[Nexus] Mallside VII: Darth Mall

[Reinholdt]

Dana's Place

"Those anti-heroes whose antics do more harm than good to the Nexus' soul? Isn't half the reason we're doing this is to show people what real heroes are? Shouldn't we be the ones protesting this ice cream uprising?" Reina says, in between several bites of her ice cream. Before long she's devoured her entire bowl and looks vaguely at it in a way reminiscent of one's puppy just dying.

[Lord Magtok]

Dana's Place

"But Inside's not even our jurisdictiiiiiiion! Even Remnant is more qualified to-Oh alright, fiiiiiiiiine."

Magtok concedes yet another point to Reina. I swear, that cyborg folds more than an origami poke player. All this, just for a pretty face. Anyways, he turns his head over towards Dana, with a great deal of unnecessary drama and exaggeration in his movements.

"Dana, if there's magical hypnosis drug stuff in your ice cream, meant to orchestrate an elaborate coup on the entirety of Nexus society, converting the ice cream-loving citizens of the world into mindless puppets thoughtlessly following your every word without question, Tiffany says stop doing that, okay? It'd be very rude and as cool as it might sound at first, nobody else wants to deal with an ice cream apocalypse."

There, done. Crisis averted. You can all shower Magtok in applause and thank him for reluctantly saving the world once more, not that he'd appreciate you doing so. Stopping apocalypses is the lamest, most frustrating career in the world, and he feels sorry for anyone clueless enough to make it their day job.

[Gullara]

[Dana's Place]

Dana raises an eyebrow at Magtok, looking a bit baffled for just a moment. "Oh darn. You foiled my plans. I guess I'll just go back to being a regular ice cream parlor owner. I think I might still have the receipt for that super villain suit I bought." She says without missing a beat. She can't stop that amused smile from spreading across her face as she goes back to her work.

[Reinholdt]

Dana's Place

"My herooo...." Reina says in a silly sing-song voice as she pushes her empty bowl away.

"So, what about you? You going to stick to a strictly gadget theme or did you have something else in mind?"

[Lord Magtok]

Dana's Place

"Taser staff, I was thinking. Bludgeon people who can't be zapped, zap people who can't be bludgeoned, gadgets and hidden compartments and whatnot for everything else. I'd have to get in some exercise and combat training to get it right, but I was planning on doing that anyway."

Magtok drops some money on the counter, and stands back up.

"Anyways, I think that's enough figured out for now. Not much else we can do besides assemble our equipm-Oh! There's some superhero flicks at Cinema 26, and an Agent Chrome movie with a free-running bit, if you want to pretend to do some research."

Uh-oh. Magtok, you might have just gotten that third strike.

[Reinholdt]

Dana's Place

"I really should consider a weapon other than my fists. Or some intensive martial arts training." Reina mulls over her options for a bit.

Then... she smiles at Magtok. "You know what, that sounds like a good plan. But no snacks or popcorn. We gotta stay in shape." Her less so, perhaps, but that doesn't stop her from considering it an issue.

[Lord Magtok]

Dana's Place => Cinema 26

"Fine. But, I wasn't serious about watching Agent Chrome. The last one was mostly a propaganda piece and seriously not worth seeing except for that parkour chase scene."

Propaganda piece? I dunno, I didn't see any propaganda in there. Krommetheus made for a really good villain, though, and the death scene of his henchman Shanshadoo had to have been one of the better fistfights of the series. And when GC and Dyrn turning out to be a secret psychic traitors, that was an amazingly well-done plot twist!

"Also, it's a movie starring me, and like I said, I'm not actually that vain."

[Reinholdt]

Cinema 26

"Suuuure you're not." Reina is dubious.

"But no matter. Superhero flick, right?" Uh-oh. It's time for another round of Nexus movie titles!! Today's winners are...

[Lord Magtok]

Cinema 26

"Mhm."

There's Elementium Man, Catsuit Woman: The (Mostly) True Story of Ilpholin, The Amazing Zefirman 2: Explosive Boogaloo, Illinois Jones and the Temple of Dalachrech, The Fantastic Fey, Teenage Mutant Ninja Ponies, and last but certainly not least, The Mask of Koro! If I were them, I'd go with the one with the masked bear duelist film, but it's not really up to me, is it? Also, dear lord, that's a lot of interesting movies competing all at once for box office sales.

