Mandatory Shopping [Open]

[Phoebe Minola]

Phoebe waited for Vice to finish paying for his small mountain of clothes with amusement. She'd never seen a boy buy so many clothes all together. She got around to paying for her own purchases, ignoring the raised eyebrow and appraising glance the clerk at the counter gave her.

Yep, I'm a chubby lady shopping for clothes. Fuck off.

"Thanks Vice, I appreciate it," she told him with a smile. "If I can help in any way, I'll be more than happy to." 

She picked her two bags and casually strolled out of the store with Vice. "I've met... um, three or so, so far. I wonder how many of us there really are in the city... and just why and how we got this power. I get the sense that it's connected with the perimeter and the Shadows, somehow. What do you think?"

She walked straight to a little corner coffee and tea shop with out-door seating. She hailed a waiter over and asked for a berry-flavored, iced tea.

She blushed a bit when he complimented her progress. "Well, I... got curious and went poking around in some places. I beat off a few Shadows. I'd do more but I'm a bit of a scaredicat. Still getting used to the whole idea."

[Vice Ysal]

"Well, the easiest way to help is by simply getting to know the people fighting. I'm not gonna assume that they're all doing it to save the city or anything as noble as that, but its rather great to know that they've got others who are willing to support them if things get rough."

The younger male simply followed his companion to whatever coffee shop had been suggested. Soon enough though the duo would arrive and the waiter, after being hailed by Phoebe and getting her order, took Vice's own before leading them to table for two. Setting the bags down between his foot space to make sure that no wondering pick pockets could get lucky, Vice began to piece together the girl's story for her own.

"Current theories say that the Military is behind it all, others state that there's some kind of head quarters in the outer circle where some of the more intelligent shadows control things. I'm not quite sure which to believe since I can't debunk either nor do I have enough evidence to support any."

Vice waved off the comment about the whole being new to the whole thing. "Everyone is at some point, even some of our stronger members used to be new to this. Now? They're leading explorations on their own. Anything else you can tell me about yourself then? And your 'Imaginary friend'?"

[Phoebe Minola]

"I see..." Phoebe said thoughtfully. "I suppose I'll keep an eye out for other users. I just wish identifying them was easier," she chuckled.

Soon enough the waiter brought their orders. She listened attentively to his explanation and rubbed her chin a bit. What he said was disconcerting at best and actually a little worrying. "Intelligent shadows. Oh goodness, I don't think I even want to contemplate that. I'm sort of inclined to believe that the 'military' we've seen isn't just involved, I think they might be in cahoots with shadows, but as to why or how, I have no idea. Has anyone seen shadows display any intelligent behavior? Like talk?"

She blushed a bit at being questioned and resisted the urge to clamp up. But she was interested in the idea of joining exploration teams in order to get stronger. "Well... My full name is Phoebe Minola. I'm supposed to be a substitute English teacher at the local highschool but there's been a few misunderstandings and my schedule is... up in the air at best."

She kind of liked the idea of her Persona being 'an imaginary friend'.

I am most certainly not imaginary. I'm very real, as any Shadow will tell you.

...Did you actually get flustered?

I do not comprehend your meaning.

Right.

"Well, her name is Antiope. I'm a mythology buff so... I could go on about her story. But I don't think that's important," she said and shrugged. "Two weeks ago, I was going home after... uh, let's just say I was a bit pickled. I wandered out into the perimeter, for whatever reason. I don't know. Anyway, I got attacked and I was about to be shadow chow when I heard this voice in my head."

She paused to recollect her thoughts. "It sounds crazy but it was... very soothing and reassuring. I was freaking out until I heard it and when I did, I just had a sense that things would be okay. Then I just said... Persona and there she was. Antiope came barreling out of nowhere and almost steamrolled those shadows. I thought I was dreaming."

She chuckled. "I'm in danger of going into gamer-talk territory here, but I believe she's something of a 'tank' type. She can hit hard enough, at least on smaller shadows, but I think she's a tough customer. I mean, I went poking around the Terminal a while back and she took a direct hit from one of them. She just put her shield up and I barely felt a thing. It was weird."

Part of her wondered how wise it was to speak so freely about her Persona to Vice, but she didn't really thing it might bring about any harm. They were playing on the same side, as it was, anyway. At least, for now.

