World Tree MUSH

Ash was still trying to wrap his head around the physics of this world-of-worlds as he walked its streets. Why was he here? Well, Miwa had done him a solid, Mirage got him tangled in her business by association, he still was dealing wit hthings rattlign around from that damned contract...

And even when they're from 'verses that know little of peace and much of war? Teenagers and malls just plain go together. Ash was people watching as he leaned over a railing to look at the people eating at this perticular food court. He'd seen beings of all sort here; some like the pokemon and digimon, others others that could have been warframes of some strange world. Yet here thyey were peacefully gathering, laughing, wrapped up in theri own lives. 

His thughts were turned inward by the scenery so, it was Ordis's job to ping him if anything he should know. Of course Ordis himself was enjoying his ship-body being serviced... for some varying definition of 'enjoy' due to his own war-weary experiances having him as distrustful of the technicians as he would raiders and scavangers even as he obeyed any given chatter with a minimal of grumbling.

As isn't the only person people-watching. In the crowd moving past there's a familiar green jacket, a familiar red hair-noodle. Well, it might be familiar; Ash has only seen him once. If Ordis still has 'eyes' in that location, it might recognize those familiar things first.

It's Kakyoin, though with the addition of a white scarf draped over his shoulders almost like a feather boa. He's got a drink in his hand, and he's drinking it through a straw. It's something red and cold, whatever it is. He's probably not expecting to see Ash here. But he appears to be moving for a little alcove in the wall so he can lean there.

Miwa was at the mall too, floating along just a few inches off the ground in a water bubble just large enough to hold her, humming to keep her aquakinesis going enough to keep her hover bubble from touching the floor as it moved at a walking pace. She was getting a bit hungry though so she was on her way toward the food court. She doesn't notice Ash or Noriaki as she moves toward the strip of various places to eat, but if they spot her, which to be fair, she'd be hard to miss, they'd notice she had dressed herself up a bit for her trip out to the city. 

 She was wearing a white dress with a pattern of hibiscus flowers and palm fronds in an ocean blue color, some filled in, some outlines on the white background. The skirt flowed down to cover a bit of her tail, but was not too long. Soon she popped her bubble and began walking the last little bit toward a pizza place, the smell of it sparking her curiosity.

Ash didn't need ordis. Kakyoin's face had made an impression enough that he was able to pick the face out of a crowd. Granted unlike Miwa Ash did not know this man, but he had helped keeping Ash from doing regrettable things. Plus that gren thing... was this a Tenno? Was the way home open and thus he now had to fear a Grineer invasion of other places? Ash was tempted to vault over the railing, but that would both make for a painful landing without his warframe, and it would cause a scene. He wished neither, so he started towards the man with the hair noodle.

The path to Kakyoin passed close enough to Miwa that Ash casually tapped Miwa on the shoulder. "Someone would think one of us is stalking the other given how often we keep running into eachother." He glanced the pokemon lady over and smiled, "I like the dress, it suits you." he smiled. "If you don't mind I saw that guy that helped you out with my problems the other day." He looked from Miwa, to the pizza counter, and counted out a series of bills. "If they have anything that's like... All of the cheeses all at once? I'd like that." 

And then he was off again towards Kakyoin, waving to try gettign the man's attention, which probably didn't give any more favorable of an impression than anything else, which was immaterial as Kakyoin hadn't seen Ash out of his warframe before. Grnated if the man had any way of seeing essence or the like Ash might 'read' as somehow weird, but other than that? Normal.

All these different kinds of people here, he really wasn't accustomed to it yet. So he does stare a little. It's hard not to. Some people all look so different than he's used to! Indeed, Noriaki DOES spot Miwa -- she's very visible. And it really is a pretty dress. It hadn't occurred to Kakyoin until then how difficult it must be to dress to coordinate when one's body is of a specific color.

