Welcome to Gaia! ::

History was repeating itself once more, or, rather, when you give two small children a handful of cash and tell them not to spend it all on one machine, they'll proceed to do just the opposite.

This time, the machines had limited edition plush toys from the new Cardcaptor show, specifically, some small plush clip-on pouches of one of the shows mascots. As before, the twins had already plunked down a considerable amount of change already, to try and win their prize, but had been once more unsuccessful. If anyone had expected them to perhaps learn their lesson from before, they would be highly disappointed to find that yet again, the two were in the middle of yet another hopeless endeavor, as they tried to maneuver the claw to hold onto their prize long enough to drop it into the chute.

There was no talking magical kitten this time to offer them a far better prize or anything like that, and while Nemu had her reservations about continuing to spend money on this one singular machine, she really did want that plush... And thus, she could only glance nervously back and forth between the machine and their dwindling stack of cash.

"Sato... do you really think we're getting close to payout?" she couldn't help but ask.

While it wasn't entirely unusual for a woman of her age to be in an arcade, February had a reputation to uphold and she couldn't necessarily be seen here without good reason. Should she ever be 'caught', the declaration that she was here to put little kids in their place by beating the high scores on the pinball machines probably wasn't going to be the one that her friends bought in to - well they might, but it would come with some considerable teasing.

Thus, the woman was now looking a touch suspect as she strode in to the arcade with her shades firmly on her face to 'hide' her identity. She was looking for targets, not for anything nefarious, but she did need a little bit of a cover story if she was going to break the hearts of teenagers today.

It was simply good fortunate that she over heard the siblings near the claw machine and edged towards them. At least she wasn't entirely predatory, but even she wouldn't have blamed them if they chose to run away! It was only when she was close to them that she cleared her throat.

"You know if you time it you can kick the machine while the claws at the right angle and get it to drop in the chute right?"

She'd get thrown out if an assistant overheard her encouraging any form of kicking anything, but hey, she needed to ask these kids a favour so she might as well help them out first, right? It would still take time for them to line up for the right shot and she could technically use that as cover for her playing on the pinball machines...

Maybe.

It depended on whether they bought in to her request.

Nemuri, ever the stickler for the rules, couldn't believe what she was hearing. A stranger was suggesting that they... kick the machine? And Satori was thinking it was a good idea? Perhaps she shouldn't have been too shocked at the concept- Satori was always the troublemaker- but she couldn't help but gawk at the conversation taking place right here in front of her eyes.

"We'll get in trouble if we get caught..." she protested weakly, but deep down, Nemu knew Satori's mind was probably set. She wouldn't go off and tattle, of course, because nobody liked a tattletale, and certainly didn't want them to get thrown out of the arcade, but she still couldn't help but fret a little.

“Yeah, I’m up for it!” Satori beamed, readily agreeing to this nice woman’s offer. She flashed a toothy grin and giggled.“Thanks a bunch. We won’t let you regret helping us.”

Satori couldn’t help but think positively of this generous, and honestly, very cool lady. Like Nemu, both of them were amply advised by their parents and other dependable adults in their lives to be wary of strangers, let alone ones that offer ideas and things that might be too good to be true. Yet, this time, she was convinced that short of the machine possibly getting a few shoe scuffs, they’d be fine and the two sisters would finally get that prize!

“Oh yeah... so miss, by the way, what’s your name? Or.. what do we call you?” Satori asked. In her mind, she wanted to ascribe this lady a name (and stop referring to her as lady or miss), so that’s one way around it: introductions. “Meanwhile, I’m Sato. Nice to meet you!”

One of the sisters was certainly more apprehensive than the other, a quieter soul if February had to put any money on it. A little like chalk and cheese in some respects, but it looked like both Nemu and Satori complimented each other well. While Nemu was the voice of reason, at least Satori could be relied upon to pull her out of her comfort zone every now and then, right?

February smiled and gave a some rather whimsical bow.

"My name is February, but you can call me Ru," she replied to both. After she had made her introductions though, she did regard Nemu with a wry smile. "And I should probably be thanking you rather than the other way round," she added. "It's pretty hard to be incognito in here and you guys are about to make that really easy on me," she pointed out.

"You're gonna make sure your sister gets something nice too, right?" she peered towards Satori and raised both eyebrows. Sure they could spend whatever they wanted on that machine but they should at least both come out with something, especially if poor Nemu was going to have to put up with the two deviants that she found herself in the company of now!

"Or are you both after something in there because I might need to kick it too to hit it hard enough to drop more than one," she admitted.

"Really? We could have our own prizes...?" Nemu echoed, amazed and yet baffled at such a concept. Normally, the twins ended up sharing their winnings, as they tended to blow through their funds just winning a singular prize, not to mention all those long queues on the really popular prizes in their online crane games making it hard for a couple of elementary school students to get through.

... Of course, there had been that time that their magical cat manager had offered to get a prize for them (climbing into the machine?) but that was the exception to the rule.

“That’s super nice of you,” Satori giggled happily.

The idea of each sister having their own prize tickled her fancy extremely. Satori couldn’t help but maintain a wide and slightly mischievous grin. She was ready to make this rare moment happen especially with some help. Without some other responsible figure to keep her in check, Satori’s enthusiasm was going go wild and free.

“Okay. I’m going to kick the machine,” Satori whispered her announcement to the other two. “Wish me luck.”

Well... the warning wasn’t going to matter much, because in a mere moment, Satori readied herself and kicked the stubborn crane machine with the determination of a girl that was fed up of setbacks.

It was particularly important that none of them got thrown out and while she did let Satori kick the machine once, she wasn't the biggest fan of leaving any dents in it (or broken toes in children for that matter). Thus she kept half an eye on the machine and though she hadn't taken note as to whether the damn thing had actually shaken something free, she id at the very least hand over a rather large bag of coins. She couldn't really remember how many were in there, but the coin machine was near by and she could get more for herself in a second.

"Go nuts with these," she winked. "I'll go and get more," she added and gave a wave of her hand as she sauntered back towards the machine so that she could try to succeed with her own game.

Hell if the crane machine did end up giving them something then that was cool, if all else failed they could throw even more money at it and then eventually it might cough up something useful.

...They were still gonna get her tokens in the end either way!