[ We find Maria and Rei sitting outside the Gypsy Magick Shoppe, talking about something random, which I'm sure they can manage. Rei still smells powerfully dumpster-fresh, and Maria either doesn't notice or doesn't mind. ] [ Minisession Start! ] * Rei is dragged. "Where are we goooooing? Somewhere I can wash off? I'm not sure if I want to wash off. Hey, I have a piece of rotten zucchini stuck to my ear!" * Rei yanks it off and drops it on the ground. * Maria blinks. "Oh, you do. Too rotten to cook with, right?" Not really, but I promise it'd make you really sick. If you want zucchini, wait until we get back to Tokyo and I'll make you something nice. Maybe casserole! No, that's overdone. * Rei giggles. "I can taste my own food again!" And other people's food, too! * Maria nods solemnly. "That'll be nice. 'Cause food's good." And not getting to eat it for a long time would suck. And I bet you'll back me up on that, too. It is! I hope I haven't forgotten how good- oh! There's peaches that way! It'd be really great in pie, or maybe some tarts, or I guess we could just eat them fresh... * Rei points in an almost random direction. * Asanjya wanders by, nose buried in a book! She's walking fine, though, avoiding things on the ground and obstacles like lightposts. * Rei waves madly. "Hey, Asanjya! Asanjya Asanjya Asanjya!" * Maria blinks. "Peaches? Are they tasty?" Yes! * Asanjya looks up, and her hair spazzes out, frizzing and twisting. "Hey, Rei... oh, by the left testicle of Nyarlathotep! BAD!" She bats at the hair ineffectually. * Maria walks over to Asanjya and tries to read over her shoulder, failing miserably. Very tasty. Especially after not eating for a long time. And the first time you try them. If they're good. I'm not bad! Your hair's bad! And I hope it hasn't been involved with testicles recently, because yuck. It's being remarkably difficult to deal with. I don't know how Chie managed it. * Asanjya closes her eyes, and the hair braids itself loosely, and lies still. Well, she's got lots of hair stuff. Maybe that helped? Maybe she whipped it into shape with a curling iron. Yeah, we can get you scrunchies and barettes and stuff! Maybe one with rhinestones or things. And an eggbeater! * Asanjya finds a seat on the steps. "A what, now?" * Rei grabs Asanjya by the wrist and starts pulling her and Maria towards the peaches. She's pretty bad at it. An eggbeater! * Asanjya is not seated, but pulled instead! "Why, Rei, do we need an eggbeater?" What's a rhinestone? Is it gem? An expensive gem? * Chie comes walking up, clad in a babydoll white t-shirt with the red and yellow Superman S on it and a pair of tight-fitting jeans. Her bag is, as always, slung over her shoulder. "Hey, guys! Wait up!" I don't need one. You need one. Betcha don't have one. Hi Chie! We're gonna get peaches and scrunchies and barettes and an eggbeater and do you need anything- I like the outfit!" * Maria is pulled and knows better than to fight it. "Hi, Chie!" Chie! Tell me how in all the hells you kept this under control? Thanks! I realized that I kinda needed some pants, and I was tired of wearing my jacket. So I told Chomei I was gonna go shopping, and he stammered some excuse and went off to look for hotels or something, in case we have to spend the night here. I told him to call me if he finds anything. So what's up? * Asanjya points to her hair, which is starting to twitch. Shopping! Oh. I told it I'd chop it all off if it didn't behave. * Rei beams a smile. * Asanjya blinks. "I see." Also, I bribed it with these. * Chie rummages in her bag and holds out the hairsticks she was wearing as Asanjya. You want? Consider them an early birthday present. Or a late one, since I don't actually know when yours is. * Asanjya blinks again as her hair reaches out and SNATCHES them. "I guess I do. Thanks!" The hair winds itself up around them. * Maria blinks. "Wait, we're going shopping? Are the stores still open?" * Chie laughs. "Well, glad to see that my work's appreciated. And some of the stores were closing. What were you guys planning on doing?" Aside from getting peaches and... an eggbeater, you said? * Maria grins. "Well, if