He blinks, though, as someone near Miwa waves to him. That's not someone he knows, is it? Regardless, the person is near Miwa, and they DO appear to be waving him over, so... he heads in that direction. Cautiously, mind. He doesn't really have any way to 'read' or 'sense' Ash, so he really doesn't know who it is.

Miwa swiftly turned to look at Ash when he tapped her on the shoulder, almost looking startled for a moment before she saw who it was. When he gave her some money and an order, she nodded. "Sure, but if they don't?" She began to ask, wondering if he had a backup order, but he was already walking away towards Kakyoin. Soon it was her turn to order, and lucky for Ash, they did have a six cheese pizza which she ordered two slices of for him, and for herself, one with all the meats, including anchovies. When it came to drinks, she had been staring at the options on the soda fountain her whole time in line and still had no idea what she wanted. She picked at random and ordered a root beer for herself and Ash. 

 She paid and once the food was on a plastic tray, she formed a solid orb of water and began humming loudly to control it as she used the orb to carry the tray as she walked toward Ash and Noriaki. "Hello!" She offered Noriaki with a wave of her right flipper before turning to speak to Ash. "You didn't mention what you wanted to drink, and I wasn't sure what any of it was, so I ordered a root beer for both of us. Hopefully it's good." She offered with a grin.

Ash only realized Kakyoin wouldn't recognize him when he finally had the man's attention. "Uh... yea hi?" He sounded suddenly unsure. "You probably don't recognize the face but we ran into eachother the other day." He was unsure and it was apparent in his voice. "You did me a solid by helping the lady here keep me from doing somethign dumb... and well.. the whole tentacle-y green... " He took a breath. "Are you a Tenno? It looked like a warframe almost."

Kakyoin offers a nod to Miwa. "Hello," he greets. "I hope you're doing well." Ash explains who he is then, and Noriaki's head tilts back. "Aa. Of course." Now he knows who Ash is! "Body armor?" Then he mentions a 'Warframe'. That must be what his armor is called. "No. It's a Stand. It's called Hierophant Green." Which he might have mentioned the name of at some point during the whole... debaucle...

Miwa nods to Kakyoin and smiles. "I'm doing fine, thank you. Everything alright for you?" She asks before otherwise letting Ash and Kakyoin talk while she set the tray down on the table before disposing of the orb of water by directing it toward herself and drinking it. She then moves toward the table and sets Ash's plate aside before taking a slice from her own and munching on it a bit, taking small bites as she took in the interesting flavor of bread, cheese, sauce, and various kinds of meat, though the fish kinda overpowered the rest of it a little. She listens curiously as Noriaki speaks of his stand. "Is that some sort of spirit guard that protects you?"

Ash quirked an eyebrow. "I really am grateful for your help since long and short? I was at a point where i couldn't precicely back out even after finding out the jo was... not one i would have taken." He shrugged before motioning for kakyoin to follow. "Anyway my warframe is... well it's not exactly body aror. more a remote interface since well," He motioned to himself then held his hand up to illistrate how much taller the warframe was than his meaty self. THen when he let his hand drop. "Also do you know what root beer is? Never had any and the lady there," Motion to Miwa, "ordered."

"THis has been a weird week hasn't it," He gave Miwa a genuinely fond smile. "Ordis is getting serviced..... and i swear by the Void if anyone makes off with any of my noggles..." He grunted, "Ba they wouldn't take random nick knacks now would they? Bad for business. Ya?" Ash sat and breathed in the smell of fresh pizza. He was more accustomed to dumplings, noodles, stirfry, and the like. So... new experiances. He wanted cheese because, well. This one lady in cetus makes this awesome flatbread and pizza reminded him of that. So it was worth the risk.

Kakyoin nods to Miwa's question, ofering pleasantly, "It is, thankfully. Aside from getting used to all this new... strangeness." Being new to the idea of there being multiple worlds, he's had some issues wrapping his brain around it. Even with a Stand. Miwa's question gets tilt of his head. "Something like that. In a way it's... part of me somehow," he replies. "So yes... and no." Not very informative, but it's the best he can do.

