4894/Mall Madness

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Mall Madness
Date of Scene: 26 January 2021
Location: Lost Pond Mall
Synopsis: Noriko and Jubes head to the mall to spend Warren's money but get into some trouble instead.
Cast of Characters: Jubilation Lee, Noriko Ashida




Jubilation Lee has posed:
    The glass doors to the mall slide open, apparently having just detected their souls, and Jubilation Lee comes strolling in like she owns the place. According to Ruth, one day she might. She's pulling on Noriko's gauntlet, smiling happily back at the other girl over her shoulder. Noriko's speed got them to the mall in no time at all but it's Jubilee's recent windfall that really brought them.

    "I still can't believe Warren just /gave/ me five-hundred bucks!" she exclaims with a grin. "This is going to be so much fun! Where should we go first?" Jubilee uses her free hand to try and smooth out her hair.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko didn't need directions to get them to the mall.  Her eyes blur back and forth to Jubilee the second they set foot in there, but Jubilee pulling her along makes her smile.  She grins dopily back at the girl for a moment or two before catching up within two paces.

"Yeah I don't know what he was thinking.  Is that ten cents to him or something?"  Noriko briefly wonders if she should have said pennies instead.  "I don't know.  Wherever you want."  She seems equally distracted by Jubilation as she is everything else.  "Do you want any new sunglasses?"  Gasp.  Noriko smirks.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Who knows!" Jubilee exclaims. A good portion of those dopey smiles are coincidentally returned, but Jubilee's on a mission. They're at the mall. They're flush with cash. AND Nori isn't sure where she wants to go. Perfect. "Oh, I know!" she says suddenly. "....Sneaker store..." She snap-turns her head and raises her eyebrows as she ping-pongs those two words back at Noriko. The sneaker store. But then, her mind explodes.

    "Oh, we could go to Sephora... And Uniqlo -- they have the best jeans. OH! And we have to go to the food court..." Jubilee turns her head to smile at Nori. "...I have this trick. It's a little silly to do it when we're rich, but... I'll still show you." She is SO HAPPY. Just being here with Noriko, sharing the mall with her... It's so great.

    "Ahhh... Sunglasses Pagoda," she recites, waving a finger at Nori. "The lady has excellent taste." Jubilee tugs at the gauntlet, speeding up a bit as she draws near the escalator.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
So many possibilities come out Noriko's a little bit stunned and just so happy to see Jubilee like this.  Noriko's relationship with malls aren't as bright and happy so it's almost like she's along for the ride in some surreal dream.

"I want to see it," Noriko says when Jubes comes up for air.  Can anyone blame Noriko for wanting to watch Jubilation try on sunglasses?  She follows where she is led.  Escalators...made more bearable by Jubileeeeee.  "I do have excellent taste."  It's not abundantly clear if Noriko means it facetiously or not.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilee pulls Noriko onto the escalator and then steps down a step so they're sharing. So they're close. She gives the other mutant a kiss on her cheek and then turns her head to watch the stores go by as they ascend. Her eyes linger on one in particular -- one of those famous stores that only sells underwear -- and her cheeks turn flush again. "We could go anywhere..." she reminds softly, her eyes now avoiding that particular store.

    "And get a cookie!" she adds suddenly. "What's something /you/ would like?" She waggles her eyebrows at the question. "Be honest!" The mall has everything.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko holds her breath a little and grins at the proximity, the kiss causing her cheeks to flash red.  Then she notices Jubilee blushing and gives a quick look to where her eyes are.  In that silent place, Noriko breathes and snaps back ?into the moment with Jubilee.  "Uh, yeah.  We could?  Get a cookie?"  Noriko stumbles over parsing Jubilee's behavior with expert clumsiness.

"I could go for some food," always, and is it really so clear that Noriko should or shouldn't be blamed for thinking about it so much?  "Honestly I have no fucking clue," Noriko admits.  "I can't remember the last time I went to a mall and I wasn't exactly a paying customer."

There's an out of place bit of awkwardness (at least on Nori).  She looks down.  "I don't know why I said that."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "You're hungry?" Jubilee teases with a warm smile. When they get to the top of the escalator, she gives Noriko a gentle tug before making a quick turn to guide them towards some of the food kiosks. "So, we'll ease you into it!" Jubilee answers with cheer, referring to Noriko's new status as a paying customer. The brief moment of awkwardness from Nori, though? That causes Jubilee to stop walking and reach her hand out to rest on the speedster's shoulder.

    "Nori..." she begins, her smile now filled with affection. "...I used to live in a mall." Jubilee pauses a second to let the other girl process that. "It's okay."

    Jubes leads them towards the Great American Cookie -- a tiny little counter service place that serves freshly baked cookies and newly poured sodas. As they pass by a set of tables, Jubilee reaches out and swipes an empty cup from an abandoned meal. "Free refill, my good man! Coke, please. I'm not driving." Jubilee calls out to the employee jockeying the register. She slams the empty cup right on the counter top. Jubilee leans in towards Noriko and whispers, "...Watch this..."