"Anything you've seen already?"

[Reinholdt]

Cinema 26

"No, not really." Reina looks over the selection.
"Hmm... what about Catsuit Woman?" There's something in that title that Reina likes.

Probably the mention of cat.
Also, if she's got to stare at some character on a big screen, it might as well be someone with a hot butt.

[Lord Magtok]

Cinema 26

Magtok blinks. So Tiffany's bi, then? Wow, he certainly didn't see that one coming. Not too surprising, though. The Nexus has always seemed to have an odd habit of bringing in people with more exotic sexualities.

"It's NC-17. For graphic...well, everything. Not trying to be a prude, just fair warning and such."

Ought to make sure he's not jumping to conclusions first. I mean, he's pretty sure she knew all of that, but it'd be really awkward if she didn't. Also, just what kind of message is she trying to communicate with a choice like that?

[Reinholdt]

Cinema 26

"Hmm... I guess that does defeat the tone we're going for. Thought it'd be more superheroine." Reina admits. "What about Mask of Koro? That sounds vaguely mysterious."

[Lord Magtok]

Cinema 26

"If the earlier films are anything to go by, a mysterious, low-tech masked vigilante swings around from place to place and engages in swashbuckling stuff, with a habit of cutting the letter 'K' into things."

Magtok's playing the trailer right now in his head. Looks decent enough.

"He's also a bear, a dragon-bear, but nobody seems to notice that somehow, except for his sidekick, who mostly exists as comedic relief and so they can add a romance sub-plot with a protagonist that doesn't squick everyone out."

[Reinholdt]

Cinema 26

"Sounds appropriate to me! Let's do that one." Reina says.

Amazingly interspecies romance subplots doesn't squick her out. Imagine that.

"Doesn't get more cooler than Bears anyways."

[Lord Magtok]

Cinema 26

"I dunno, cats are pretty cool," Magtok says with a shrug. He lets that sink in for a moment or two, watching Tiffany's face for a reaction, before bursting out laughing no matter how she responds to it.

"Hahahahah, oh gods, I almost stuck with that. Oh man, I was so close! Almost managed to say that and keep a straight face."

Cats, cool. Pfft. Catgirls, sure. Butler? Also okay. But cats? Just plain old ordinary cats? Never.

"Two for Mask of Koro, please. Yes, the one in like ten minutes."

[Reinholdt]

Cinema 26

Reina purses her lips, quietly thanking the attendant for the tickets, but otherwise staying silent. Hmph!

[Lord Magtok]

Cinema 26

Well then, since they're skipping popcorn and such, let's assume they head right on in to whatever theater is mentioned on their tickets. Magtok's a upper-middle seats sort of person when it comes to cinema, by the way. That could cause conflict, because, and correct me if I'm wrong, but Reina is exactly the sort of sick, twisted degenerate who sits in the very front row, isn't she?

[Recaiden]

[Magmart]

A customer enters, their red cloak billowing in an out-of-place dramatic fashion as the automatic doors open. They calmly pick up a basket and start to wander the endless aisles. The clothing section should be over that-a-way, right? Or maybe here, behind the furniture? They consider asking an employee, but think better of it; stores are dangerous places.

[Lord Magtok]

MagMart

The Magbots keep their distance, for now. Red cloaks are usually bad news, best to just leave him or her be until called upon or some sort of incident occurs.

[Reinholdt]

Cinema 26

Why would she prefer the front row?

She actually prefers the very back row and doesn't really mind the upper-middle at all. Cats prefer high places, remember?

[Lord Magtok]

Cinema 26

Oh right, cowardly sniper cat. Nevermind, then. To the upper-middle it is! Well with that minor kerfuffle out of the way, Magtok's probably going to do some routine maintenance and such in his head during the previews. Not much else going on during this stuff, after all.

((Let me know if/when we should get to time-skipping.))

[Reinholdt]

Cinema 26

And yet cowardly Magtok's back here too.

Unless Magtok makes some sly move during the movie, time skips can happen.

[Lord Magtok]

Cinema 26

Time skips, then. Magtok considers the yawn and arm around the shoulder thing, but decides against it. Better let Tiffany make the next move, he's teased and poked and prodded at her enough.

