17732/Tear Those Meeses to Pieces!

Tear Those Meeses to Pieces!
Date of Scene:	22 April 2024
Location:	Luke's Bar
Synopsis:	Luke finds out he's been employing someone... and paying them with chicken!
Cast of Characters:	Luke Cage, Sharon Smith

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Luke Cage has posed:
It's mid-evening and the bar's sign has just turned from CLOSED to OPEN. Monday means the bar doesn't open early. Everyone is still nursing their hangovers from the weekend and it's not Thursday yet, which means the afterwork crowd still goes home for the most part once they're done. Luke finishes sweeping up and then takes a seat at the end of the bar, unwrapping a large helping of empanadas that he got from down the street just a few minutes before opening.

Yum.

Sharon Smith has posed:
Sharon Smith overslept closing time by a few hours. In fairness, she had a late shift chasing mice, which was a little easier and more peaceful without the bumbling population of drunks scaring them off during peak hours. The mutant ditched her employee uniform of pointy ears and black fur and started digging through the lost-and-found for a more casual, human themed outfit to wear for the day. Sharon was entirely unrecognizable without her black fur. The purple haired girl had almost nothing recognizable from her feline form. There might be something similar in the eyes, but the pale, feminine figure didn't carry much resemblence to the little black cat that tended to haunt the place. It brought the brief question to Luke's head if he'd hired a new employee? Was she a random vagrant? Didn't she have anything to wear other than the random pile of clothes in the bar's lost and found? All fair questions to ask as Sharon played dress-up with the mystery box of abandoned clothes.

Luke Cage has posed:
Luke stops mid-bite and slowly turns to the girl that is suddenly... there. He knows he didn't hire anyone, and he especially didn't hire anyone to walk around without clothes. Luke clears his throat a little bit and puts his empanada down, turning in his stool to look towards Sharon with a raised brow. "You, uh, need some help there?"

Sharon Smith has posed:
The scarf was the winner so far. The oversized, fluffy thing hung to her feet in some faux semblence of warmth. It was also fun to watch the long tails wave. They would have been something fun to bat at with little black paws, but Sharon was on a mission, and couldn't be distracted too much by the appeal of floating tails. "I think I can manage" she claimed, as though anything she was doing was in the realm of normal. It was a routine she'd gone through dozens of times. Usually there wasn't anyone else there when she'd switched uniforms, but after countless belly-rubs, it seemed reasonable to at least try and hold a casual conversation with the perplexed bar owner.

Luke Cage has posed:
"Uh huh." Luke furrows his brows and then takes a bite of his empanada, trying to figure out how she got in here. He was looking at the door, and then -- but then -- he frowns. "How'd you get in here?" Because the question is a fair one when you're on the ignorant side of things. That lost and found, to be fair, is more lost than found. No one comes back for the kind of stuff they leave here. Then again, some people do, and sometimes their stuff isn't here when they swore they left it there, and...

Sharon Smith has posed:
Sharon Smith seemed to have slim pickings in the realm of outfits. None of what was left in the box carried any matching themes. The Van Halen t-shirt got a long inspection as Sharon seemed briefly hypnotized by the design. It was a wonder how so many clothes could be left abandoned in a bar. Wild nights perhaps, but it was still a confusing mystery when trying to wrap your head around it. "The back. You let me in." she insisted with a huff. Luke most definitely didn't let any purple-haired women in the back door of his bar. There was that stray black cat that seemed to linger around the place, but the height difference was too striking to think he'd mistaken one for the other.

Luke Cage has posed:
"I definitely did not. You might have confused my leaving the door open for a moment and slipped in, but..." Luke is getting annoyed now. He sets his empanada down and slips off the stool, wandering over to her. "Listen, I don't mind you digging into the lost and found if you need some clothes, but there's better places in the hood to get some free wares if you're hard up." He puts a hand on the edge of the box, looking down at her.

