isleofavalon | Flying Lettuce and Carnivorous Lattes [Open]

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Flying Lettuce and Carnivorous Lattes [Open]

🧙 WHO: Stephanie Brown and You!
⚔️️ WHAT: A quest and some failed cloning
🕒 WHEN: Beginning of November
🗺️ WHERE: Out and about
⚠️ WARNINGS: None anticipated

#DoppleDinner
It's probably rude to try to magically duplicate your latte inside the cafe you bought it from. That isn't stopping Steph, but she at least has the decency to be covert about it. She sits in a corner facing the wall as she works with the potions, both magical and espresso-based.

She does manage to create more lattes. 3 large ceramic "for here" mugs, steaming fresh. But when she reaches to pick one up, a fanged mouth opens beneath the handle and chomps down on her hand.

She yelps in surprise as much as in pain and jumps to her feet as the other two mugs turn to snarl at her, eyes like chips in the glaze opening to glare. They jump at her, leaving the original beverage behind and spilling scalding coffee in the process.

#DoppleDinner Take 2
Steph doesn't really mind having a clone. At least, she didn't mind it once they were able to successfully clone her coffee without making it attack her. Now she has coffee and someone to joke around with while she wanders the city. This situation is ripe for pranks, but she'll need a little time to think of them. And since she doubts the spell will last, she's out looking for inspiration.

She chats with herself as they walk, plotting how best to use this strange circumstance to their advantage. They only wish they had matching outfits for extra fun. Instead one has a dusty green blouse on and the other a gray shirt. Maybe they should drop in on a friend, or stop by their boyfriend's place...

Flappy Veg
The name "Butterfly Lettuce" grabbed Steph immediately when she saw it on the Quest Board. She absolutely had to see such a ridiculous creature, and stopping poachers seemed like a pretty simple way to spend a few afternoons.

Happy and carefree as she looks as she patrols the areas the lettuce can be found, her eyes and ears are peeled for human (or humanoid) movement. She can even chat with a partner while she works, though she keeps her voice down to a library-appropriate volume. She's used to patrolling a major city, she can multitask in an open field.

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Normally Steph would immediately reassure Minako that she's fine, this is nothing she can't handle. But she makes the mistake of trying to shake the latte off of her hand, splashing and consequently burning herself on the chest with another yelp. The thing is starting to draw blood as it growls. She manages to dodge the other two, and they turn on her ankles.

"A little outnumbered," she calls instead, kicking one of the mugs towards the cafe's door. If she's going to make a mess she can at least try to take it outside.

She finally thinks to grab the mug with its teeth still in her by the handle-nose, twisting it hard away from her. It gets the thing off, but leaves long, bloody bite marks across her hand and index finger. The mug struggles to bite the fingers of her other hand.

Ouch.

Even if it's hard to see this battle's full impact on Steph from a distance, Minako can see the red because of the blood - and she knows that that's definitely bad news, even if it might be a shallow wound. It's still something that could slow the other girl down while she's outnumbered.

"Alright, I'll get one! Watch out..!"

There might not have been put much thought into this plan.

Because yes, Minako holds out her hand, shooting a beam of light magic out of it and at one of the sentient mugs to destroy it.. but it's also definitely destroying a bit of the cafe along with it, since it's not exactly a precision tool.

Whoops. Hope the cafe owner won't mind that while they deal with the two mugs still attacking.

When Minako said 'watch out', Steph was expecting something much smaller. The blast catches her by surprise, and it's all she can do to keep the one mug from chomping on her hand. Unfortunately, this means that the other one has a chance to bite her ankle.

"Ow," she informs it with the tone of a scolding. Everyone in the cafe is looking at her now, and while it doesn't hurt nearly as much to get bitten through jeans she's starting to get annoyed. It chews, slowly working its way through the denim while Steph maneuvers so she can slam the first mug into the wall. It cracks but doesn't break, and she burns more of herself with the coffee.

Minako glances over at the other girl, seeing that her situation still isn't too great. At least, she can't imagine that all of that hot coffee is really doing her wonders.

On the other hand, they don't really have the time to look at it, let alone get it treated, while they're still not done. And while Minako did notice the other girl slamming that one cup into the wall, that still leaves...

"Hey, where did the third one go?"

It's so low, sitting there on Steph's ankle, that Minako doesn't even notice it yet.

"Trying to eat my foot," Steph growls, doing her best to ignore the pain. She's had worse, and once this is finished she can heal herself. She slams the mug into the wall one more time, shattering it at last.

The pressure on her ankle turns sharp, telling her that the little monster has gotten through most of the denim. Her socks don't make much of a barrier.

"I'll clean this up," she shouts in the direction of the staff, most of whom have no idea what they're supposed to do in this situation. One or two of them are simply carrying on as though nothing is happening.

