthfeel, would say again.

… What was she saying?

Right! Smarts, comma, how she is!

Carefully, she starts feeding Hsien's other arm into the slot of the vending machine.

"Do you think we should put Izi in there too? S'like, you're virtuous, and I'm from heaven and therefore virtuous. But Izi isn't virtuous, right? If we're putting the Princess in a vending machine to help her avoid temptation, then logically"--

Oh, that's another good word. L's and G's, that's the stuff.

--"Logically, we should do the same to everyone else to help them avoid temptation! So Izi needs to get tied up too!"

She's out the door and into the main cafe area in a flash.

They're gonna need a lot more vending machines.

[eldest]

Rain lights up as she sees a friendly face. Bai!

"Heeeeeyyyyyy!" A bull's charge of a hug, a titanic squeeze, with her sandwich carefully kept free of flying apart, and she's hanging out with her friend! Which is so much better than hanging out on her own, at least right now. Sometimes alone is good, but not right now, in the wee bits of the night, this is for projects or sleep or lazy talks with friends or... other things with friends that are not appropriate! For this situation! Bai is really cute though. She's wondered. But not asked. Asking is much more than wondering.

She's careful to focus on her improved metaphor game and not on how she was alone, or why she was alone. But she's not alone anymore. And that means we can take all those creeping dark thoughts, and stuff them into a jar! And then you throw the jar out a window! A metaphorical window that would not be littering and wouldn't endanger anybody below.

She frowns halfway through taking a bite out of her sandwich, as the odd hour and Bai's presence combine. "Wait, why are you up this late? I'm all unemployed and wandering, you have respectable people business hours to keep. Everything okay?"

And that's the best fix for your problems, deflect and focus on other people's problems, works great up till it stops working but the plates are spinning still, she's a genius and nothing will go wrong this time, totally.

[Tatterdemalion]

Foxpearl!

“That is exactly what your mother would say!” Joshua says as he dives out of the room after the lion-puppy, which is the worst possible timing, because you can’t exactly have a convincing argument with someone out in the cafe from back here, and because, woof, that’s a hell of a thing to say, right?

“Y’llrr nhhhth,” the Princess says, looking incredibly awkward, but in a different way than she was just a minute ago. Like she’s feeling awkward on your behalf, which is the least that anybody should be feeling about you. “Uhh’ nnnhh y’hhrrr jjhhffft rryh’ngh tuh hllllfffh.” Is that said with an implicit <3? Maybe. Or maybe you’re reading into the inherent (captive) nobility of the city’s superhero’s sidekick.

Which one of those is more important, Foxpearl? An Adult telling you that you’re like your mother (who definitely goes more in for vice, whenever she’s unmasked— though she might say that to have her way, the virtuous must be restrained, admittedly), or your teammate and bastion of respectability telling you (probably) that you’re just trying to help as she dangles from the ceiling?

---

Shifu!

“shifU NO—“

He says, but you are joyous and free and unleashed in the pursuit of fox virtue. Running rings around people is, like, your specialty.

Izi is in the middle of exploding some sort of imaginary demon lord using the power of lots of math, numbers in bright colors popping up on her screen, and mumbling into her microphone with the sort of intensity and speed that suggest she might have the secret superpower of No Breath which would allow her to never need to breathe as long as she keeps speaking but only wise hermit masters know that so maybe she’s secretly a wise hermit master? That sort of thing happens all the time in Heaven.

Wise hermit masters are definitely into dying the ends of their pigtails purple and going for a “casual goth” vibe, complete with not-so-casual buckled knee-high boots with secret height mysteries built into the bottoms. All the time. Where you don’t see them, because they’re in disguise, probably.

---

Rain!

“Nah,” Bai says, with an expressive shrug. “Doc’s locked herself in the office. Tonight’s not… look, I’m glad you happened to be here. We should get her breakfast tomorrow. Bring it in. Make sure she’s slept. None of this is her fault, but creeps like Li? They don’t give a shit about that. Finding somebody to blame’s easier. He’ll probably blame that hot vigilante, too.”

Is she? She’s capable of keeping a very straight face. It’s one of her many ordinary superpowers. She bites into her sandwich like it wasn’t, but that would just be on purpose if it was. So maybe she’s guessing? Maybe it’s a flirt? Maybe it’s not but she’d be into you anyway? Maybe if you blurt something out she’ll march right up to Huan’s office and rat you out?