Sharon Smith has posed:
Sharon Smith huffs. "Well I've been coming here for months. Are you firing me?" she asked. Maybe she was a new employee. He really needed to pay more attention to his books. And if this was the sort of help he was hiring, he really needed to invest in better uniforms. "Do you want the scarf back?" she asked with a tone of complaint. She was really growing attached to that big fluffy scarf, but was cordial enough to hand it back over, even if reluctantly.

Luke Cage has posed:
"No, I don't want the scar-- I'm just-- I don't _recognize_ you, girl, and given the lengths some people will go to to mindfuck me and some of my friends, I'm having a little trouble with you insisting you been around for months when I don't _recognize you_, you feel me?" He doesn't take the scarf back. She can keep the scarf, he just wants to know who she is so he can go back to his empanadas. It is _Monday_, and thus _way too early in the week_ for this shit!

Sharon Smith has posed:
Sharon Smith looked over herself in late realization. She gave her toes a wiggle in assessment before sitting up on the edge of the bar. "I forgot" she claimed, briefly shifting into the shape of a small black cat before suddenly popping back up into the shape of a purple haired girl. "You feed me chicken... sometimes. You forgot last night. I'm holding it against you." she states, slipping the scarf around her neck. "In punishment... I'm keeping the scarf." she decides proudly.

Luke Cage has posed:
Luke pauses, watching the transformation with a slack jaw, and then he closes his eyes, tilting his head back and sighing. "I swear to god, this fucking city." He points a finger at Sharon. "You are a bad kitty! You can't let a man give you belly rubs when you aren't a normal house cat, that ain't fuckin' right, girl." But at least he seems somewhat amused now. Shapeshifting isn't exactly something new to him, so he's not completely shocked or anything, just amusedly surprised.

Sharon Smith has posed:
Sharon Smith 's transformation was so sudden and abrupt, it could have been just as easily thought an illusion. It was somewhat remarkable how quickly and physics bending her shapeshifting could seem. A blink might have just as easily missed it. The purple haired girl furrowed her brow. "But I like belly rubs!" she huffed in complaint. "I ought to demand double belly rubbing duties for you breaking your end of the chicken bargain." She draped back on the bar lazily. Was she expecting belly rubs. Probably not in that shape. She really put into question what fluffy pets were appropriate to give head pats to. Surely they couldn't all be shapeshifters.

Luke Cage has posed:
"It's a lot easier to forget when you think it's a regular cat," Luke points out. He walks to his stool and sits down again, taking an empanada and holding it out to her. "So I'm guessing your name isn't Cinnamon, then. What's your real name?" He takes his own empanada and bites into it, watching her. "And do you need some actual clothes, maybe?"

Sharon Smith has posed:
Sharon Smith accepted the empanada as a peace offering. She gave the thing a sniff before biting into one of the crispy corners. "Sharon. But I like cinnamon. It's kind of a fun name" she decided. "Honestly, you wouldn't beleive all the names people decide to give you when they don't know yours." She glanced down at her scarf, lifting it up to inspect the nothing beneath. She didn't actually have to check for hidden outfits, but the gesture was too amusing not to give. "Probably" she agreed. Naked women lounging on bars demanding belly rubs sent confusing messages. There probably weren't any outfits on the planet that made it any more normal, but at least they could make it marginally less awkward.

Luke Cage has posed:
Luke won't lie, having an attractive young woman naked at the bar is a problem at the moment because he's _open for business_. "All right. Get in the bathroom, I'll find you something to wear." He shakes his head and watches her for a moment, before walking to the door and flipping the sign to CLOSED again. For now, anyway.

Sharon Smith has posed:
Sharon Smith finally sat up, tossing him the scarf. "Find something to match this" she decreed. That scarf was bound to pull any outfit together, at least in her mind. Those off-pastel colors weren't going to be a easy to match with much, but the mission was given. Catseye casually slipped off the bar and trotted off.