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"Always," Noriko grins gently, letting her mall guru guide her along.  Her stomach grumbles at the smell of food.  It's a good distraction, but Jubilee's kindness gets her a sudden, thankful look.  She soaks up the small comforts.

"Yeah, but you were obviously good at it."  Noriko was more like...  "I was more like Aladdin.  I'm not even sure if I'm banned from this mall," she says with a little chuckle.

At Jubilee's grift, Noriko tilts her head for a brief sliver of a moment, but then falls right into the ruse.  Quick thinker, even for a speedster.  Noriko stares for a few moments at the cookies.  "Yeah," she whispers back, eyes whipping back round to witness the greatness.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Not as good as you think..." Jubilee mutters back to Nori as the employee begins filling the cup. "HEY!" Jubilee screeches suddenly. "YOUR FINGER TOTALLY WENT INTO MY CUP! WHAT KIND OF OPERATION ARE YOU RUNNING HERE?!"

    The poor employee, now flustered, starts stammering apologies and assurances that he'll get her a new cup -- a large this time -- and seems awfully distracted by the whole exchange. He's fumbling and sweating it out.

    With the employee's back turned, Jubilee waggles her eyebrows at Nori and leaaaaaans over the counter top, even jumping up onto her belly a little, so her arm can reach behind the glass. When the nervous employee turns around to give back the filled soda, Jubilee is standing there with a big smile, one hand behind her back and clutching two very large chocolate chip cookies. It's like she's done this exact scam before...

    Jubilee brings the soda and two cookies back to an empty table...

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"I still want one," Noriko spits out quickly while the employee is still filling the cup, right before the screech.  "Wow.  Seriously?" Noriko leans into the outrage with jaded enthusiasm, the perfect camouflage for a teen, crossing her arms.

Jubilee's little stunt draws Noriko's brief attention downward before she retreats back to the joys of the spoils with Jubilee.

Noriko just watches Jubilee as she so 'slowly' chews her cookie like a chipmunk.  "You're really good at that."  She is in awe of Jubilee's mall survival skills.  "I would have been kicked out by now."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilee grins. "Thanks..." she replies to the compliment. From anyone else, it would've been just that, but the compliment from Noriko draws a sudden blush. Jubes lowers her smile towards the table as she stares at her ill-gotten gains. "They're just gonna throw them away at the end of the night," she adds, justifying this minor crime in her heart.

    Jubilee takes a bite of her cookie. Just one. She chews it with a smile. "Aren't mall cookies the absolute /best/?" she exclaims, her mouth full of cookie still. The cookie missing that single bite is extended across the table for Noriko to take. She knew the speedster was hungry. She could go without.

    Over Jubilee's shoulder, unknown to her, a nosey-looking old lady is chatting with the cookie stand employee. She extends her arm and points in the direction of Jubilation and Noriko. The employee looks up to follow her point...

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"I know."  There were lower profile ways of getting her food, which Noriko really needed.  For some odd, perhaps busted reason, Jubilee's transgression does put Noriko at a little bit of ease...and maybe her general jubilance keeps Noriko's demeanor warm instead of paranoid.

But Noriko had already spotted the old lady.  "Shit," the speedster utters before zipping away with Jubilee, hopefully before the employee sees something that would refute her clear insanity.  There's nothing there, surely.

"Don't go that way," Noriko says, offering Jubilee the cookie back after already haven taken a bite.  "Old lady is onto us.  And yes.  They are the best."  That warranted saying something.

"You think we're clear?"  Noriko looks to Jubilee for guidance.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilee takes a gulp of the soda and sets it down. She didn't need to steal their snack. They have five-hundred bucks of walking around money. But, it was important to Jubilation to do this. To show Noriko that her life wasn't always so charmed. Shit. The word barely clears her ears before Jubilee even realizes she's not at that table anymore. The only evidence that they had been there at all is a tiny tornado of cookie crumbs that twirls for a second before puttering out.

    A small platoon of three mall cops have been dispatched to find the two asian girls scamming for cookies. They move out of the food court and in the likely direction that the two girls have gone, but it's all just an honest guess. No one saw their departure. But... sometimes coincidences are enough.

    "Shit..." Jubilee repeats before pulling Noriko into a department store. "In here..." Another little trick from Jubilee's time living in a mall. She spreads a clothing rack and ducks into the middle of it, holding it open for Nori to follow. She offers back the cookie.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko is the consummate lookout.  She briefly thinks of how fucked they would be if the school got a call.  The look on Jean's face.  Noriko chuckles and then gets pulled into the department store.  Okay she's not /the/ best lookout.  She is prone to daydreaming at certain times.

The blue haired girl steps inside the little clothes cocoon, taking the cookie along the way.  "You sure know how to get a girl places," she comments before there is a new bite in the cookie.  Of course she keeps things at a whisper.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilee closes the clocking rack behind them, sealing the pair up in the dark cavity of the clothes cocoon. She grins across the shadows at Noriko, bringing her index finger up to her lips in a 'shhh' kind of gesture. Her grin suggests that she's just joking -- surely Noriko's whisper wasn't enough to get past the clothes. "I used to sleep in these," she explains in a whisper. "Pretty safe as long as there isn't a clearance sale..."