(Outside, the lights of the police aerial are garish, violent red and blue as it begins to make its way across the city, between the many towers you call home.)

[Thanqol]

"W-what?" said Foxpearl. "Mother? Foxfire? She's not my mother." Thoughtfully: "Unless you are saying that, as a foreign contamination that settled near her hips until eventually breaking off and becoming an independently realized person, she is metaphorically my mother and virtue itself is metaphorically my father. That is... hmm."

Concept: Virtue is my father

She was talking to the Princess still, as the only one left present, as much as she was herself. She was reassuring to talk to. A good listener.

"Irregardless," she said, thinking deeply. "No... I'm a wayward soul aspect, aren't I? Like a conscience, gone out into the world to gather wisdom to redeem the origin. She'll want her tail back, after all, I just need to be sufficiently powerful that I can influence her once we reunite." She stopped again. But... what if? "I just need to develop the righteous part of my personality so that it becomes more powerful. But if I'm still sounding like her then have I developed the right aspects? Or is the moral truth something deeper still?"

She thinks about this so hard that she kind of forgets that both of her arms are stuck inside the vending machine. Occasionally her hands do a foxy little scrabble up at the bottom of the tofu bar. A keen eyed observer might notice that she could easily grab one of the bars on the lower shelf from where she is, but those aren't mapo flavours and she wants the ones she can't reach.

[eldest]

Flirting? No, no no no, this isn't her Bai's talking about. She's not a vigilante. Clearly Bai is thirsting over Foxpearl. Which, like. Good taste. Solid taste, Rain also has a minor crush, which is not that unusual because everyone's super pretty and wow, girls, and also some boys, but girls.

She pulls Bai onto a bench for the sandwich-eating, facing the direction of the flashing lights. "I'll try to be there around the crack of nine thirty, maybe ten. It's... I was running around trying to figure out what was up with that." She gestures off at the lights. "So I'm kinda. Really tired."

She looks over at Bai. "You gonna be okay tho? Been a lot of excitement tonight." Like fire everywhere and something involving the gangs and...

"Oh do you know anything about the gangs?"

[Balmas]

One the one hand, interrupting a mystical sage during their meditation is probably definitely almost certainly a good way to wind up cursed. Possibly even accurséd, which like double cursed but with extra syllables!

On the other hand, if she's a mystical sage, then is she virtuous? Is it possible to be an unvirtuous sage? A sage of, of, uh, spreading bad virtue? What's the word for that? She should know this.

She should figure that out. After all, if she's a virtuous sage, then she'll support this plan!

She takes one paw away from the power strip cables--because she doesn't have any ropes, you see--and wriggles under the desk so she can get between Izi and the keyboard. Perfect location where she can look at Izi's face and, purely by coincidence, put her ears at scritching height if someone were to be so inclined.

"Pardon me, great sage, but would you like to help us bring virtue to the wicked?"

Yeah, that's the word! Wicked sage!

She's so good at this.

[Tatterdemalion]

Foxpearl!

There's a TV in the room with you, too. Surprise! This is because Joshua Chan, like many people, does not have the spiritual fortitude to handle the sound of his own thoughts inside of his head. If he does not have a TV to distract him while he eats his takeout, he might start grappling with the sort of advanced questions of virtue, vice and enlightenment that you do all the time.

Concept: you should steal Joshua's TV for his own good.

Usually he watches YouTube videos on there, and he'd left a dance choreo on, but the autoplay's sent him straight to the Emergency News Broadcast with Director Li (probably a citywide push in the algorithm).

"Greetings, citizens of Sky Gate City," he says, with his stupid shaved-sides haircut and his tacticool jacket, as he stands in a plaza hastily commandeered for a broadcast. "Earlier tonight, HOUND's rapid response team stopped the rampage of the supervillain Xingtian and stopped the collapse of Providence Tower. However, in the process, we were unable to stop one of Lady Foxpearl's minions from kidnapping the Vermillion Princess, who was providing us with assistance on the scene. In order to locate one of our city's most beloved young women, I am authorizing neighborhood sweeps. I am aware that this may prove controversial, but--"

The microphone is smoothly taken from him. The woman next to him is perfect. Tasteful lipstick, tasteful single-breasted jacket over her dress, tasteful bobbed haircut. She gives a demure smile and then continues: "But locating the Vermillion Princess and delivering her to the safety of the authorities is our duty as citizens of Sky Gate City. When Empress returns, how could any of us look her in the eye if we failed to do everything we could to save her successor from the wicked grasp of Lady Foxfire? As your humble servants, we beg you to join us in our service to our city. My husband and I are worried sick about the debauched torments that our favorite heroine must be suffering in that... that awful fox's grasp. Please. Invite our teams inside, let them search for clues as to her whereabouts, and together we will make Empress proud."

