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The women in the princess outfit left, leaving Rosie staring after her with wide eyes, stunned, her two pokemon that she had out with her at this part didn't look to pleased about that situation, but Kiss Kiss was carefully smoothing down her fur, and Melody calmed herself down after snorting a flame, indignantly.
The nerve of that lady, she needed to learn how to control herself.

Rosie turned quickly to Guy, once the women had left. taking a few steps forward before abruptly stopping herself, remembering she can't get close to him
"Guy, are you alright?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jerome had to admit, he's had a lot of different reaction to his rather unique appearance, from awe, to disgust, and he's certainly seen enough fear. But to have someone actually scream like that? Let alone ask not to be eaten.
He blinked at the girl... damn, rich b***h. He could tell right away, this was to funny.
Yeah he got it, sheltered types, mommy and daddy tellin' them to steer clear from punk like him, probably told her they would mug, gut and do all forts of unpleasant acts to pretty little things like her.

And to be honest, Jerome thought she had the right idea, Even if he had no intention of hurting any of them.

any words he might have spoken were cut off when Izumi suddenly hugged him.
This, clearly caught him by surprise, his eyes widened, hands lifting up for a moment before slowly, lowering them back around her, returning the hug as friendly as possible.
"Been a while, huh Ink?"
He was finding it harder then normal to find words to speak properly.

(Inigo and Presea)

Alba slipped briefly behind a changing curtain with his collection of garments. There were women around, after all. When he returned, he was jerking down the hems of a tanned, faux leather vest, and straightening the black coat over his shoulders. He nodded with impressed approval at Inigo's choice of costume as the younger man finished up. "Not bad. Not bad at all. Very... contemporary," he finished, trying to fish around for an appropriate description. Snatching up a length of oddly shaped ribbon that was a bow tie, he looped and tied the accessory with practiced movements. He only looked in the mirror to confirm that it was indeed straight and centered. "Wouldn't surprise me if we saw familiar faces. I probably wouldn't have had a clue this was going on if it weren't for all the talk going on about it."

Alba patted his young friend on the shoulder, turned in place, and scooped up a black top hat he had set aside. Before he could bring it all the way to his head, though, a new voice nearby caught his attention. A... robot? Or a windup doll? Either way, the costumes people were coming up with were extremely impressive to him. He almost complimented the young woman's as such, but the question about asking questions made him falter. "Questions?" His eyes flickered to the notepad in her hand, then back up to where he assumed her eyes would be behind her visor. His smile was polite and, hopefully, gentlemanly enough to go with his outfit, but... Questions. Without knowing the intent of this person, the thought put him more than a little on edge. The press had never shown him in a favorable light in Kanto, and if she was law enforcement, another Rocket may have already blown their cover. Then again, he shouldn't get ahead of himself. Maybe it was a harmless school project?

Asch stalked away from the trainer group. He didn't want to cause any more of a scene than he already had. No sense in getting that group riled up. He had seen Rosie and knew it best to avoid her. She and her friends might start demanding that Vaporeon back. Even if they did, Asch didn't have Vahy'n with him anyway.

With his back to them, the red head didn't see Natalia coming in his direction. He simply put some distance between himself and that group. However, someone seemed to be speaking to him and Asch looked up to see a much taller and older red headed man. It appeared that this one had been more fortunate in his costume selection.

Asch looked the man up and down for a moment, but nodded his greeting in return. Although he was wondering what the guy wanted, if anything.

(Frost, Izaya)

He didn't give his friend much more then a small wave when Izaya walked off just as he was walking up to him and Frost. Xander looked Frost up and down when he spoke to him and gave a smile in greeting. "Glad you could make it, though I know this isn't your idea of fun." He moved to stand closer to the Agent as he spoke. "So far it has been enjoyable yes." The blond nodded then he blinked in surprise. "Some of the trainers are here?" He asked then nervously looked around to see if Dith was one of them. When he didn't see the giant of a man he relaxed and gave Frost another bright smile. "Thank you, it's supposed to be a space pirate." He laughed and absentmindedly brushed a bit of glitter off the older mans shoulder gently. "It looks very nice Snowy." He said the nickname at a near whisper so that only the one it was for would hear.