    Jubilee reaches her fingers for what remains of the cookie and snaps off a tiny piece. She pops it into her mouth and grins. "Cozy, right?"

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko's eyes glint when she squints impishly at the shushing gesture.  "Yeah?  It's a downright palace."  The girl doesn't seem bothered at all by this revelation.  Jubilee is like the princess of homeless girls.

In the dark there, Noriko moves to kiss the girl on her cheek when she indulges in that tiny piece of cookie.  "It's not a clearance sale right now?"  Nori's only been paying attention to Jubilation really.  And that cookie.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilee grins, her eyes closing along with it, when the kiss presses on her cheek. She giggles softly. Those eyes open, though, and shift to appreciate the darkness. The warmth of the clothes. The privacy. Her lips part, just so, and curl into a shy smile. "...No, there's no clearance sale..." she whispers slowly, inching closer and closer to Noriko. She's making what could only be described as extreme eye contact.

    She inches her mouth forward, moving to slooooooowly approach for a kiss, trying to drag this moment out as long as she possibly could.

    She forgot about the cookie.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko smiles at the elicited giggle.  It /is/ a bit warm in here.  There are some things the speedster's body will always have a hard time coping with, internal extreme fluctuations in temperature.  Her expression sobers a touch at Jubilee's whisper and she reaches out to grab the girl to her to hasten the kiss's initiation.

Adrenaline's a thing, and so is Jubilee.  Noriko forgot about the cookie too and seems to have no compunction with the stolen moment in the clothing rack.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Cookie? What cookie?! A small part of Jubilation relaxes as the speedster reaches out, as though the gesture is some grand validation that Noriko was feeling the same thing that she was. Jubilee closes her eyes and leans into this kiss, suddenly unable to think of anything else. Her hands come up -- one to Noriko's cheek and the other around her back. She leans against Noriko with all her weight and extends her legs out, almost as though she's laying down. Her foot shuffles a little bit, now undoubtedly sticking out from the clothing rack and into the aisle of the store. Uh oh.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"Excuse me." A woman's voice can be heard, annoyed and followed by a cough.  Noriko's not sure she heard it though.  It's really difficult to hear anything when Jubilee is, yeah Jubilee it's really hard to concentrate!

"Excuse me!" she becomes more insistent and taps the heel of Jubilee's foot with her boot.  The woman bends down as if she's got the mind to get a good look at these two teens.

Noriko lifts a middle metal finger.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilee doesn't hear it either. She's too busy getting lost in this moment. No, it's not until the boot taps against her that Jubilee realizes they didn't have as much privacy as they thought. With wide-eyes, she pulls her foot back into the clothing rack. Uh oh. When the clothing starts to peel away, Jubilee lifts a hand in the air and and lets it hover there. "Close your eyes!" she whispers at Noriko.

    And then... with her own closed, Jubilee's hand explodes with tiny, brilliant bursts of white light. The last thing that poor woman would see for the rest of the day -- until her sight returns in a couple of hours -- is Noriko's metal middle finger telling her to go to hell.

    "Come on!" she hisses, making an exit hole on the other side of the clothing rack. Jubes begins scrambling to her feet and out of the rack!

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko is quick to obey, not because she doesn't inspect the situation first, just purely from her physical fastness.  She actually lifts her arm to shield her eyes so keep herself extra mobile after the flash.

Then she's out after Jubilee.  "We just want to spend our money here!" she calls back to the poor store clerk.  "Honestly!"

Meanwhile the woman is fuming at the bird and flash.  "I know your faces!"  Nori scoffs as they make haste.  "If she really saw me she'd have said something about my hair.  You want to get out of here and try to help the orphans another day?"  Her attempt to seem winded might be a touch unbelievable.  It's all a bit rushed.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "She didn't see our faces -- No way!" Jubilee calls over to Noriko. Her powers weren't good for much -- presently -- but they could blind someone for a while, that's for sure. Jubes chases after the speedster, running for the mall's nearest exit to the street. "Yeah!" Jubilee shouts over her shoulder. "Is this how you treat your paying customers!?"

    Jubilee guides them towards the sliding glass doors that lead to the parking lot. "...Yeah...The orphans will have to wait..." she replies in a huff before stepping through the doorway and into the parking lot.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"See if we ever come back!"  Right before they cross the threshold to the parking lot and Jubilee confirms the poor fate of the orphans.  "We're going to have to wear disguises next time," she teases, completely unwinded of course.

"Let's go.  Your getaway driver is here."  Noriko walks off to the side of the building without waiting to see if Jubilee has agreed to the ride.  She steals a quick kiss from the girl when she rounds the corner and then takes off back to the school.  These cookies did /not/ spoil her appetite and they would be missed at dinner.

Next time Warren's money.  Next time.