She pauses to lift Li's hand and kiss one knuckle, demure and adoring and patriotic, before turning back to the cameras. "And our message to Foxfire is: there is nowhere you can hide. We will find you, and even if Empress isn't here to stop you, my husband has trained the elite forces of HOUND for just this eventuality. No tricks of your tails will be able to stop us, the citizens of Sky Gate City, working together to deliver you into custody, you and anyone who tries to hide you."

And her smile is just a little too cruel, a little too self-satisfied, before she returns the microphone to her darling husband. It's a flash of the fangs underneath, too fast for anyone else to notice. But how could you not recognize your mother, no matter what face she's wearing?

---

Shifu!

Izi rolls her chair forward and focuses harder on the game, which, haha, it doesn't seem like she's noticed that she's sort of pinning you between her and the desk, emphasis on the her, which you'd think she'd notice, because she's got her thighs pinning you in place and you've seen those videos of people popping watermelons between their thighs, right? Because hopefully your ribs are made of sterner stuff than watermelons.

Tap tap tapatap tap tap. "In position-- pop Aegis-- Black, rotate now-- triangle him-- Blue, rotate-- pop Sanctification--" Sharp tap. "Shifu, if you want to be under my desk, I charge." Sharp tap 2. "Zetaburst on my mark. Now."

Joshua looms from behind Izi, but when he clears his throat she shoots him a Look and shakes her head before turning back to whisperyelling her arcane formulas. Tap tap taptaptaptaptap TAP tap. So now he's hovering and giving you the Look while your cheeks mold into the shape of Izi's corset.

This, uh. Didn't go quite the way you planned.

"Virtue now."

Wait. That was definitely an invitation to bring virtue to the wicked! Probably! Certainly! You'd just need to. You know. Slither out of the way, in a way that Joshua has definitely told you that you shouldn't do. And you wouldn't be smothered and pinned by a very intense girl whose mind is extremely focused on her hermit magic while her body is extremely focused on trapping you in place.

---

Rain!

Bai gives you a sideglance. Weighing you up. "Why?" she finally asks. "Has someone been giving you trouble? They shouldn't. You live way too high up for that, and as long as you're thoughtful about where you go into basements, you shouldn't... unless someone's been telling you about the Flower War? Look, that's... a mess. They're fighting over who gets to fill the role of the big boss down there, who gets to have tense tea ceremonies with Empress and occasionally fight her for the honor of everybody involved with all that, and it's going to get messy, and you should try to stay out of it, okay? It'll blow over, or Empress will sort it out once she gets back."

She definitely knows more about this than she's telling you, but she's concerned about you. Like you might break a nail, or get yourself kidnapped, or something like that. She thinks you are the rich girl damsel in distress here.

[Shift: -Savior, +Mundane]

[Thanqol]

"Don't think I don't see you!" Hsien yells at the television. "You liar!"

Lady Foxfire never fully grasped how television worked. She had instantly assumed from the first time she saw a broadcast episode of Gilligan's Island, that the people on the screen would be able to hear her if she shouted at them. And why not? It was essentially a miniaturized stageplay, wasn't it, or some sort of scrying spell, or whatever. The details were for nerds. She was a fox and had enough fox magic to make her uninformed opinions reality.

So it was indeed the case that her voice carried. The screen wasn't a wall any more; it was a portal - or something stranger. A tupla, a dream fragment, a platonic ideal? When Foxfire had first yipped encouragement to Gilligan as he was about to doom the crew once again he had responded as Gilligan and not as a confused human actor. All Hsien knew was that she was seeing red, so much so that she'd dragged the vending machine halfway across the room so she could bark in foxy outrage.