~*~*~

(Asch, Kratos)

Natalia kept her steady gait towards 'Luke' even as he stopped to nod in greeting to someone. She kept Little Luke on her shoulder, something the Tepig was used to so didn't find it hard to do, so her arms were free other then the staff she carried. The young woman stayed quiet as she walked over to the two males then gave a small smile to the one unknown to her before she placed a delicate hand on 'Luke's' shoulder. "There you are. I've been looking for you." Natalia said with a smile laugh in her voice.

Izumi hadn't really had time to notice the going on's with Guy and the lady-man, and even if she had, Izumi would have doubtlessly thought that the sword was a fake Halloween prop.

"Yes- Guys!" Izumi gave Jerome a final excited squeeze and let go, turning to face the others. "This is Jerome!" She was the happiest little robot angel, so happy she seemed to have forgotten Sera's betrayal for the moment. Izumi didn't wait for the others to introduce themselves, instead she pointed to each one with her robot-hand, "This is Rosie, Guy, Sera, Shizuo- wait, you know Shizuo- and..." Izumi paused and blinked confusedly at the princess walking away, the blond lady following him, and the new girl. "U-um..." Apparently new people made Izumi nervous, because she withdrew as soon as she noticed them.

(Rosie, Guy, Sera, Shizuo, Jerome, Izumi)
Charlotte was relieved that the princess/man had left but wondered why a blonde girl was following him. She thinks the girl's name is Natalia, though it had been a bit difficult to hear what Guy had said over the party's noise. According to Guy's response to Rosie though, he was fine, but she was curious as to why he referred to the obviously masculine princess as a she. She raised an eyebrow at Guy quizzitively before she turned her attention back to Jerome and 'Ink' who was making introductions. 'Ink', Charlotte still wasn't sure of her real name, had paused to glance at the princess and the girl following him. She then paused upon Charlotte who deftly inserted "and I'm Charlotte its nice to meet you," she smiled cheerfully at the new acqaintance. 'Ink' must have missed her introduction but that was alright Charlotte hadn't known her name either.

With a small wave back to Xander and nothing but a friendly smile in response to Frost, the frantic hero hurried ahead toward the dressing room in which Faleen was stationed. He would have loved to stay and chat, but he had an urgent matter to discuss and he was pretty certain the couple would have been too occupied with each other to deal with him, anyway.

At the back of his mind, the informer made a mental note that Frost seemed to have substantially improved considering his aversion to other people touching him - at least he hadn't run away or attacked Izaya - and the black-haired man could only assume Xander's influence on his boyfriend was responsible. He would investigate that later, though. Time was wasting.

Faleen was just ahead. She appeared to have just finished with the red-haired lady she had been working with, because said lady was leaving the room, dress, curls, and all. She looked like the Princess of Hearts - or at least some daughter of the bloody Queen of Hearts. What was more, she wore a scowl to match. Was it Izaya's imagination, or was that scowl familiar?

Before he could examine it, the princess had walked right past him. No time to get distracted by women in extravagant dresses. It was Faleen he needed to talk to. He approached her as she tilted her head, brows furrowed, sensing something was wrong. "Faleen," he addressed her in hushed tones, glancing every so often at the door, "I need your help. We have a potentially dangerous problem on our hands. Think 'human-bomb' about to go off. And no, I don't mean Seth."

In an instinctive reaction, the informant turned toward the flash of a blade, the swift motion of the summoned sword drawing his full attention. He stared as the princess, of all people, was holding the tip of the weapon in a blonde guy's face in order to silence his laughter. It seemed to be pretty effective, because the man put his hands up in surrender and the princess dismissed the sword she had summoned from who knew where. For all Izaya knew, she could have owned an invisible ghost-type like Jerome's Gengar.

As quickly as it had begun, the action was over. Izaya's tense body relaxed, though he frowned, suspicious of the encounter. There were only a handful of people he knew who carried swords, and even a smaller number of those who would dare point them in public. Another thing to investigate - later. He had a bigger problem right now.

"...Alright, then. Looks like this is a dangerous place tonight," he noted, smiling sheepishly as he turned back to his partner. "Speaking of danger, there's a particular individual here you need to know about." Taking a seat where Asch had been when he'd had his hair done, Orihara put his head in his hands, elbows leaning on the vanity table.

He hated talking about Shizuo. Just thinking about him, just having to know about him was enough to piss Izaya off. The only reason he memorized information about the neanderthal at all was because he was a pain to deal with and, despite his apparent simple-minded nature, a very serious threat to the info-broker. He never behaved as Izaya predicted he would, which made Shizuo both an object of frustration and fascination to the crimson-eyed man.

