What Stays In Vegas, Happens In Vegas (Muffin)

"Why are we here?" Tori held her chin up with the palm of her hand, pressing the manicure of her blue nailed, middle finger into her chin. Her eyes wandered over to Danny with enough of a glance to strain her eyes. The tension boredom bestowed upon them now looked blurry.

Already battling against impending boredom, Danny wanted to avoid any unnecessary mutinies. "We came here to investigate a street magician scamming casinos." The cushion of the chair gave way to the pressure of Danny's shoulders. "I think we've been over that plenty of times."

"She means 'why aren't we at the casino?'." A notion came from Tsukimi at Danny's side. A nod in agreement came from the flanking member of the party.

"If you two think you can come up with a better plan, I'd love to hear it." Danny lifted a beer to her lips and took a sip. "But, since neither of you will, we'll just stay here and continue watching the strip."

Tsukimi put her hand over Danny's beer after it returned to the bar. "We should canvas the street performers to see if any of them have anything more flashy than the others."

"Then we should try to see if any of the casinos that have been hit have any markings like matchbooks or anything and see if those things are present." Tori leaned over to take Danny's beer and slide it down.

"Okay." Danny put her hand on her chin. "Those are pretty good plans. Which one of you am I going with?"

Danny found herself on the street with Tsukimi, wearing a black skirt with pink boots and a bright blue shirt, her hair pulled back into a ponytail. "I think we should have tried to match."

Tsukimi, trying to pull two metal rings apart, wore a red and black shirt with clubs and spades on them with a black skirt and boots. "Play the video again. I think I almost got it."

"Magic really is a much different place now that Youtube can show you all of this stuff." Danny pressed replay and held it up for Danny to see. "And, pink and red are just really ugly together. One of us should change. I hope Tori is having more luck doing the thing she is doing at the casino."

Tsukimi and Danny remained brightly placed on the strip, trying to spot someone matching a very vague mark, oddly enough, unaware of anything else. The midday traffic kept the crowd to a more manageable level, but enough people stopped to oddly watch Tsukimi fail at magic enough to count as a spectacle. Taxis cut in and out of the flow of traffic, stopping to drop off and pick up while the casinos kept their daily flow maintained.

"Oh, you're supposed to use special rings." Tsukimi lowered them to her side. "I just found these rings."

The sun beat down upon them with less intensity of the tourist and the tourist's disdain and confusion. "Today might be tough, but if we keep trying, then after like three weeks or so, we could be pretty-"

"We're on a stakeout. This is not our job." Danny grabbed the rings, tossed them to the ground, then her eyes grew large. She looked down, rubbed her bracelet, and summoned up two turquoise rings. "Tah dah!" Holding a ring in each hand, Danny easily watched them slide apart. "Magic!"

The attention of the crowd phased over to the girl in pink boots.

"I wanted to be the magician." A dead set of eyes gazed upon Danny as the pink booted now magician spun around. "You said, you would be the assistant."

"We're pivoting." The street around Danny began to grow more crowded with turquoise constructs. One at the far end formed an ornate bullseye, perfect for the crossbow on Danny's arm crossbow. "Watch me shoot this crossbow!"

The bolt fired out from her arm, hitting the target. Whatever she thought would happen materialized in an odder way as one magic construct struck another magical construct. Instead of spitting the target, Danny merely watched as the bolt inserted itself in the target, joining as a protruding object.

An applause took a few seconds, but it finally came.

"Suzy..." Danny turned back to Tsukimi. "Go do assistant stuff."

A sigh dropped lower than Tsukimi's esteem in the past five minutes. "I think I can try the rings again."

"Ha." Danny literally said. "We're going to do the thing that is making attention. Hey, who knows, maybe in three weeks, we come back and we're the biggest-"

"We have a job to do!" The storm of a  Tsukimi walked by to frame the crossbow with her arms. "And, this isn't magic. It's super something or other."

"I fought a wizard who shot fireballs that hurt magic users, and I have a burn mark from it, so I'm pretty magic." Before Danny could fire her next bolt, she made sure to fire her smrk.

Danny listened to the applause and flashed a toothless smile to Tsukimi. "Oh wow, it's like nationals all over again."

Both of Tsukimi's lips bounced back and forth to press her crevices before her eyes formed a confused look. "Wait. Did you use that bracelet to win nationals? Can you talk to dead cheerleaders?" The conversation failed to pick up the any traction with the audience, and fell on deaf ears with Danny. The deafness sent a clear message to Tsukimi. "Dishonorable."

They still won and it did make Danny captain of Stanford's cheerleading squad.

"The trick?" Danny looked over to a newcomer. "A magician never reveals their secret."

"She uses her bracelet." Tsukimi stepped forward, seeing a lull. "Sometimes ghosts talk to her. Other times, it just does magic stuff."

"It's more than just that." A laugh dismissed Tsukimi, while looking over to Kotomi. "I use a special tie I have with the bracelet to help conjure what I'm needing. Some things can get in the way, but nothing special. Do you want me to make something for you?"