[Reinholdt]

Cinema 26

Tiffany's next move is... to watch the movie all the way to the end credits! But her arm might brush his sometimes do to that awkward arm rest in the middle only one of them can have.

"Well that was exciting. Never saw a bear hold a sword quite like that before."

[Lord Magtok]

Cinema 26

"Yeah, I...yeah." Magtok murmurs in reply. There's been something obviously off about him since about midway through the movie. If I had to pinpoint exactly when, I'd probably say the scene with Koro's sidekick Biscoito Bandito finally getting the girl. Or maybe the part where she gets abducted right after that by the villain. Kinda hard to tell, it was dark in the theater and I wasn't paying much attention to Maggy's face.

[Reinholdt]

Cinema 26

"Hmmm... you ok?" Reina asks. She might not have been paying attention to his face, but it seems fairly evident something's wrong now.

[Lord Magtok]

Cinema 26

"Yeah, I just...the song they used, at that one romance scene? It was going to be the wedding song. The bride and groom first dance, barring a last-second change of heart to a Michael Jackson song, to be silly. I've been trying to avoid it, to change the radio or TV or whatever when it played. I've been trying to forget, to let go, but-"

Magtok shakes his head, and touches a finger to the corners of his eyes to make sure those goddamned traitors aren't watering up on him again. Lucky for him, they're dry. He ran out of tears to shed over this ages ago.

"Look, Tiffany, I don't...I'm sorry. I shouldn't have burdened you with that, dropped a big ol' melodramatic sour note on the evening. Can we pretend I didn't say that and go back to awkward sexual tension? I was doing alright with awkward sexual tension."

[Reinholdt]

Cinema 26

Reina is very quiet. Probably trying to figure out how to respond to the sudden negative turn.

"We could. Or... we could talk about it if you want." Reina says with the empathy of someone who has also lost love.

[Lord Magtok]

Cinema 26

The cyborg sighs. "Might as well. The other thing doesn't really work out so much once you mention it aloud."

Sorta like the fourth wall, in that respect. Except I don't think unresolved sexual tension is quite as liable to punch you in the face for breaking it too often.

"I didn't trust her at first. A catgirl, hired right in the middle of a Calublufiok apocalypse, what was I thinking? Obvious plant, I thought. Just some scheme to undermine me, her very existence the work of a demon's machinations to obliterate the Nexus. Then Cal died again, and Elly was still around, and things sort of snowballed from there.

Before her, I told everyone and myself that I was completely asexual. It was easier that way, convenient and safe living a lie. There's only so long you can keep telling yourself you're not interested when the woman of your dreams is standing right there and waiting for you to hurry up and get over yourself. I did, I'll never regret doing so, but then she started to deadtime sporadically. Longer stretches of time than what was thought normal, dates left in stasis for a worrying length of time.

I...I panicked a little, knowing what was coming next. I'd been around long enough to see friends, enemies, all sorts of people just vanish abruptly and never return, I could see where things were going. I grabbed a ring and some rockets and made the biggest proposal in the history of the world, hoping the sheer spectacle of it all would be fantastic enough to pull her free from that void, to overwhelm whatever forces I had to pretend weren't trying to steal her away from me. It was the greatest evil scheme I'd ever had, it was the total destruction of the Nexus's largest nuclear stockpile, it cost like an entire year's worth of MagCorp profits. And it didn't work. The bad guy lost.

She wavered a little, appeared once or twice after that, though. Once was right in the middle of a date with Vasquez. I apologize and walk out on the future commander of Remnant, the most politically powerful woman alive today, who was fun and entertaining and somehow thought she was on her way to being a lonely old spinster that no man would care for, to rush home to a fiancee who's gone again halfway through the conversation. I didn't know it yet, but I'd been given a perfect opportunity to take over the entire Nexus, to combine Rem and Mag into something even scarier than the military-industrial complex we have now, and then it was gone in an instant. Gods, fate was really screwing with me that day." Magtok chuckles at that, but it's a hollow, empty sort of chuckle. A desperate attempt at hiding the pain behind more wacky, self-deprecating humor and silliness.

[Arkhosia]

Valia Dusk walks into Erin's Emporium, barely taking time to admire the weapons. She walks up to the counter and puts her rifle on it
Do you sell any upgrades, accessories, or parts for Anti-Materiel Rifles?
(Pokes Magtok to Magcave)