"This isn't like stealing a tofu bar!" said Hsien. "This is politics! You're messing with the city itself! You know that this is wrong! You're hurting people in ways you don't even understand, aligning yourself with the landlord class, and that haircut is like a three, tops! What's even the point if you're not cute? What's even the point if your scheme hurts a thousand people along the way?"

[A Mind of their Own, Unleash Your Powers: 1, 1 +3 = 5]

[Balmas]

Ah. This has become a difficult situation.

It's not that this isn't, y'know, nice and all but. Uh. Um.

She's reaching out for that like--you know, the little pinch, that little nexus, the little pit of fire that'll blossom out and--

Small, that's the ticket. Small, get out of the pinch, hope that.

D'you know, she has the weirdest mental image of like, a beartrap being sprung around something small and squeaky? Fire, chipmunk, a metallic twang?

And it's not working is the thing, right

It's not working oh crap why isn't it working

Is it girls?

Are girls her secret weakness?

Why are girls her secret weakness?

She can't transform around girls! No, no, that's dumb, she transforms around herself all the time! And Rain! And Hsien! And Izi, now that she thinks about it!

Girls would be a terrible secret weakness! Like that one movie Mr. Chan doesn't know she watched about the aliens who were weak to water, or something!

But it's not working and she can't transform and she's being squeezed and she's pushing, pushing, rising like Godzilla from the ocean, sloughing off desk and monitor and cables and girl like water, because she can't transform and isn't safe and--

[Tatterdemalion]

Hsien!

The cameras swing towards you and flash: white, green, silver. Above you, the towers of Sky Gate City are impossibly tall: white, green, silver. Mist curls around your feet and the tip of your tail: white, green, silver, black at the tips.

"I'm here live with Tail Seven," a reporter says, her teeth white, green, silver. She thrusts a-- a microphone. It's a microphone. White microphone. Gnawed on. "She's here giving her first interview after her crime spree! Somehow, despite the property damage, the theft, the trespassing, the cyberbullying, and the actual kidnapping of a virgin, nobody seems to have caught on to her real motive. So, Tail Seven, I've got to ask: how do you do it? This is your first time lying, deceiving, bamboozling, and otherwise hoodwinking mortals independently, but you're already taking to it like a pro! Is the trick that you have to convince yourself that you're telling the truth first? Is it true that the vending machine proposed already? What do you have in store for your captive princess now? Have you figured out the joke yet?"

The cameras are flashing, flickering, white, green, silver. The snaps are deafening. Everything you say can and will be used against you in court. The reporter is wearing sunglasses at night, like an anon message. If you do not defend yourself, someone's going to make a callout post.

[Shift: -Superior, +Danger.]

---

Shifu!

"Do. Not. Move." Joshua says, sounding like he's just seen you press a button that's going to make everything explode like in the martial arts movies he watches on the weekends. He's backed up onto a desk, glasses askew, shooting extremely worried glances at the floor underneath your hooves.

"What the fuck," Izi says, clinging to her unplugged mouse with both hands, in the middle of a floor kabedon between said hooves. They are hooves, right? There's vestigial toenails but they're still part of the same column. She looks like she can't make up her mind between being pissed at you and being terrified and is settling for staring at you with the biggest eyed expression she's ever managed.

Behind you, desks have overturned, monitors have crashed to the ground, towers have come catastrophically unplugged, but it's hard to really get a good look behind you because of the big orange floppy ears. The ear-to-head ratio is amazing, isn't it? That and having a trunk. Trunks are cool. You could probably help pick things up with a trunk.

Izi's hand slowly reaches down towards the purse where she has her phone.

[Shift: reject influence or mark a condition.]

[Thanqol]

Hsien was, in her heart, a lurker.

For all her thoughts and philosophies and understandings of the world she didn't exactly post them. She just read all the correct people, built up silent disagreements with them, witnessed their arguments and identified the imperfections from a place of superiority. She didn't wade into the muck and debate people. She didn't want to risk getting into an argument where she hadn't done the legwork, where everything was on the line, where the translation barrier between righteous thought and righteous speech was suddenly so intensely complicated.

So she froze up. In this moment she was just that: tail seven, suddenly under the scrutiny of the only eyes qualified to judge her. She felt tiny, blinded, scared, frozen in a defensive crouch. If there was a saving grace in this, her stunned null reaction looked anything but dangerous.