This, though, was necessary. Faleen had to know. She was his partner, after all. "His name is Shizuo Heiwajima," the man grimaced, rubbing his temples as he stared into the vanity mirror. "We've known each other since high school. From the moment we met, we've been trying to kill each other. Niether of us have ever managed to triumph, though." Stupid, unwanted memories surfaced. Full oil barrels tumbling down the stairs of the school, desks thrown out windows, running for his life - it was a chapter in his life he didn't wish to revisit. Nevertheless, they came to mind.

"Once he gets angry, Shizu-chan is unstoppable. He's not human," the grunt continued seriously, still not looking directly at Faleen. He closed his eyes as he massaged his aching head. "Supposedly he 'hates violence', but if I could describe him as anything, it would be violence manifested into a physical being. When he's left alone, he's pretty docile, which is why we haven't seen any destruction from him yet. Tick him off, though, and you're as good as dead. It's not all that hard to tick him off, either."

With a heavy sigh, the superhero got up. "There's no reasoning with him because he's got the mentality of a protozoan. If he sees me here, all hell will break loose. I can only be glad I managed to catch sight of him before he saw me, but it's only a matter of time," Izaya continued. "If he comes after me, it's going to cause a scene. Might be a problem for all our 'friends' here. Luckily he hasn't pieced together what crowd I tend to run with these days, but sometimes he's sharper than I foresee, which causes problems.

His shoulders slumped. "I could leave, but that wouldn't eliminate the danger this monster poses. If something like that happens again," he added, pointing in the direction that a sword had been aimed at Guy's face, "then he's definitely going to lose it. The idiot uses violence to stop violence, often making the situation worse. If we're not careful and we all end up leaping to each other's aid, our whole team could be exposed."

No one knew Shizuo better than Izaya. He was confident of that. If they were going to stand a chance with the ticking human time-bomb, the informer knew he had to stick around. Despite his better judgement and instincts of self-preservation, he had teammates to think of now. "I spiked the punch, but there's no guarantee he'll go for it. Also, I don't know how long that'll slow him down, since as I said, he's inhuman."

He met Faleen's hazel eyes, forcing himself to ask for her help. It was something he most certainly was not used to doing. Using people, sure, but not willingly, directly, honestly asking. "What do you think we should do...partner?"

That had sounded stupid. Now the girl was looking at him weird. Ugh, his head was killing him. The last half hour had been a blur. What had happened, exactly? His senses were all dulled and his brain felt foggy. It was making it hard to fully form proper ideas. All that he could manage at the moment was pieces and fragments of thoughts, but his short-term memory was slowly recovering. Maybe he'd tripped and hit his head somewhere.

In spite of everything, the teen felt strangely calm. He didn't remember having felt this calm in a long time...not that he remembered much of anything at the moment...but there was a distinct absence of some unpleasant emotion he'd been living with most of his years. Fear; that was it. He was no longer afraid. Why had he been afraid before, though? There was nothing to be afraid of.

Smirking under his helmet as Luxury admitted to not knowing what she was doing either, the robot felt a little more relaxed. He didn't know what he was doing here, it was true, but as his mind was gradually beginning to recover, he figured it would come to him soon enough. In the meantime, why not enjoy the party? At least now he was aware enough to recognize that was exactly where he was. The robot suit was a bit much, but the people at the front hadn't let him come through without it. He felt obligated to have it on for some reason.

Something struck him. His name. Luxury had told him hers, but he hadn't told her his. What was it, again? He knew he had one. Funny; he didn't think it was normal to find it so difficult to remember one's own name. S, he thought. S, H...SHA... Letters, one at a time. No, no, he needed something now; something to tell her so he wasn't just standing there like an idiot. "Shadow," he blurted, saying the first thing that popped into his head. "I'm Shadow."

"Hey...Luxury," he began, his attention wandering over to the main floor. Some people were scattered about, talking to each other. Two red-heads and a blonde girl stood in a small group. Besides them, a pink-haired, blue-skinned young lady in a bikini and a witch drinking punch stood out in plain sight. "Since neither of us knows what we're really doing here, why don't we at least make the most of it?" He gestured to the center of the room. "Like dancing?"