they're closing, that's good." * Asanjya frowns at Maria and the hair twitches. Also, Chie, did you know where stuff was when you were me? Because now I do know where stuff is. Not fruit, but I can see mass without my eyes open. What? I get really good discounts at stores after they close. Know where stuff is? No. * Maria blinks. "You can? ...cool." * Rei hums happily. It's a peaches song. You know it is. (o/~ Millions of peaches, peaches for me! o/~) ( Millions of peaches, -- beat to it. ;_; ) (o/~ Millions of peaches, peaches for free! o/~0 (o/~ Peaches come in a can! They were put there by a man! In a factory downtown! o/~) (Chie probably knows the lyrics. Watch out. She'll start singing.) * Asanjya closes her eyes and walks around a little, dodging boxes on the street and stuff. "Freaky, huh?" (o/` If I had my little way, I'd eat peaches every day! Sun soaking bulges in the shade!) Hey, neat! No, I really couldn't do that when I was you, and I can't do it as myself, either. Although I'm back to seeing ghosts again. I like it! I could use that ability. I bet Maria could, too, if she can't see in the dark, 'cause she goes skulking and stuff. Must be another side effect of the transfer like the hair. * Maria nods. "It'd be handy." * Asanjya frowns, and the hair twitches. Maybe. I wonder if I got any weird effects from Laz being in my body. He probably made you taller and stronger and tougher and able to leap buildings in a single bound. That's what Lazar worries about, right? He was always complaining that you were too cushy. I'm not any taller. Stronger and tougher, though... maybe. I did notice earlier that all the running I did didn't tire me out as much as it should've. * Maria giggles. "Maybe he took your body to a gym and worked out." That's the one thing I really liked about being you, Asanjya. You're tall! * Asanjya smiles. "Not exactly my fault, but thanks." * Maria nods. Asnjya's definitely tall. He probably did. Which means nobody was minding the shop, and Seki's gonna kill me when we get back. Oh, well. At least he can't fire me. She's not *that* tall. It's not like you were wearing clown shoes and stilts or anything. * Rei blinks. "Who's Seki?" But she's taller than us? Hey, half a foot is pretty significant! Gave me a whole new perspective on things. I could almost look Chomei in the eyes! Well, Maria, actually. But still, different! Oh, Seki? He's my business partner. Oh! Is he cute? * Rei twitches her tail. She's practically skipping now. He owns the building where my shop and apartment are. And, yeah, he's nice-looking. * Maria grins. "Maybe we should visit Chie's place when we get back." * Asanjya closes her eyes and walks, and her hair untwists and slowly works its way into a bun! * Rei giggles. "Cool! Maybe... yeah!" Hey, you guys are always welcome! We should have another pizza and movie night sometime. Or go drinking again. Or all of the above. * Asanjya nods emphatically. * Maria nodnods. * Rei cheers and spontaneoushugs Chie. I wanna see more mooovies. They're so cool. * Chie laughs and hugs Rei back. Absolutely! Now you smell like garbage, too. Congrats! It'll have to wait a few days. Maybe we can break into a theater after hours. ...do theaters close at night? Rei, I know you're my friend, but do you have to share everything with me? Uh, yeah. Though a lot have midnight showings and stuff. * Chie sticks her tongue out at Rei. I've got to do some major summoning when I get back, check my contracts... gonna suck. Theaters stay open kinda late, though, and we'd need someone to operate to projector... actually, Rei'd be able to figure it out, I bet. * Rei sticks her tongue out at Chie. "Not your boyfriend, and we can all thank all the billions and something of stars for that one." * Chie cracks up. "Yes." Because eew! And lame! And eew! And mostly eew. And eew, too. And he has spiky hair. And eew. * Rei thinks. Is there anything I missed? Not from your perspective? * Chie winks. * Rei flails. "Eew!" * Maria blinks. "Wait." She leans over and sniffs Rei. "Oh, that's what that is." Huh? What'd I do? * Chie just grins. * Asanjya smiles. "It's nice to be back in me again. Even