[Rejecting influence: 7. Clearing Insecure by proving them wrong]

[Balmas]

[Marking Guilty]

You ever see an elephant hyperventilate?

She can fix this. She can fix this! She has to--

Oh she's in so much trouble. Why did she think she could--

Do. Not. Move.

But she could do so much to--

Or she could crush through the floor, and Izi's still under her, and--

Izi. Izi no. Izi, please.

Moving gingerly--no feet moving, see how good she is at not moving, not crushing anyone? See how good she is?--she puts her trunk on Izi's hand.

Izi. You could make her life really bad right now with that phone. She's not gonna stop you, not gonna put that elephant strength to actually wrapping around that wrist to stop you.

But she is going to make the biggest elephant eyes she can to beg--beg, Izi!--you not to pick up that phone. She is so sorry, and she's gonna fix this, and we're gonna go back to being the best of friends, and all you have to do is please, please please please let her explain, and try to fix this and just put down the phone, okay?

[Tatterdemalion]

Hsien!

“Pathetic,” Lady Foxfire says, sweet and bubbly and, underneath, a little sour. Like poisoned lemonade. If she ever got stuck inside of a vending machine, that’s what she would be. You, on the other hand, are just a poor little meow meow. “From what I heard, you were almost making something of yourself, kidnapping girls and tossing them off buildings, coming up with schemes— and now you’re cowering like a kit. Can’t even get your side of the story out!”

But it wouldn’t. Not really. This isn’t really real (you can tell your panicked heart, and see where that gets you). Her smile’s as sharp as a knife, and her nails are the same.

She reaches out with the confidence of a woman who knows the world should revolve around her, lifts your chin, and traces your lower lip with her thumbnail in a way that would be flirtatious if she wasn’t, in a way, your mother. “You’re going to make me embarrassed, you silly little thing.”

---

Shifu!

Here’s the compromise you manage: that Izi does take that photo, having not correctly interpreted the begging body language of an elephant, but she hasn’t sent it to anyone. Yet. It’s just there, on her phone, with the potential to ruin your life.

Oh, by the way— the Vermillion Princess seems to be trying to get your attention. Izi and Joshua haven’t heard it yet, probably, but you’ve got big ol’ ears, and those are some insistent mmmmphs coming from Joshua’s room, and that would be even worse for Izi to find out…

[Thanqol]

Hsien did the only thing she could think to do in that moment.

She bit Lady Foxfire's hand.

They looked at each other for a moment. Made eye contact with an exactly mirrored expression of 'are we really doing this?' and 'I guess we are really doing this' and 'we really hope that nobody is watching this because this is about to be extremely undignified'.

And then Hsien is being beaten over the head with a purse and she's holding her grip on that hand but she's too panicked to let go and Foxfire is too panicked to stop and of course in the middle of this whole thing Hsien has finally thought of the correct thing to say so she's trying to mmmmrph gmhr mhhrph out her rebuttal through a mouthful of her greater half's hand and through the yips she makes when Foxfire pulls her delicate little triangles ow ow ow ow ow -

[Balmas]

This… is not a situation that can be solved by an elephant.

Weird, right? S'like, big stompers, able to throw your weight around, and talk about junk in the trunk, which is a phrase she's heard used and one day she's sure someone will explain! Elephants are great! Also, ears. Big flappy ears, perfect for swatting flies, which is a problem she's never had until getting here, because heaven doesn't have flies. Very satisfying to wave around.

But! But but but! The point is, that an elephant cannot solve this.

Or rather, an elephant could solve this, but only if they didn't care about what would happen immediately after that happened, and.

And the point is that Shifu is being so incredibly careful when she starts moving furniture.

Shhh, Joshua, she's doing alright, see? Righting chairs, scooting them out of the way, moving slowly, like Izi's gonna run for the door any second.

Because she could just transform here, standing over Izi. But that phone is still pointed at her,a nd she does not want more pictures, and humans are weird in that they don't like it when they're being engulfed in flames?

She's tried to explain that it doesn't hurt, right? It's like… like that second before a sneeze, right? And your nose gets all pinchy, and then when you do sneeze, it's a relief? Look, look, you could hold anything you want in the fire! It's cold!

But still, she clears a space, and lets the fire wash over her until nothing but a lionpuppy is left.