The moment Steph tells her about where the third mug is, Minako's attention is already turned towards to that little problem here.

It'll be hard to blast that thing out of existence like she did with the other one, considering that might mean she will also explode Steph's ankle on top of it - which is the scenario here that no one wants. So instead Minako frowns, putting her hands together and forming a sword made out of light with it, cutting straight into the mug.

It makes half of it drop to the ground, though there's still a bit of it stuck in the other girl's ankle. But she should at least feel less pressure on it now it's no longer animated.

"Sorry--" Minako says, immediately apologizing to her as the sword disappears from her hands. Her expression is sympathetic as well, since that.. doesn't look like the way it was chomping down on Steph's ankle only hurt a little bit. "I think you'll have to pull that last part out of there yourself."

Steph ducks away from the sword with as much of herself as she can without moving that ankle. The thing's death doesn't make much difference with gravity making the little teeth twist in her flesh instead of fall off. Looking cautiously at the cereamic jaw, she tries gently shaking her foot and winces. That did not help.

"I'm cleaning this up," she assures the staff again with a warning in her voice as she twists to sit on the floor where she is. Then she pulls the thing off slowly, carefully, thinking a whole slew of curses as she works.

She heaves a sigh when she's done, letting the ceramic sit on the floor for a moment while she catches her breath.

"Thanks for that," she finally tells Minako.

"It's okay," she says, shaking her head. "I should've been a little quicker so this wouldn't have happened.."

'This', apparently, being Steph's ankle. Minako is still staring at it, trying to see if it left behind a wound, and if so, how bad it is.

"Why were those things being so aggressive towards you?"

Steph grimaces. She's not sure she could have avoided an ankle-biting either way.

Carefully she rolls the hem of her jeans up and her socks down, revealing a very ugly-looking bite mark. At least it's only bleeding enough to leave a small mark on her socks. The cuts are wide rather than deep. She starts picking threads and one or two tiny ceramic chips out of it.

"Can't be sure, but I don't want to think too hard about what coffee is in relation to mug biology." Is it clothes? Is it their blood?

"Could you grab a napkin for me? If I can make it stop hurting long enough to focus I can heal myself." She'll need to make sure there's nothing stuck in her hand, either.

Minako is of half a mind to gently asks one of the staffers if they have a medical kit available, even if it means inconveniencing them a little more on top of already having destroyed some stuff.. But thankfully she doesn't have to go through that, considering Steph telling her she can heal.

That makes matters a whole lot easier.

So she just nods, getting back up on her feet to grab a napkin. Usually Minako would've helped to stop the bleeding with another one, but.. thankfully that doesn't seem to be a problem right now, or they also would've had to spend time mopping up the floor.

Which means she instead just hands the napkin over to the other.

"Here. Sorry, I'd help heal you, but.. it just doesn't seem to be one of my talents."

And, you know, firing light blasts at things usually tends to break them, rather than fix them. Strange, that.

She smiles in thanks for the napkin and settles it over the bite mark on her leg.

"Don't worry about it, I need to get better at doing this to myself anyway. Stitch myself up? No problem. Keep a single thought in my head for more than two seconds? Not so much."

With an anticipatory wince she presses down on the wound. After a handful of seconds the pain evens out and is partly replaced by the feeling of pressure. Her eyes lose focus as the spot begins to lightly glow. After another handful of seconds she lifts the napkin to reveal a bitemark made only of oversized scratches, no inflamation at all.

"Good enough for now."

She repeats the process on her hand, then uses the slightly-bloody napkin to pick up the tiny pieces of ceramic around her.

"Thinking I might not come back here for a couple of weeks..." Just to let things blow over. There was definitely nothing sketchy about this whole ordeal.

"Aw, come on! Surely it can't be that.."

Bad, Minako wants to say to finish the sentence, but then she actually looks around them. She spots the half-broken mugs, the scorch mark from her light blast that destroyed one of them, not to mention the hot coffee that got spilled...

It makes the rest of that sentence just not come out of her mouth as she gives Steph an awkward smile, rather than actually look at anyone else in the cafe.

".. you know, I think that might actually be a great idea."

Napkin full of broken ceramic held gently in one hand, she rolls over and up to her feet. The napkin goes in the broken half-mug, which she picks up in it's place.

"Help me clean?" she asks quietly. "I think the faster we get out of here the less expensive this is gonna be for both of us." After all, Minako did some real property damage here.

There's a part of her that really just wants to dash away into the horizon forever right about now.

But Minako knows it wouldn't be the right thing to do. There's some pesky part of her conscience that's immediately bothering her at the very thought of running away, no matter how much easier it'd be. And more importantly - she can't just leave the other girl to deal with this mess entirely by herself.

So.. no matter how much she tries to twist or turn it in her head, Minako knows she isn't escaping from this.

Which is why she gives in. Her shoulders slump a little, and she lets out a dramatic sigh.

