[R] A Proper Pretense (Motley Crew)

[The Red Dame]

Rose had never been fond of her grandparents’ house. It wasn’t as stuffy or ostentatious as it could have been, considering the amount of money that went into it, but it still made Rose feel like a child. Of course, it could simply have been her grandmother’s presence that was to blame. Abelia Sullivan emitted an aura that seemed to effect all young Sullivans similarly.

“ Rosa, I’m so glad to see you! Oh, do stand straight dear."

Abelia Sullivan continued in that vein for several minutes before at last the conversation turned to more comfortable subjects. Rose was able to remember now why she had thought this was a good idea. When her grandmother wasn’t harping on her for not being a proper lady, she was quite tolerable, even likable. Plus her grandmother was one of only four beings to frequent the house, and Rose doubted that the two cats really counted.

Shortly before the others were due to arrive, Abelia arranged for her assistant Molly to answer the door and bring refreshments in an hour, if needed. Then Abelia departed, but not before telling Rose to make sure that her friends minded their manners.

‘ Well,’ Rose thought as she pet the lazy, fluffy black cat pretending to be an armrest,‘ that wasn’t quite as bad as I expected.’

Of course, Abelia believed that Rose and her friends were having a study group. Rose bit back a laugh at she imagined what her grandmother's reaction would be if she knew the real reason for their little get-together.  

[Remove]

Louisa had issues with turning up late and so she had found the house rather quickly and also walked around the blocks periodically checking her watch for the last 15 minutes. As she reached the house again she stopped and looked at it wondering whether this really was the house. She hoped so.

Walking up the stairs to the door she took a deep breath, she hated going to other peoples houses but then this was different which worried her some more. She had worked alone for so long now, ever since she had been awoken but now part of a team... she knew it was the best thing for her but she just wasn't sure what to expect.

She reached the door and stared at it for a while before she actually rung the bell and was let in. The house really was huge. She looked around and smiled politely at the person who opened the door. Wow this place was massive...  

[Syusaki]

Upon arriving at the meeting location, Sydney was impressed with the architecture and size of Rosa’s grandparents’ house. For a pair of elderly people, it certainly seemed like a spacious abode,—and somewhat of a waste, since she would certainly relish living in such a large home with her fairly large family—but considering the amount of visitors that would eventually arrive over time, the airy space was appreciative. After spending an obligatory couple minutes to stare at the structure’s neat and organized appearance, she finally hopped off her skateboard.

Nimble fingers knowingly reached up to easily unclip the straps of her helmet while the tomboy reached down to loosely grasp the board. Happily, she closed the distance between herself and the front door in a couple loping steps. She casually wrapped a lanky arm around Louisa’s shoulders while sending the brunette a friendly beam. “Heyo Louisa~!”

It was rather fortunate that Sydney had remembered that the pretense of the team meeting was a study group. While one hand firmly clutched her skateboard, her other grasped onto a thin textbook as well as loose papers that were undoubtedly half-filled worksheets. She had no intention of asking the others for assistance on her homework, but hey, if they happened to have some free time afterwards, why not?

As the door swung open, her smile somehow stretched even more and Sydney lazily waved. “Heey!” she drawled.  

[The Red Dame]

Rose heard the doorbell ring, but didn’t get up to answer the door; she didn’t feel like being fussed at for doing someone else’s job. However, Rose did get up and stick her head out of the door of the book room, curious to see who had arrived. When Molly opened the door Rose was happy to see that Sydney was one of the first to arrive, and had even remembered to bring books to with her. Of course she was pleased to see Louisa too; this whole idea wouldn’t work as well without her.

“ Hey guys!” She greeted as Molly led the other to the library before vanishing to do… well, whatever her grandmother needed, she supposed.

Grateful that said grandmother wasn’t there at the moment, she flopped back onto the small sofa, disturbing the cat who shot her a disgruntled look.

“ Welcome, welcome! Grab a seat, or claim a patch of rug if you prefer. Molly is supposed to bring snacks in an hour if you all are hungry.”  

[White Trickster Rabbit]

Melody Klein was running late, having nearly forgotten about the meeting had she not have checked her calendar. It was odd that she'd be running late, but so much had been going on and she was having to do make up work for some of the homework she'd miss to keep her near perfect grades. At least now with Ignacio found, and the end of that weird sleeping pandemic behind them all, she could easily get back into the swing of homework and senshi things.