Ash's request to follow does get some hesitation, mainly as a relex, but Noriaki does follow a moment later. The explanation gets a curious look. "Hm... so like a long-range Stand, but not completely." Yeah, that's... also weird. The question of the root beer gets a half-smile. "It's usually rather sweet. Used to be flavored with ingredients from either the sassafras tree or the sarsaparilla vine. These days most of it's probably artificial. But it tastes all right." He prefers cherry drinks, of course. He'll sit down with Miwa and Ash.

Miwa laughs as Ash says the week has been weird. "That's putting it lightly. Though to be fair, there has been a higher degree of weird going around ever since I started going through these portals and going to other worlds. I mean, sometimes it's great, and I'm glad I've met some of the people I have, but I'm certainly getting a lot more 'adventure' than I'd ever have gotten if I stayed home in Alola." Kakyoin's explanation of what a stand is gets a nod, and when he answers about what root beer is, she decides to take a sip. She blinks a bit and looks up at Ash and Kakyoin. 

 "Wow, it's even more sweet than that coke stuff we had the other day." To be honest, Miwa probably would love a cherry drink too, as she usually has fruit based drinks back home. She goes back to working on eating her pizza, finally finishing a slice and starting to feel her hunger subside. "It is crazy that we would all just randomly run into each other here, but as you said earlier Ash, even more so that we keep meeting places so frequently without planning on it.

"I am convinced the universe, or whateveris in charge of them, has a sense of humor." Ash took a sip of his drink and nodded. "Sweet, but it has flavor in there beneath the sweet." He still preferred tea, but this bubbly stuff was nice in its own way. Then a look to Kakyoin. "So other than getting i na fight with me... and unequivocably winning by the way," Ash chuckled since many back home would find the idea of what appeared to be a normal nothing sort of person thoroughly trouncing a Tenno in a fair fight to be laughable, yet here that person was. "Anything amusing going on?"

A beep from a stud in his right ear-lobe and Ordis's voice piping up, "Operator the technicians need your approval for-" Ash held a finger up and lowered the volume on the com-bead. Then a grunt, "Ordis... you know your systems better than I ever could. You know what would be better to leave alone and what needs tending to, but if they're able to I'd really like it if they could figure out if there's any way to get the retrieval functions for pet storage fixed. Waffles would love it here."

He then looked at his two companions shepishly. "My Kubrow... well... Er..." Ash wanted to explain what a helmenth charger was and how he made waffles look more... Normal, albeit hairless, but both companions probably would just stare. "If flights take awhile or my kubrow gets hurt too badly Ordis puts them in cryo til we get ot a relay where they can get tended to. Waffles was in storage when I got spat out so she's kinda stuck waiting for me to thaw her." He took another sip of root-beer. "On the up side for her no time will have passed and Ordis says she's still stable. It's just the retireval mechanisms are busted."

Miwa's words of things getting weirder since the portals thing started happening? That gets a smirk. "It has," he agrees. "I've only recently been... I suppose you'd call it ejected from my world. I don't appear to be able to find my way back." He doesn't sound too terribly upset about it, actually. Which might seem strange. He nods at the observation of the sweetness of the root beer. "What they originally used to flavor it gave it a bitter taste. So they added more sugar to offset it."

Ash's mention of getting into a fight with a Tenno also gets a smirk. "You said yourself that your heart wasn't in it," he points out. "If it had been you probably would have killed me." He talks about this incredibly normally, as if it doesn't bother him tha the could have been killed. He pauses though, as Ash speaks to Ordis. The voice might be familiar to Kakyoin, in fact. But he's quiet so the conversation can happen normally.

When Ash speaks up again, he listens. "Kubrow... a pet of some sort." It's not a question, since Ash did mention 'pet retrieval'. Cryo-freezing a pet? "That sounds unfortunate. But handy."

