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Eternal Return The top of Project Rubicon was much more crowded than it had been when Aeon had left it. The crowd was mostly civilians; Firefly and the others seemed to have done their jobs well. Then again, there weren’t that many fliers orbiting around Rubicon’s airspace, so perhaps they were still in the middle of rescuing more people trapped in the steam and “had done” should have been present tense. “Were doing.” More importantly for at least one member of the Aeon/Tidebinder duo, the crowd was not particularly scornful towards either of the new arrivals; no blame was immediately handed out regarding the situation everyone was presently in. It was something that got Tidebinder to noticeably relax. “I agree, she said to Aeon. “Let’s get this done with.” With or without Thessa, Tidebinder made her way around the perimeter of the crowd, mostly unimpeded though she did have to weave in and out of the occasional person and, in one case, a child who had wandered off from their parent. Soon, she was at Rubicon’s shoulder, the side facing most of the city. She took a deep breath, putting her entire body into the motion, then performed the exact opposite motion as she breathed back out. The steam reacted to both motions, drifting higher up Project Rubicon’s side on the inhale, but the exhale was much more forceful, and sent much -- almost all? -- of the steam that Tidebinder could see from that half of Project Rubicon away, like a gust of wind had just hit most of the city. When that was done, Tidebinder turned and moved towards the opposite shoulder, but Keller, shoving his way out of the middle of the crowd, moved to confront her. “What are you doing here?” he said. “I’m solving the mess you created,” Tidebinder said. When Keller tried to interject, she said, “Don’t try to correct me. And, in exchange, you are going to get me in contact with Arcturus, and we’re going to get her out of my casino.” The steam seemed to react to her temper flaring there; Tidebinder took another breath, but for herself this time. “I think she’ll be interested in what I have to offer her.” Spacesick It took a moment for the unconscious person to recover, waking up still in a daze, blinking away the bright lights of the casino floor and flinching at all the noise around them. Even as they blinked a few more times, they did not seem to recognize the person above them. They brought a hand to their nostrils, extended their arm so they could see the blood, and made a pained combination of groan and sigh. “Typical,” they muttered. They seemed to realize exactly what the situation looked like to everyone else, and tried to idly wave off whatever onlookers there were with a “No, it’s fine.” When their eyes drifted back to Victor, their face hardened. “You’ve got the look of someone who’s not concerned about a nosebleed, but concerned about me,” they said. “It’s not- I should warn you I’m not the most talkative person, especially when asked about myself.” They paused. “You’re about to get a message on your phone. You should probably answer it.” Elsewhere in the casino, the song “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” blared, only cut off when Arcturus answered her phone. “Hello?” people could hear her say. “Oh, really?” Phantom Island Atropos looked worried when Sibyl climbed back out of the hole and into the casino’s ground floor kitchen. She said, “You okay?” even though Sibyl was clearly no worse for wear. She seemed dissatisfied with the ambiguity of that particular question, though, and followed it up with, “I tried to go in after you, but you weren’t there when I went down. Neither you nor the steam thing were, actually.” She leaned over and peered back into the hole. Following her gaze revealed that the sub-level was different from the one Sibyl had just been in. The hallway Sibyl had ended up in had been wholly unremarkable -- warm-ish lighting, the sort of office carpeting that someone might only remember once it was absent, etcetera -- while the current (new?) basement had linoleum and sterile white. The most damning piece of evidence that something had gone awry was the garish landscape of Caesar presiding over his “domain” plastered on one of the walls. “Not an actual criticism, but I might have tried to ‘accidentally’ get that wall blasted if I saw that,” Atropos said. She checked her phone, skimmed a message, and put the phone back into her pocket without responding to it. “Steam’s going away. If our guys were caught in it, I’m sure they’ll be found soon. So that’s one mystery solved, at least.”

Fen nodded at Rona's assessment of food in her world. Using any and all avenues of culinary adventure was very much something she abided by and being not wasteful of food was something she figured would have been a constant in all worlds, though she knew that people in her own world could be very particular about these things. All the same her attention was drawn to the house in front of them as Kasayee had changed into a bull, clearly intent on breaking the door down.  Fen knew that the girl would not look for any other opinion on the matter before taking action, so the young huntress moved quickly. "Umm, maybe we should uh, try opening it normally first before breaking in. It'd be a waste to charge it if we could just, uh, do that, right?" The bull that is Kasayee looked over at Fen. Then at the door. Then Fen again. She snorted and stood there staring at the door impatiently.  With the grace period she was given by her companion, Fen moved over to the door to attempt to open it. She was met with failure. "Hm, it uh, won't open."  "Weird," Rona approached the door alongside Fen. "It wasn't supposed to be locked." Fen looked around, trying to see if there were any other obvious avenues of entrance but could only find windows on the upper floors and boarded up windows on the ground floor. The girl put a hand to her chin as she thought about what to do.  "Well, it'd be a problem if we broke down the door of a place we were supposed to clean. Hmmm." After a moment more, Fen thought back to what Rona had told her and an idea formed. "Um, excuse me, Mr or Ms. Ghost, we were told to come and clean the place up so if you would, well uh, let us in I'd appreciate it." Silence.  "Hm, no answer." Fen looked back to Rona, who she thought had tensed up a bit, before she asked, "Rona, could you use Cormag to check if the windows up there are locked?" "Huh? Oh, sure, yeah, of course!" As she went to her mount, Kasayee shifted back to normal. "Breaking it easier." "Well, that's certainly true, but we're here to clean so it'll, well, make our job harder in the long run. I don't know how to replace or fix up a broken door, after all." Kasayee stared at Fen for a few moments and then said, "doors are dumb." Fen gave a small laugh, "well, even animals use doors. Or, uh, something equivalent. I think." The girl cleared her throat as she said, "how does it look, uh, up there, Rona?" "One of 'em is unlocked but its a bit stuck, give me a bit..." As Fen awaited results, she heard a click from the door next to her. The girl placed her hands on it and, with no effort, opened it up. Kasayee did not wait for a word from the girl before she bolted past Fen into the house. "Well, that only makes sense." The girl looked over to the boarded window, letting out a sigh of relief as she no longer had to destroy it to get in, before she looked back up.  "oh uh, never mind Rona! The door opened down here." And Fen went to enter the house to begin her job in earnest. 

Jacklyn crossed her arms, the annoyance ever evident on her face, as Chad had talked smack about the new members of her team - the human ones, that was, as well as dissing her own capabilities with Rus. As Kenta had moved to offer Bridgett one of two things to eat - both of which she were fairly certain were the same thing - the girl couldn't help but eye the food. However, as Bridget had denied Jacklyn too stood steadfast in not succumbing to the opposing side's bribes of food.  Clearing her throat, the girl said, "well, there you have it. My team is always ready to battle and there's no way we're any wimpier then you guys." The girl nodded at Bridget's sentiment and pointed a finger at Chad. "So we're gonna be mopping the floor with you, instead!" The girl looked to the two and gave them both a pat on the back. "So, go and show them what you got."