She hoped.

School bag in hand, the blonde Vietnamese girl rushed down the street and prayed she was at least some what on time. When she reached the stairs that lead up to the house (oh please let it be the right one), she came to a pause to catch her breath. Or at least try to. This would have been so much easier to run in senshi form.

With a shake of her head, pigtails flying, she sucked in a deep breath then made her way up the stairs and for the door. Giving one last moment to catch her breath and not make it seem like she'd been running most of the way, a slender hand raised to knock ever so gently on the door. At the very least she was here? She sighed to herself and poked one of her own cheeks.
"No more running late," she told herself. It didn't look very good to do so.  

[The Red Dame]

When Molly opened the door, Rose craned her head to see the front door and grinned at who was revealed.

“ Melody, hey! Come in.”

Melody, aka Lacrimosa, made for a pretty Senshi, but she seemed to be just as bad as she was at the whole Senshi business. Once Pomona realized that, she couldn’t help but wheedle the other girl into joining this odd little team.  

[White Trickster Rabbit]

Something for which Melody had been eternally grateful for. Defensive attacks worked great when you weren't fighting a youma by yourself. That and safety in numbers was something she had quickly found out worked wonders.

At Rose's call the blonde smiled and made her way into the house quickly. Shoes left by the door she moved for where the others who had arrived to join them. "Hello Rose. Sorry I'm late~"  

[Remove]

Louisa smiled at Sydney when she arrived and then as the others arrived she smiled at them as well, mouthing a hello but not really saying anything. She was nervous to say the least.

She sat down and waited though looking at the other girls. So this was the team? She was sure there were more but maybe things had changed. She was sure she would find out what it was that was going on eventually.

"Is anyone else coming?" Louisa couldn't help but ask she really was curious and wondered how long they would wait for anyone else.  

[The Red Dame]

Rose felt a small flash a disappointment that only three had shown up, but she quickly kicked herself for it. Considering what an odd group this was, how could she expected better?

“ There are more, but I’m not sure how many are coming.”

Rose got up and closed the door to the room. Molly could show in anyone that arrived late.

“ As far as I know, four others have been tentatively recruited. Whether or not they actually participate is a whole different story.”

Taking back her chair, Rose grabbed at the fluffy cat that tried to make an escape, trapping it in her lap. It growled unhappily, but made no further escape attempts, allowing Rose to pet it as she spoke.

“ A guardian cat has also offered us her assistance, but she’s sporadic at best.”  

[Syusaki]

Noticing the disappointment flash in her best friend’s eyes, Sydney grinned and placed a hand on one of her shoulders and reassuring shaking her. “They all must be busy with other real life things, don’t mind,” she said with a shrug. “Too bad for them, because your grandparents’ house is—pardon my choice of words here, Mrs. Sullivan---pretty badass.”

After giving Rosa another reassuring shake of the shoulders, the lanky redhead finally ambled over to the couch and plopped beside Louisa, tossing her worksheets to the side. Sighing and stretching out her arms and legs, Sydney did not hesitate to make herself comfortable, positioning her arms behind her while her legs were sprawled out. “I’m going to give them a real talking to if they don’t show up later though,” she huffed, childishly scowling.

"Woah, did someone say guardian cat?!" Sydney's eyes widened with surprised delight. "Sporadic or not, that's cool.  

[The Red Dame]

“ Yes, Guardian Cat Hyacinth. She actually pointed me in Melody’s direction.”

Rose left out the fact that she and Hyacinth had only talked once, and not for terribly long. Still, any help was better then none.

Deciding that no one else was going to be coming, Rose poked her head outside the door to make sure that neither Molly nor her grandmother were lurking nearby. She then gently closed and locked the door.

“ Well, I suppose the first thing we should discuss is the serious business: are we a Motley Crew?” the capital letters were audible in Rose’s voice and she grinned. “ Other suggestions for names have been floated, but I don’t know how y’all feel about claiming to be a member of Team WTF.”

“ Do any of you have any major concerns you’d like to discuss? I figure everyone can hash out patrols on their own until we can agree to a better system.”  