[Vice Ysal]

"Keep an eye out for those who always seem to be thinking of something else, or those who try their best to fit in what used to be their lives before everything hit the fan. It's those with power who always have the hardest time adjusting." VIce replied as he sunk down to the plush chair more now. It was comfortable at least, and the service here was much faster than that other coffee shop that took forever to serve anything.

"You 'woke up' two weeks ago, right? Then I guess you would have missed out on the first encounter. I'll spare you the details but yes, there are some shadows who have been noted to be capable of not only thought but speech as well. Most of the time, these shadows tend to be the strongest ones. Taking it on without at least 12 Users would be suicide." Taking a sip from his tea, Vice reflexively reminisced about what the hell just happened in that particular encounter. Suffice to say, the sharpest memory of his battle there was how it absorbed the bullets his magnum had fired at it.

"On the contrary, the mythology itself could actually shed some light to what your persona is capable of…and what its weak to. It'd be better to have an idea of you're not good against in a controlled environment rather than be caught off guard exploring on your own." Vice, of all people, should have a pretty good idea of what being 'weak' meant. Wasn't exactly fun soaking up that much damage from every and any kind of attack on his person.

"Your awakening's normal too. Pretty much from all you've told me you went through the standard for most people. Get in danger, life changing event, come out stronger. And don't mind the gamer talk so much. It's the lingo most of Them use so it's nothing new." Another sip and the ideas, along with the Pheobe's profile, were being segregated in his head into a much more compact and compressed form for easier access.

"Anything else you can share that you think is helpful? Past forays into fighting, preference to strategical exercises, such and such that you think would matter when confronted with the enemy."

[Phoebe Minola]

Phoebe pondered on what he said, about picking out other Persona users. "I see..." she muttered, drinking her iced tea. "I suppose it would throw one's life out of whack. As if the perimeter deal hasn't done that to some already. I've been roped into doing some counseling for the kids at school. I suppose I could look out for users there."

She took a big gulp of tea and shivered at his description of the intelligent shadows. "That actually sounds quite frightening," she blurted. "That many people needed for one shadow. I wonder what they're trying to achieve. What sort of things do they say?"

She actually avoided asking how everyone had fared in that battle. She didn't want to think of the possibility of anyone getting hurt -- but then again, she supposed they did. How did they deal with that?

"If someone gets hurt, can a Persona do anything to help them?" she asked spontaneously.

She absently thought about her few battles so far. The shadows she'd encountered so far all seemed like they had about the intelligence of an animal, and one of the lower orders, at that. They simply surged forward and attacked with the mindlessness of a zombie. She tried to imagine them displaying intelligence, but she couldn't really wrap her head around it yet.

As the discussion turned to Personas, she mused over the idea that her Persona's mythos might give her an idea of it's abilities. "Well... I've seen her use a fire spell of sorts. I suppose she's fire-oriented, probably a nod to the fiery disposition of the Amazons. She carries a pretty big hoplon shield, that's what clues me into her defensive capabilities. Hoplite soldiers were heavy infantry that relied on the shield for combat." She gulped. "I guess that'd make me a 'team tank'. I don't know how I feel about that," she said with a nervous laugh.

"I see, so everyone experienced that," she said thoughtfully. She stirred her tea with a momentary blank expression as she mulled it over. "Uhm... well, I don't have much experience yet. Let's see, I think I'm rather direct in fighting. Not much of an agile trickster. I... er, carry a crowbar around when I go about. It's all I really have. I know my way around guns too but I don't actually own one. I'm not really sure whether guns work on them, anyway. Do you have any idea if they do? The crowbar's pretty hefty and I've done damage but if things get too crazy I might want to keep my distance." 

[Vice Ysal]

"Not only are you the substitute English Teacher but you're also the new Guidance Counsellor for the kids? Played right, you can probably exert some influence on the weaker willed ones. Of course it goes without saying that said influence would be in a good way. I'd rather not put any pressure on your shoulders but no matter how amazing the others are, they're still children. I'm not saying that the adults should handle everything, that's just going full retard, but it'd be really appreciated to know that someone else can at least mitigate whatever personal problems they could possibly have."

Slowly, Vice took another tentative sip of his drink. The beverage was shitty at first, as in why would anyone even taste it again? And then the after taste was just bliss and you couldn't really stop trying it. The following sips slowly turned into more manageable ones too at that so it wasn't all that bad. Whatever the hell this concoction was, well, Vice was damn well enjoying it.