"If Ash was really on his game, and we got in his way, he probably could have killed us both." Miwa offers then continues eating as she listens to Ash and Noriaki. She does pick up on the fact that Noriaki doesn't seem to bummed that he can't go back to his world. "That does seem to be common. I can go back to my world, in fact I still live there, but this seems to be the exception, not the norm." She was curious about Ash's pet as well, and Noriaki's comment about it being unfortunate but handy echoed her feelings. "Well I hope you can get it fixed soon. I'd like to meet your little friend." She says with a smile before taking a few sips of her root beer.

Ash gave a bit o a laugh at miwa's 'little' comment abotu Waffles. "She comes up almost to my chest. She's many things... little isn't one of them." He fished out a small tablet and flicked through photos of other warframes; valk, mag, excal, Hydroid hanging with all of hi tentacles holding things up. Then he stopped on a photo of a long fanged broad chested hairless dog standing beside him and coming almost to his chest if one counted her ears. "That is waffles."

He then took a bite of pizza as he gave Miwa and Kakyoin time to look through his photo album. Said album would have interesting things... up to and including a curiously short grineer unit in a pillbox made out of inflatable barriers with a group of warframes of all sort posing around said grineer.

Kakyoin nods to Miwa's observation. "Most likely." Hence why he wasn't going to try to go toe-to-toe with Ash during that. As for going back to his world? "Aside from my parents being worried that I've been gone so long -- and I'm sure they'll be fine -- I don't have much reason to go back," he notes.

He blinks a little at Ash's mention of the pet. "That's... a very big pet. Is Waffles a bear?" He's only half-kidding. The pictures come out then, and Kakyoin raises an eyebrow at the picture of Waffles. "That... is not any kind of dog I've ever seen," he comments. Again, only half-kidding; he did hear Ash mention it wasn't a typical dog.

"Ok fine Ash, your big cute dog buddy." Miwa says with a laugh before watching as Ash pulls out a tablet and shows off a picture of waffles. "Yeah, that is a strange looking dog, though I shouldn't talk I guess, there are some really strange looking Pokemon where I come from, and I'd say some even stranger ones beyond Alola. As for returning home, I guess I like my world, though it's hard not to when you live on a tropical island and you love the water. No fond feelings for your world Noriaki?" She asks with a tone of curiosity, which extends to her next question directed at Ash. "Also, I must ask, where did the name waffles come from? Does your giant dog love to eat them or something?"

The memory brought a smile to Ash's face, "An old joke between me and Excal." His smile continued to grow at the memory, "Well that and she does enjoy waffles so I figure two birds, one stone." He flicked the photo album to show what waffles ORIGINALLY looked like, something far spikier and tentacle-y in nature. "I spent a lot of time geting in the Ostron's good graces when I found out they had a gene therapy treatment to get Waffles more... personable appearing." He took a bite of pizza and savored the flavor. Sure it wasn't artisan, but still it was a huge step ahead of protine slurry. "She wouldn't take the treatments unless I gave them to her even though the handlers there were more experianced." Ash's voice grew somewhat nostalgic at the memory.

"I look forward to getting her out of the freezer so she can run on yur beach." 

A look to Kakyoine, "You're not the only one with little to look forward to back home. Thing is, for me? Even risking the grieneer wanting to try causing problems across worlds? THe fact we could get outside help for colonists, or even a way to get colonies in the line of fire evacuatted? That's worth any personal misery." He paused and slowly pulled the tablet back to his jacket, "Plus I kinda want to intro you to Mag, Excal, and the others. they'd love being able to go and have a bit of fun. Y'now?"

Kakyoin does not know what a Pokemon is, but he does get the idea. And he nods. "There are a lot of strange things in these combined worlds," he admits. As for having no fond feelings for his world? "Not really. I don't hate it. But I don't feel any real fondness for it. I'm sure I'll eventually start to miss it, but not yet."