"Okay." She will help clean. Even though she hates the idea. Which is exactly where the dramatic whining comes from as she follows it up with: "The things you have to do when you're just trying to save someone.."

Minako could make a break for it. But Steph could also give the cafe her name. She might be a hero, but she can be vindictive too.

"I mean, you should probably develop an emergency response that isn't 'laser beams'." Steph takes zero responsibility for that. She takes her current load of broken pieces and dumps them in the trash, rushing back to pick up more so the staff doesn't think she's going to leave the job half done.

"Thanks though. For helping."

"What else was I supposed to do? Blame this place for giving me that solution to work with!"

.. that's definitely a huffy response. Even as Minako is already moving over to ask one of the employees for a mop so she can start cleaning up the floor.. But once she's managed to get a hold of one and starts cleaning, she just starts whining again. Like the very definition of 'I'm going to do it, but I'm not going to be happy about it for even a single moment.'

Sheesh, this never was such a big problem back home. What happened to the good old superhero way?

"If this place doesn't want magic flying everywhere, maybe it shouldn't give everyone magical powers! That's how you get sudden mugs attacking people..!"

She winces. Yes, sudden mysterious mug attacks... she's not telling anyone ever that she was the one casting spells, but she still wants to get out of here before they start asking questions.

"I thought you were a superhero, don't you have any attacks that don't use magic?"

There's a few more moments where Minako just seems to grumble as she's mopping the floor, but then it seems that Steph's question does get through to her.

Enough for her to glance back at the other girl over her shoulder, anyway, which shows that she did actually hear the question.

"Well, yeah." Of course she has regular attacks too, but-- "It's not exactly a smart idea to punch or kick something that's actively trying to bite down on you though, right?"

That's how they got trouble like the one that decided to latch onto Steph's ankle. (And also, yes, Minako was putting more strategy into this entire thing than it seemed like. Though it's hard to tell with how ditzy she acts most of the time.)

"It's just that the magic here is so much more unpredictable than back home. It was much easier to aim some precise shots there!"

Steph pauses for a moment, because Minako makes a very good point. Kicking was exactly what she had started to do, and just the start of movement had been very painful. She's got some unfortunate emergency instincts herself. She chooses not to comment on that.

"You might just need practice," she suggests, tone conversation though still quiet. "I've been able to aim about as well as I do with real objects, but it took a bit to figure out the weight. Or... lack of weight." It was strange to throw Batarangs with no actual substance.

"I have been practicing," Minako protests. Though thankfully she doesn't really sound upset or angry as much as the girl just sounds pouty - like a little kid that's protesting. "The magic here is just.. finicky."

Or maybe that's just the way it feels to her. Maybe it's something about the difference in the magic back home and the magic here that's bugging her...

Minako frowns, but then shakes her head, releasing a breath and at the same time trying to release some of her tension.

"Anyway, it's fine as long as I don't use it inside. Usually when we're fighting in this place it's at least outside.."

Steph thinks about it for a moment, then realizes she's trying to understand magic. She doesn't know crap about magic, and it does generally defy understanding. Instead she shrugs.

"Well, the important thing is that we get out of here before somebody thinks to ask our names."

.. Get out of here before then, huh.

Minako glances at the part of the mess that's still present, and then back over at Steph.

"So.. I don't suppose you have some sort of magic that might help clean this place a lot quicker..?" Look, it's not like she thinks someone might have a special kind of Cleaning Magic or something, but there's got to be some kind of magic that could clean this place quicker than one might without magic. And Minako knows that her own light magic is just going to make the place explode if she'd attempt to use this again.

For cleaning, definitely not. In fact, she hasn't really been practicing her Light magic for combat, either. She's been playing around with some of the less obvious aspects.

"...I've been practicing invisibility?" She lowers her voice to almost a whisper, because what she's suggesting is pretty much the same as just cutting and running.

"Steph!"

At least Minako is smart enough to lower her own tone in turn too, but that just leaves the way she says the other girl's name like a whispered hiss. If not just because Minako really can't believe that she's suddenly going to have to be the conscience, when she really doesn't want to, and it's looking like cleaning up this place might just..

.. take hours...

One can practically see the slow progressing in Minako's facial expression as she gives up.

"F-Fine, can you use that on more than one person?!"

Steph just shrugs, almost entirely shameless.

"No idea," she whispers. "But objects aren't too hard, I could make it look like we magic-ed the bits of building away."

Technically she's only responsible for the broken ceramic, and under normal circumstances nobody would really expect her to be the one cleaning it up. In those same circumstances, Minako would really only have to help pay for damages. She's caused a lot worse as Batgirl. Hell, she's accidentally blown up buildings before. She only feels guilty about the spell she was trying that went so awry- a movie theater notice saying 'you wouldn't steal a latte' comes vividly to mind.

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