"As a new User, it sounds quite frightening doesn't it? The imagination is nothing compared to what you'll actually face." Vice added as he leaned on the table, his elbows propping up his arms as his fingers linked with each other. It wasn't quite meant to be menacing but instead serious, though with how Vice's eyes were narrowed and the gaze that was boring through the table they were on might send across a different message. "I'm not saying this to scare you--no, we need all the help we can get, but I'd prefer it if we won't suffer any casualty due to misgivings and overestimation of one's self. We haven't lost a fighter and I'd very well like to keep it that way."

Moving forward, the topic of first aid, Vice lessened the extremity of his gaze and softened up just a bit. At least the woman had enough care to ask about what was needed over what could happen.

"I'm glad you asked. Falling back into Gaming Terminology, the entirety of the team's actually rather diverse when it comes to their skill sets. I've even given them personal labels to keep tracking easier, for me anyway. One of the main categories is Support, and under them we do have quite a few Users who are capable of pretty much healing any non-fatal wound back to 100%. Getting sick isn't a problem either thanks to some of the more experienced user but generally, there's little to worry about aside from the main opponent. So even if you do end up having to soak up quite a bit of damage, don't fret. We take care of those who need it."

Nodding at the woman's further abilities for when placed in the battlefield, Vice had slowly began to try and integrate as to just where she'd be placed to make the best use of her abilities. Seeing as she's a newly awakened though, the red eyed asian was pretty sure that she'd be moved around a lot until at least she's grown enough to have a good enough set to be called a specialty.

"Taking everything you've said into account, it might take a bit to analyse everything to come up with something. We don't exactly have a 'Head' of the group but I'd at least like to think that when it comes to formations and such, I can do something about it. For now though, you wanna order something else? There's a lot to take in and I'd rather not you have choke up on all the information."

[Phoebe Minola]

Phoebe felt she was blushing again. "Yeah..." she said a little wryly. "The counseling thing came out of the left field for me. I'm not a licensed counselor but the committee picked me because my schedule is the most free. See, the actual English teacher has no problem teaching. He's a bit crap but I try to amend and correct his notes when he makes me type them up. There's a pecking order at the school. I'm sort of a gopher," she scoffed. "But you're right. I guess if I can help the kids, I should try, especially if they're Users. What with fighting Shadows, they don't really need personal problems making it worse. Even if all I can do is lend an ear."

Phoebe took a big gulp of her ice tea. She studied Vice; he seemed a little detached even though he was cordial enough. It was hard to form a picture of him other than what she could see and she didn't want to take it at face value. He leaned on the table and Phoebe suddenly felt awkward. He was fairly glaring at the table. She shrugged, a bit confused. Had she said anything offensive? And then he'd gone and startled her with how bad things could be in reality. She felt a bit crestfallen.

"Yeesh... I've already got hit by a bolt of lightning - I think - and yeah, it hurt like hell," she huffed. "But I was still standing afterwards. I suppose I'm tougher than I thought." She looked at her tea blankly. "I get what you're saying though. I'll be very careful."

Taking another sip of tea she pondered on his words. He seemed to care for the other Users and was probably trying to get her to toughen up for the fights ahead. She was glad when his expression softened. He could get rather scary. And then he explained to her the situation about the 'healers'.

"That's... that's amazing!" she exclaimed. "So Personas can really perform such diverse functions... Then again, I shouldn't be surprised. Antiope can somehow silence a Shadow so it can't cast anything. I'm pretty sure it doesn't work on all of them or all the time, though. But wow, that's really something. I hope I can be as helpful to a team. I guess I'm going to work on figuring out what I do best and try to improve."

Look at you, all eager for battle, Antiope murmured in amusement.

She smiled awkwardly. "Yeah, sure. Um... I hear the chocolate cake is good here," she blurted. "I'm starting to get a feel for how this works, thanks to you. Um... I'll give you my email and phone number so you can call me if you need anything or other. It's probably a good idea for us Users to keep in some rudimentary touch."

She took pen and paper from her bag and scribbled out the address and number.

[Vice Ysal]

"Hierarchy thing works everywhere, I guess. Just hope you get a better boss sooner or later. On that note though, if the staff is still the same as they were from 5 or 6 years ago then I can probably give you a few tips on how they operate. Here, I'll even give you a freebie. One of the Math Teachers, his name's Mao Xing Chu, is a real terror in the office. Hates everything in the world except for two things. His kids, and a good bowl of instant ramen. Get close to either and that's one teacher down on your eventual conquest to become Queen of the hill."