if I keep getting weirder." * Rei blinks, cluelessly. We all keep getting weirder. Think you'll be able to get your hair fixed? It's kinda fun, actually, even if I didn't mean for it to happen. I don't know. It might actually be useful. Eh, don't get it fixed. I can teach it, uh, hair-fu or something. There's nothing wrong with being weird. I've been weird all my life. I like me that way. I think. It's better than not being weird, 'cause then I wouldn't know what to do. * Rei nods. If nothing else I can teach it to write for me. ... Rei, you'll never be anything but weird. Trust me. Yay! * Rei hugs Asanjya, too. Absolutely nothing wrong with being weird. It's nice to find people who know it and don't run away screaming. Or at least you haven't yet. * Chie grins again. * Maria giggles. * Asanjya looks down at Rei. "Maybe we should find a perfume store." You're the one who shoved me in a dumpster. I'm spreading the love! Nah. Perfume's stinky. So, are we actually going somewhere? Because I'll bet there's probably an ice cream place or something that's still open and just waiting for us to find it. I could have left you out there for those crazies to beat up while I. .. you... us were unconscious. Ice cream? * Chie nods. "Ice cream." Ice cream! Ice cream! Will there be peaches? * Maria blinks and looks confused. Go figure. Peach ice cream, sure! Yay! * Rei looks around for an ice cream place. Your fruit-sense that Asanjya seems to have acquired for you tell you where there might be some? * Rei points. "Peaches that way!" Another point. "Bananas and strawberries over there." And another point. "Kiwi!" Hey, don't blame me. It must have been another contract thing. You can read the contracts all you want, but sometimes High Demon's hard to read. They should write in crayon. I'd say that's freaky, Rei, but I still think the dead people have fruit beat. * Rei giggles. "Bananas and strawberries means banana split means ice cream." She heads the way of the fruits. What's kiwi? It's green and tasty! Awesome! Tasty! Yes! * Chie walks along next to Rei. "Have not had ice cream in a while, actually." Uh, neither've I. Um, next time I call up Sammael, lord of the Shadows, you can tell him the contract ought to be in crayon and not virgin chicken blood. Okay! Wonder if they have irish cream. Or mint chocolate chip. And what exactly is a virgin chicken? One that hasn't laid any eggs? What's a... no, nevermind. I should think a virgin chicken ought to be self explanatory. I mean, it's a virgin... chicken. I bet it hasn't drunk or smoke, either. Cut down in the prime of its life! How sad! Well, you've got to kill a few chickens to make pacts with lords of the underworld. * Maria is totally lost. o_o It is. Truly sad. Thus, we should promote the drawing of demonic contracts in crayon. Even more diabolical because it will become truly impossible to read, *and* you can save the chickens! We could make protest signs or something. Save the chickens! End demonic contract excesses! Demons aren't too keen on um, saving things, usually. So? You're the one killing chickens, not them. Well, you get a lot of blood out of one chicken. I mean, one is good for at least three moderate length contracts. * Chie points dramatically. "Ice cream shop dead ahead!" And really, virgin chickens are really hard to find. * Maria blinks at that and shakes her head as if to clear it. Last one there's a virgin chicken! * Rei dashes for the ice cream place. You're on! * Asanjya runs after! * Chie runs! (Maria will, of course, beat us all.) 2d6 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Asanjya (2d6) and gets 10. 2d6 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Chie (2d6) and gets 10. * Maria runs VERY fast, going by you all in a flash and arriving at the door in a heartbeat. 