[Bhek]

" I don't know about Team WTF, but Team BBQ seems delicious, in my humble opinion."

Brass said, as he opened the window from outside and came through, one leg at a time, then standing up on his riding leather boots. He dusted off his jacket and did a quick scan in the wide room to situate himself.

"What? Never had a handsome guy coming through your window?... Well, there's always a first time for everything."

He gave them all a friendly smile.  

[White Oblivion]

Well, okay, this was intimidating. Ciel wouldn't have expected less and yet at the same time arriving at the meeting location late only to be greeted with the massive size and impressive architecture of Rosa's grandparents' house made him want to give up and turn back before he had even as much as rang the bell. In fact it wasn't exactly the house that birthed his desire to flee; it was more likely that it was due to his running late there; of course events had to sneak up to him and assault him right when they were needed the less. Yet, even though he could somehow excuse himself in his head he didn't. Nor did he turn away after all.

They were supposed to be having a study group meeting, no one else was aware of the fact they weren't exactly doing that, but nobody was allowed to know either. This cover was the purpose of the books he tightened his grip on, holding them close to his chest to push his nervousness away. Well okay, it couldn't be that bad, right? So taking a deep breath he proceeded forward, ringing the bell and waiting to be let in. As soon as he was he tried not to let himself fall in a daze and rushed up forward to meet the others where they were gathered.

"I'm sorry... I'm sorry..." he chanted repeatedly as he made his entrance in the room. He was so inexcusably late and considering that, he was surprised to see that there were only so few of them present. "I... I hope I'm not interrupting..." he went on, his voice still lower than he should normally be speaking. He really had to calm down if he were to properly socialize.  

[Syusaki]

She leaned forward, arms resting on her legs and fingers loosely crossed. “I don’t know. I do love my internet acronyms. Team WTF for the win!” joked Sydney as she leaned back into her seat. “To be honest, I don’t really mind which name we go with.”

Upon hearing the word ‘barbeque’ her mouth opened and a hand moved to cover her stomach, which suddenly felt empty. “I could go for some barbeque right now, actually,” Sydney muttered, dreamily thinking of what restaurants or food stands she would hit up after the meeting finished. It was a miracle her stomach wasn’t growling yet.

Then Sydney realized that someone had slipped through the window. “Woah—Hey man! What took you so long?” She stood up, closing the distance between them in a few long strides before giving Brass the odd handshake-half-hug combination that most, if not all boys seemed to mysteriously know.

Noticing Ciel over Brass’s shoulder, she grinned broadly and her eyes widened with glee. “Ciel! Take a seat, take a seat! We’re just glad you showed up.” She was turning absolutely ecstatic at the late entrances, evident by her flailing arms and speedy return back to the couch.

“Mmm. Major things to discuss. Mmm.” She frowned as she tried to conjure up any issues she wanted to talk about. “Group bonding . . . ? Maybe?” Sydney didn’t sound all that confident in the idea herself.  

[The Red Dame]

Rose was happy to see the late stragglers. Now that most of the team was here, she felt reassured in her belief that this was a good idea. People wouldn’t have shown up if they thought it stupid, know would they?

“ Braesi, if a handsome man has ever come through the window of my grandmother’s house before, I’m not sure I want to know why.” Rose said with a grin. She felt proud that she hadn’t mangled Braesi’s name horribly; all hail the power of the Internets!

“ And Ciel, you’re part of the team, yes? Then you can hardly be interrupting a team meeting.”

People started settling back in, Rose decided to see to her friend’s bottomless pit of a stomach. What good was a rich grandmother if you couldn’t mooch off them a bit? She stuck her head out the door and conversed with someone unseen, then it seemed that a tray had magically appeared in her hands as she returned to her seat. She placed it on the coffee table with a grin.

“ I convinced Molly to forego the usual stuff and give us teenage-appropriate snacks.” The tray had variety of colorful fruits and candies, all surrounding a plate of hot meat pies. “ I dare say this is better then the usual fare.”

Snagging a meat pie – Molly’s were the best, in her rather biased opinion – she considered Sydney’s suggestion.

“ Group bonding? Seems like a good idea to me. We’d work better as a team if we’re more familiar with each other. Any suggestions?”