A small chuckle escaped him that time as the tension in the air finally began to seep away. "Good to know you can take a hit. You've got Antiope to thank for that. Imagine being hit by a bolt without your persona's help. Let me tell you that it's not something you'd want to experience. And yes, I suppose so. All the wants anyone in a medicinal line of work, stuck inside someone's imagination." A small critical eye narrowed at the woman's insistence of being helpful to the team, it was just a moment but Vice was quite sure that the teacher would have felt it on her. "Don't worry about it too much now though, you'll get there eventually. Who knows? Maybe in a month or two you'd be the one in my spot teaching a newbie just what it means to have this power."

The red eyed Asian simply nodded at her offer to give him her contact details and while the wine barrel was preoccupied with the whole scribbling and scratching the numbers down, Vice made a motion for the waiter to get them two slices of their chocolate cake. If the plump girl said that the cake was good, then it better be damn well good. When the paper was handed over to him, Vice would quickly pull out his smart phone and with a quick series of taps had his phone memorise the information.

"Mhm. It's still pretty early, not even past 3 PM yet, but I'm not sure if you're ready enough for it."

A small tentative smile spread on Vice's lips at that. On one hand, it'd be amusing to watch someone new to the whole thing go about the motions of mastering their imaginary friend. On the other hand, he didn't have his gun with him and he wasn't quite sure he wanted showing off his persona to just about anyone right now.

Hmmm….

Maybe after this chocolate cake.

[Phoebe Minola]

Phoebe balked a little. Something in Vice's eye told her she was going overboard. "Oh crud. I'm rambling, aren't I? Sorry, I do that when I'm nervous."

She cleared her throat, staring at her hands and then shrugged it off. "Ah, yes, I know Mr. Chu. 'Terror' is putting it lightly. He's still stomping around indeed.Your tip's going to definitely help, thanks."

Ramen, is it? Well, well. Through the stomach as usual, I suppose. Now that, I am a queen of.

"Any other tips will be appreciated, haha," she chuckled. "I need to get out of slave girl status."

She watched the waiter go with their new order and almost grinned a bit. It'd been a long while since she'd enjoyed a quiet moment and cake with someone. She had missed socializing, even if the precursor had been the Persona subject. Better than nothing.

She tilted her head at Vice's observation. "Not ready for what...?" she quipped.

Uh... what is he talking about?

[Vice Ysal]

"No, no, not overboard just…things. Don't mind it."

The male waved tried to wave off the female's worries, and hopefully the flippant wave of his hand to the side as if he was brushing it under the rug was enough of a deterrent for it.

"Future tips will come at a price, of course! I don't run a charity case after all." Thankfully, Vice's tone had finally began to lighten up to the point that one could even comment it as something akin to being 'humoured'. It happens, yes, but with how much of a stick in the mud Vice could be, it wasn't something a lot of people would expect from him.

"You've had your forays into the outside, that much I know."

A small moment passed them by as the waiter quickly delivered to them their individual cake slices. Taking the chance to grab unto his fork and picking up a small piece for himself, the young man tested the chocolate cake. It was good, for the most part, but he had better. Still, for the price and location, it was totally worth coming back for.

"I'm just curious as to how far you've actually gone. Ahah, I'm quite sure you know where this is leading, yes?"

[Phoebe Minola]

Phoebe relaxed a bit again. He seemed to not mind. "Ah, sure, no problem," she said, a bit puzzled. "And uh, yeah. I've been around, some."

She awkwardly poked at her cake with her fork. "Well, let's see. I've been to the Terminal. That was my first actual... excursion. And the cemetery. I heard something happened over there and I wanted to see if I could find anything, but I didn't find much. I didn't know enough then to draw conclusions."

She paused for thought. "I've also been to the Gap. I met that strange blonde woman and I did a job for her. She's very strange. And once or twice I've ventured in the perimeter -- not too far in, I'm too much of a scaredicat for that yet. But I just poked around and fought a Shadow or two..."

She bit her lips a little. "Um... yeah, I think so. But... what about you, Vice? How far have you gone?" she asked suddenly, feeling a bit tense about being put under the magnifying glass.