"Izi? Are you okay? I'm super sorry I messed up your game. Could you. Could you delete that picture? Pretty please? For me?"

And also, the great thing about moving furniture and transforming is it's noisy, right? Noisier, certainly, than any gagged princess in the back room. We're all friends, no need to cause problems, and you can go on your way without needing to blow up the news with pictures and things.

[eldest]

Rain!

Bai gives you a sideglance. Weighing you up. "Why?" she finally asks. "Has someone been giving you trouble? They shouldn't. You live way too high up for that, and as long as you're thoughtful about where you go into basements, you shouldn't... unless someone's been telling you about the Flower War? Look, that's... a mess. They're fighting over who gets to fill the role of the big boss down there, who gets to have tense tea ceremonies with Empress and occasionally fight her for the honor of everybody involved with all that, and it's going to get messy, and you should try to stay out of it, okay? It'll blow over, or Empress will sort it out once she gets back."

She definitely knows more about this than she's telling you, but she's concerned about you. Like you might break a nail, or get yourself kidnapped, or something like that. She thinks you are the rich girl damsel in distress here.

[Shift: -Savior, +Mundane]

@Tatterdemalion

Hey. Hey now. Excuse you, she has totally interacted with a gang member recently and, well, he thought he was dead and she was also incognito and maybe, just maybe, Bai has... a tiny bit of a point. She's kind of out of her element.

But also! Also. Also. This is how you learn. And get better. And practice. Which is to say. She's not giving up! In spite of that nibbling doubt there. And besides...

"It's for work, actually! We have to go down into the tunnels. And I saw some painted stuff and carved stuff and well. I kinda want to know the basics? There's security and they're cool but also, like, ew. You know?"

[Tatterdemalion]

Hsien!

You have never seen Alice in Wonderland. This is almost certainly the case. You're not familiar with the whirling chaos of a dream collapsing, of the chaos of a deck of cards suddenly rising up and crashing over your head, of all sorts of strange and chaotic things swirling about you, and it is while your mother screams at you through a mouthful of fangs, her eyes yellow fires, ordering you to spit her out right this instant you little brat, that something flings itself at you--

--and the back of your head hits the pavement. Above you, the towers stretch into the clouds, holding up heaven (metaphorically, perhaps literally). It's doing a misty late evening rain, dusting across your face, your cheeks, your lips, the bit of blood in your mouth. This is an experience that demands you make a gifset about it, combine it with just the right bit of poetry, and feel satisfied for making art.

Above you is something like a wombat (which, thanks to Tumblr, you know is an animal that has square-shaped poop and uses its ass as a defense). It has no head, no neck, nothing but body. It has wings like a pigeon, four of them, sprouting off its grey-furred, rounded body. Three pairs of clawless paws knead on top of you as it settles in, and the weight of it is like a building falling on top of you. The density is just incredible.

But at least the vending machine is gone, and it's raining on you, and above you, you can see the police aerocraft making its final approach to the nearby HOUND Rapid Response Center. The world is still beneath you, and the clouds are grey-green, and you're definitely going to need someone's help getting this weird little critter off of you, unless you want to try something audacious.

---

Shifu!

"Well..." Izi says, drawing it out, clinging to the first instinct that she can find, which is to conversationally maneuver until she can find a place where she's strong and forceful again. "You did just ruin my raid. And turn into an elephant."

"Izi," Joshua begins, "if you don't delete the picture off your phone then this place might get shut down and there will be no place for raids to happen, and who's going to open up a new place this close to the skating rink?"

"Fine. Explain to me how you turned into an elephant and I'll delete the picture," Izi says, going for concessions. "And I want a real explanation. If I'm not satisfied, I keep the picture. And you don't have the guts to ban me, before you say anything, Chan!"

---

Rain!

A vending machine tumbles through the ceiling. Not in a way that it breaks through, more like someone just happened to push a precariously-placed vending machine off a ledge, but it's a vending machine trailing a power cable and increasing in speed as it tumbles down towards you, and things might have gotten dicey for a moment there, but Bai tackles you right off the bench and onto the floor, wrapping her arms around you as the vending machine breaks the bench in half with a horrible noise of crunching and smashing glass and, far away, a shrill scream.

Bai is on top of you, breathing heavy, and... are you completely in control of your powers right now? You're not about to sink through the floor, right? It'd be really easy in a moment like this.