The picture of Waffles's original appearance gets a tilt of his head. "Well... more 'normal' compared to that, I suppose," he comments. Though he nods to Ash's mention of not having much to look forward to. "You sound like your world has a lot of problems." He raises an eyebrow at the mention of others. "Friends of yours?" He probably doesn't have a concept of the Warframes being individuals.

Miwa finally finishes her own pizza and wipes her mouth with a napkin before sipping at the rest of her soda. She blinked a bit at what Waffles used to look like and nodded. "Yeah, I can see why you wanted to change him around a bit. Also sure, I'd be happy to have you and waffles over at my beach..." She says before laughing a bit. "Listen to me saying 'my beach' as if I own it. But anyway, maybe I can teach you how to swim, Noriaki can come too!" She offers warmly as she sets her empty cup down and listens as Ash talks about his world having problems, some of which she heard already. She wonders if he's right, if his world is opened up, if the people from other worlds could help his get through it's problems.

Ash wantedd to hope. If nothing else it'd give the Corpus fresh markets, which might actually make them less likely to try cutting tenno apart to see how they worked, which might make them actually helpful and almost trustworthy. "I'd love to learn." Ash looked Miwa over and hrmed softly, "Takes less risk when the instructor can grab you whenever." 

He ate as he thought then finally, "I would like to try helping you learn how to deal withpeople who, like me, aren't going to treat fighting like a gam you take up for funsies." He tried to keep his scorn over pokemon fighting out of his voice with debateable success. "you show great promise if only because you don't freeze up when thigns get loud. If thigns are going to keep being annoyingly violent I want to try helping you get through these thigns as they happen."

Then a glance to kakyoine. "Plus I'm gonna want a rematch with you at some point." A smile before ruffling the hair-noodle. "It'll be fun as way to keep me on my toes."

Kakyoin offers a smile at the invitation. "Thank you, I appreciate that. Though I'm not really much of a swimmer myself," he cautions. Weird maybe, since he's also from an island nation, that he can't swim. But there it is. Then again neither Ash nor Miwa has any reason to know or expect that of him, so...

He tilts his head a bit at the mention of 'fighting as a game'. "There are sparring matches. Have you ever seen sumo? It can be fun to watch." The mention of a rematch gets a chuckle. "Of course. A friendly spar, hm?"

"Grab you? I can control the water and even make a wave push you to the beach if it came to it." Miwa says with a grin. "As for learning to fight, yes, I know the real world isn't like a Pokemon Battle, and though Bewul and his friends have helped me a bit with some sparring, the other night with Mirage certainly told me that more practice and training couldn't hurt. I mean, honestly I'm surprised my instincts are as good as they are. I never really even did much in the way of battles with other Pokemon before. Mostly I just used my abilities and 'attacks' for show and to help make things easier for myself and the people I performed with." She admits, then ponders the rematch between Ash and Noriaki. "You guys sparing? I want to watch when that happens."

Ash grinned, "There is a diffrence between something truely friendly and..." Handwave, "Some of the thigns i've seen." He didn't want to bring up team skull's antics. He finished his pizza, "SPeaking of Mirage... You seen her? I hope she's alright." He sounded surprisingly not-angry at the idea he is now branded a criminal by asociation. "Anyway... I really do want help finding work that's less... murder-y." Beat, "I'm sure it doesn't help my social skills, and i really should branch out."

"That could be a useful talent for a lifeguard," Kakyoin comments, to the mention of controlling the water in such a way. "Do you have a top range for it?" He tilts his head a little -- the talk of fighting instincts gets him thoughtful. "I haven't really had much formal training myself. Hierophant Green rather demands I stay at range anyway." Oh, so it's not a close-range fighter? Granted that's something that could have been picked up at the time.

Ash's words of finding work (he doesn't know Mirage, and he doesn't know what went on, so he reserves comment there) gets a frown. "I should probably do that too. Odd jobs will only sustain an income for so long," he replies, honestly.