2d6 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Rei (2d6) and gets 7. (Hahaha!) (by 5. ;_;) * Rei cackles and runs! And is much faster than one would figure Rei to be, because even without flying, she manages to make it through the glass door, nearly running into Maria. (I fail by 4.) (Damn1) * Chie trips a little bit when she starts, and manages to just barely get there before Asanjya. * Asanjya arrives just after Chie. "I guess I'm a virgin chicken. Which is really going to suck next time I need blood." * Maria dodges out of Rei's way. "Wow, you guys're sl... well, okay, so I'm fast." * Rei laughs, gasping for breath. "Guess you've got plenty of it, though. Maybe we should push the crayon campaign a little earlier. Crayons for president! No, wait." * Chie grins at Asanjya. "Well, maybe they'll want non-virgin turkeys instead next time. Who knows." Well, it's kind of traditional. * Rei giggles some more and looks around. Ice cream place! See, that's why I don't summon demons. Too many rules. Well, that and I'd like to keep my soul. * Maria looks around. "Oh. *This* is ice cream." It's good, 'cause it's ice cream! Yes! This is ice cream! * Chie walks up to the cases and looks at the flavors. My logic amazes even me. Oh! Oh! Sundae! * Rei tags along behind Chie. * Asanjya shakes her head. "Never ever give up the soul. Rule number one." Uhm... * Maria digs through her pockets. Well, you've only got one. Most people do, at least. * Chie ponders ice cream flavors. I'll buy you some, Maria! Unless Asanjya's been spending all my money, which I'm pretty sure she hasn't. Rei? Coffee chocolate chip or chocolate peanut butter? Or both? Yes! * Asanjya looks at the flavors. "Only on the Albanian gymnast team, Rei." I like how you think! * Chie then snickers at Asanjya's comment. Okay, I know I approved that purchase, so it's not that bad. And Chie, make sure you get whipped cream. Oh, and bananas! Whipped cream yes, bananas no. Oh. Thanks! And then you have to swirl it together and suck it up with a straw. Uhm, what should I get? Except for the chips, 'cause they'll get stuck. Hmm. Milkshake? * Rei nodnods. Nah. Really feel like just eating it. Maybe a waffle cone, though. * Rei looks at the ice cream and points out flavors to Maria. "That one's good, and that one's good, and that one's good, and you should get a cone 'cause it's your first time trying ice cream and you need a cone. And nuts!" * Asanjya steps up to the counter. "A doublescoop sundae with chocolate fudge and lemon custard." Yeah. Waffle cone. And two scoops. Not one. * Asanjya gets her sundae and finds a seat! Okay. Uhm. Is the cone like a hat for it or something? * Chie orders after Asanjya has received her sundae. "A scoop of chocolate peanut butter and a scoop of coffee-chocolate-chip on a waffle cone, please." No, it's like a handle cup thing that you can eat! * Chie pays, receives ice cream and goes and sits down across from Asanjya. Chie's getting a waffle cone. You'll see. Only you don't want to eat the cone first, 'cause then you get a big mess everywhere. I tried that once. Mmmm. Sugar and caffeine. Two very important food groups! Oh! Okay. (idle to actually get ice cream.) Uhm... * Rei looks at Maria expectantly. (...that does sound good.) (I'll get some! Later. Not right now.) (I have no ice cream. It is sad. ;_;) (;_;) (I have popsicles, but they're not quite the same.) * Maria eyes the selection. "I want... a scoop of that," points at mint chocolate chip, "That," points at cookies and cream, "and...are those marshmallows?" She points at the tin of rocky road. Yeah, they are. You want some of that, too? * Maria grins. "I like marshmallows. Three scoops of that, forget the rest." * Asanjya digs into her sundae. "Mmm. Ice cream." * Chie eats ice cream. "Yeah. Definitely been too long since I've had some." * Rei giggles. "Make sure it's on a waffle cone," she tells the ice cream guy. Her tail flicks into view, and he probably thinks she's nuts. "And I'll take a sundae! Two scoops, mango and peach. With strawberries, and banana, and the whipped cream and cherry, too." She nods to herself. * Rei pays and recieves ice cream for her and Maria! She hands the cone over. * Maria accepts her ice cream when it is offered, and makes a fatal mistake; * Maria takes a big bite into the ice cream. Everyone needs ice cream now and then. (You *have* to do that the first time you try ice cream.) Absolutely! I've just been too busy to really go shopping much lately. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMOW! * Asanjya eyes Maria. * Chie looks over. "What happened?" Ow! Ow! Cold! Yeah, that sucks. Oops, cold shock. You're s'posed to lick and take little bites and... uh... * Chie laughs. "Brain freeze?" * Rei guides Maria to the table after grabbing a spoon. * Maria manages not to drop any ice cream, tho. Go high Dex! * Chie takes another lick of the coffee-chocolate-chip. * Maria eyes her ice cream suspisiously, then takes a little lick. "...mm! Good." Another lick. * Rei has a seat, making sure her tail's arranged correctly, then digs into her fruitful ice cream concoction. * Asanjya pauses in her devouring, then slowly unfurls the hair and hands it the spoon. "Let's give this a shot." (The best coffee-chocolate-chip ice cream I've ever tasted is the kind they make on-campus at the University of Maryland. The one summer I was taking classes, the ice cream shop was on my way home. ^^;) Don't eat too fast. You'll get all brain freezy. Like, your brain will shut down and you won't be able to think for a little while, but then you'll want more and eat too fast again, and then it happens again and again! (I'm so jealous. ;P) * Chie watches Asanjya attempt to manipulate the spoon with her hair, idly taking another lick of her own ice cream as she does so. * Maria licks off a marshmallow and chews on it. "'Zat one of those vicious cycles?" Exactly. Yeah, only it tastes good, so it's not that bad. * Asanjya manages to get the spoon into the ice cream, but it gets all over her face on the way into her mouth. She's laughing. * Maria nods at Rei's sage wisdom. Or whatever you'd call it. * Chie laughs, too. "I think you need to work on your aim." * Maria blinks at Asanjya. "What're you laughin' about?" * Rei points at Asanjya with her spoon and laughs. * Maria blinks and hands Asanjya some of the flimsy paper napkins they have in ice cream places. * Asanjya goes for another spoonful. "It's funny, is why. It's like trying to use your arm when it's asleep. Oh, thanks." She takes the napkins and stands at the ready to wipe when she misses again. Do you get pins and needles in your head, then? Oh! Can you feel your hair? * Rei reaches out and pokes it. I didn't work on it enough to get really precise control. Maybe I should've, so it wouldn't be giving you so much of a hard time now. Very faintly. That's why this is so hard. * Asanjya manages to get it into her mouth with less mess this time. ...you can feel your hair? That must be weird. * Rei giggles as it gets smeared on Asanjya's nose. Showering felt good, though. Shower! I forgot what a shower feels like! * Rei looks like she's about to bolt and try to find a shower right now. We all could use one. * Asanjya wipes her face. "Yeah." * Maria nods. "I could go for a bath. I know a good place in Tokyo that keeps the water warm after they close." Mmm, it's gonna be good to get home. Back to my apartment and my clothes and all. It's good to be me again. You can come to my place and use my shower, Maria! * Rei shoves more ice cream in her mouth. Yeah, or mine. Only Chie's isn't at my place, it's at her place, but it's still a perfectly good shower. I used it once. I can? Oh. Okay, I guess. * Chie blinks. "You did? When?" * Asanjya works another spoonful in. "This is getting easier..." The morning after we got drunk! Only you don't remember, 'cause you passed out first and woke up last. Ohhhhhh. Yeah. Well, that was the best night of sleep I'd gotten in a long time. * Maria blinks as she suddenly realises something. "I'm still not gonna be able to live out of my place. Uhg." * Rei blinks. "What?" * Maria licks her ice cream. Huh? Oh... You remember that guy that's after me, right? * Chie nods. ... Oh yeah, that. Uh, okay. Lemme think. There's gotta be something we can do about it until we find him and feed him his socks. She could live with one of us. Well, you can alternate between staying with me and Rei and Asanjya. I could liv-- what she said. * Rei snaps her fingers. "Yeah!" Yeah! I certainly don't mind. And Asanjya's really handy! If he has access to, uh, the records, she's not in them! * Maria has some more icecream and grins a