[Vice Ysal]

"Those areas huh? Seeing as you've just met your imaginary friend, I suppose that's a good thing. It's, how do I put this, a pretty good place to grind early on. Gives you a good chance of getting used to the place without a high chance of getting killed. No sense getting over your head this early on the trip. Remind me to send you a map of the sewers and the cemetery before I go. It's not the most accurate one but it'll at least give you a good idea on how to navigate around the first stratums of both areas."

Another slice of chocolate and hnnngit's just keeps getting better and better. A small sip from his complimentary glass of water, because sweet stuff hurts the throat unless rectified with H2O, and their little conversation kept going.

"I've gone places. Quite a bit of land to explore once you've gotten better at handling shadows but I'd advise you to stay away from the Car Factory, Mines, and Hospital for now. Don't go too far either, the farther you are from the walls, the stronger the shadows are."

Before anything else though:

"And mmm this chocolate cake is good. Not as great as some of the stuff I've had but I'd come back for it."

[Phoebe Minola]

"Sounds like I still have a lot of practice to do," she said thoughtfully. "Haha, when you put it like grinding, it really sounds right. I need to train myself to last a bit longer in fights. I'm pretty sure that bigger Shadows take more hits to defeat and it wouldn't do for me to get tuckered out halfway through."

She was intrigued at the idea of maps. "Maps, I could use those. I almost got lost in the cemetery that time. I haven't ventured to the sewers yet, but if I have a map, I might try."

She did latch onto the term 'stratum'. That confirmed her suspicions that there were 'layers' in these areas. It sort of made sense in a way. She took another gulp of her iced tea -- blimey they serve the tea in massive glasses over here.

"I see. There really are more areas that are completely gone to hell than I initially thought. I wonder what happened to the people there when the perimeter was set. I know lots made it to the center but it can't be everyone," she said and ate some cake thoughtfully.

"Yeah, it's good, isn't it?" she said sheepishly. "There's a bakery in Golden Alice district that makes these amazing chocolate mini-cakes. They're like tiny buntds and they come glazed. They even have a sort of peanut-butter muffin--"

She double-facepalmed suddenly. "Sorry. Rambling. Food is... it's sort of my thing. Obviously," she muttered through her hands.

[Vice Ysal]

It was probably time to steer the conversation to something much lighter. That enough for today after all and there was cake to be enjoyed. No one was going to die suddenly, and even if he jinxed it he was sure the others could very well follow up with whatever problems that they're being plagued with. They've lasted this long and even if it meant things will only get harder from here on out, Vice at least knew they were capable.

"Ahah, it's fine, it's fine. Food's a fun thing to talk about--hell, I've been trying to cook up my own recipes from time to time. I, however, can't seem to bake to save my life but that's probably the fact that I lack usable equipment in my apartment. But yeah, there's also a nearby breakfast house that serves the fluffiest pancakes and the spread of jams and jellies is enough to make anyone's mouth water."

Taking another bite off of his chocolate cake and rectifying it again with a sip of water, Vice mused that it might have actually been a while since he last had the chance to not talk about anything shadow related with others. Briefly, he wondered where Mina had run off too but decided that she was probably just busy with her tennis thing.

"Ice cream sounds good right about now but I don't think it'd mix well with this cake."

[Phoebe Minola]

Phoebe was quite happy he was alright with steering the conversation elsewhere. The world didn't revolve just around Personas and fighting, after all. They were still there, their situation was not hopeless... there was no reason to not talk about other things.

"Haha, don't I know it," she said knowingly. "I love cooking. I try to dabble in it when I have time. I make a really mean caramel chicken with rice," she said proudly. "If I didn't have an obsession with books and writing, I might've become a chef."

She ate more of her cake. "There's an Italian restaurant near my place that makes the best tiramisu I've ever tried. It's creamy and cool and just the right amount of sweet. And their food's great. The chef's actually Italian so he knows what he's doing!"

Come to think of it, didn't Kyle tell me he wanted to be a chef?

"Oh, and I've got a friend-- well, co-worker, really. He works at the bookstore I work in the evenings, Shakespeare and Co. Do you know it, it's downtown. Well, my co-worker is the cafe's barista. Kyle makes the best coffees you'll ever have. I'm not a fan of coffee but he's just amazing. He makes even hot chocolate into a divine beverage. Come by sometime and I'll get him to make you one of his specialties!"