little. "We could have movie nights every night?" * Rei giggles. Absolutely! Yeah. I hope I start getting paid eventually, though. * Asanjya works another spoonful in, slowly, with no mess! * Chie nods. "Yeah. We should contact the prof or somebody about that. You've definitely earned it." I guess we could contact the higher ups about hiring you and blah blah. * Chie has worked her way down to the second scoop of ice cream by now. * Asanjya hasn't. Haireating makes it slow! Sure. Pay's not good, tho. But it's something. * Rei is cheerfully eating fruit! And ice cream. Mostly ice cream. * Maria has more ice cream. Well, it'd give me an excuse for being out so much. I could tell my parents I had a job. And it'd be the truth. * Asanjya nods, and works in another spoonful. 'Cause it's not nice to lie to people about stuff like that, if you can help it. * Chie looks... slightly guilty? Nah. * Maria shrugs. Well, they'd figure it out eventually. Kind of. It's hard to hide that stuff well. * Chie mmmmms noncomittally. They should meet all your friends! They'd love us! * Rei grins madly. She has some ice cream on her cheek. * Chie laughs. Actually I don't think they'd care. I don't see them too often. You don't? Why not? They just work a lot? Why not? Yeah, they both have jobs and they work over a lot. * Chie nods. "Yeah, they were out a lot." * Rei thinks about that. Which is good because it means they don't look in about the summoning. Yeah, but it kinda sucks. Which kinda helped me when I was there, but... well, for the short time that I saw them, they seemed pretty nice. My dad's a middle manager somewhere, I don't even know where. And my mom sells real-estate. * Maria looks like she's about to say something, then thinks better of it. ( ...Mei-Yin selling real-estate? *cracks up* ) * Rei seems to have sobered a little. More like a lot. And has ice cream quietly. * Chie munches a bit of ice cream cone and looks over at Rei. You okay? * Asanjya switches the spoon back and quickly finishes off her ice cream. Yeah, I'm okay. * Maria has more ice cream, also sullenly. * Chie reaches out and gives Rei a brief, one-armed hug. * Rei finishes off her own ice cream and leans into the hug. "Let's go see what they're gonna do for the rest of the night." Sorry. Didn't mean to get you down. Nah, it's cool. I've got my own family, and another mom, even though she's kinda confused and needs help, and Victoria needs help right now, too. * Maria nods. * Maria starts to working on her cone. So we'll figure something out. Cause that's what we do. We take care of each other. And we can adopt Maria! * Rei looks at Maria. "Would you like my dad for a dad? He's a cool dad. Except he can see what you're thinking." * Asanjya nods, and chuckles. The hair wraps back into a bun, sticks and all. * Chie grins. "Hey, I like your dad too. He puts up with Eoi-sensei, and he has you, so he's definitely a cool person." * Rei giggles. ...maybe. He could prolly handle the danger. * Maria munches cone. And, yeah, you'll have Chomei for a cousin, kinda, but there's always gotta be at least one lame person in the family. Ew, related to Chomei? I'll pass. He's not *that* bad. Really. * Maria giggles. Okay, so I'm biased, but still! Let's go see what lame-o's up to, now. Yeah! Gotta finish, gotta finish! Hopefully, he's found us a place to stay. ( This would be a perfect time for Rei to actually start in on her 'Why Chomei is Lame' rant. ) * Chie finishes off the last of her cone. * Rei finishes. Really fast. And wobbles. "BRAIN FREEZE," she says in her best mechanical voice. (With Chie giving rebuttals. ^_~) * Chie laughs. "C'mon, Rei. You can beat it!" * Asanjya chuckles, then unwraps the hair and uses it to put Xaphan inside it! BRAIN WANTS FREEZE. * Rei gets to her feet and walks stiffly out the door. * Chie waves at Xaphan, who probably hides as she tended to scare him when she was Asanjya. ^^; * Maria finishes her cone! And licks the chocolate smears from around her mouth. Then she follows Rei out. * Asanjya stands and follows out! * Chie heads out. She is the last one this time, but probably not a virgin chicken. [ Minisession end. ]