A magician never tells their secret? How cute. Kotomi slightly laughed, honestly the response was quite entertaining. For a moment Kotomi would accept the response, planning on letting it go, but then Danny's friend quickly jumped in and kind of instantly spilled the beans slightly which led to them talking more about it.

Kotomi raised her left eyebrow a little, confused by the two females in front of her, but at the same time she couldn't help but to smile at the foolishness of the two and the way they talked to each other. But, take what you can get right? Information was information no matter how you got it. From the sounds of things though it seemed like her power came from her bracelet. If she was separated from it would she lose her power? A theory to test out later.

Danny asked if Kotomi wanted something made for her, at first the idea of it was unappealing, she didn't need anything from this woman. However, it would be good to see her powers in action as often as possible so Kotomi shrugged and lifted her right hand from her side. "Sure, but lets keep it simple. Can you make me a stick, probably about 3ft long."

While in the midst of waiting though, Kotomi decided to drop her own act as just a mere spectator a bit. "So tell me, what is Sphinx the hero and her friend doing on the Las Vegas strip preforming magic?" She kept her voice kind of low, she didn't want anyone other than Danny and Tsukimi to hear her, drawing anymore attention wouldn't be ideal.

The conversation began to wane away at the attention of some of the spectators. Little by little, the crowd began to evaporate over to other performers or spectacles, all involving magic or metapowers- how many of which were not a trick still needed some investigation, but for the time being, Danny would soak up the attention.

A furrowed brow began to contort around Tsukimi's forehead as she held air in her cheeks and concern in her eyes- all of which never made their way to Danny's glow. Or was it just the beginnings of a sunburn?

"A stick?" A laugh emerged from a friendly smile drooping between two high cheeks. "I can do that!" With little to no effort, Danny rubbed her bracelet, and a three foot stick emerged with enough of a diameter to make it tangible, but thin enough to make it light weight.

"Great." Tsukimi moaned. "You are now arming people."

"With sticks?!" A cockeyed glare told Tsukimi to shut up. "If worse comes to worse, I just make it not appear anymore. Or, if someone takes it and tries to do something with it, I just turn it into some bindings and wrap them up. I have this covered."

Danny turned her head away from Tsukimi and back to Kotomi. "We're just here to enjoy the sites and sounds. Everything is so hectic, I need some time to enjoy the summer."

Kotomi's previously worn faded as her face became a bit more serious. Her hand slowly closed around the hard light stick, it was as long as it needed to be to qualify as a weapon although it was much thinner than what she was used to. "Simple, but neat. That's quite an ability you've got there."

Kotomi took the stick and grasped it with both hands, one on either end. She then proceeded to try to bend the stick to see how easily it would snap, when she saw that the stick would hardly even bend she began to gradually increase how much force she was applying. At a certain point she started to see that the effort was pointless and went back to holding the stick in one hand. "These things are damn strong, I bet you haven't ran into anyone that's proven to be much of a threat to you." Danny and her friend would continue to bicker among one another, freely giving more information about how Danny's power worked. The next problem would be finding a weakness, but it was unlikely that Danny would be foolish enough to let that just slip out.

When Kotomi had gotten an answer for why Danny was here she wasn't exactly sure whether to believe her or not. The woman wasn't giving any obvious tells as to suggest that she was lying, but at the same time that seemed like a pretty poor reason to come to Vegas. To be fair though, this wasn't exactly Kotomi's scene either. She held out the light stick that Danny had made, handing it back to her as she no longer needed it. "That explains why you came to Vegas, but that doesn't explain why you're standing on the street pretending to be a performer." Kotomi's once friendly demeanor quickly shifted into a sinister, piercing gaze that focused solely on Danny.

She would continue stare Danny down for a few more seconds, but before she or her friend had the chance to respond, Kotomi would laugh it off and bring her smile back. "I'm sorry, its a force of habit that comes with my job, your business is yours. I apologize if I caused y'all any trouble, I didn't mean to bore you audience away." She said as she looked back at the once decent sized crowd that had now shrunk. "I'll leave your to your devices, but thank you for entertaining me." With that, Kotomi would begin to turn around and walk off.

"Oh, something capable of breaking those?" Danny laughed and leaned forward.

Tsukimi's eyes grew larger than Danny's ego. "Clearly nothing."

"There was this one guy who threw grenades at them over and over again. Whenever he damaged it, I just rebuilt it. The, I got close-" A shield appeared around Danny's arm, followed by a downward swing. "And, then his day got a little worse. But, he was trying to burn down a museum. Kids like museums. Anyone who takes learning from kids can get a shield to the head." Danny softened her face. "He was fine. After physical therapy."

"Great. That was a great story and the only-"

"There was another guy-" Danny put her finger on her chin. "He had some weird magic from like goblins or something. That cut through the constructs and messed things up. Luckily he just left me handcuffed with tape over my mouth while he took some artifact."

"That was probably a dream." Tsukimi spoke through a sigh.

"It's super rare." Danny postured back up. "Almost never happens."

In the midst of her walking away, Kotomi stopped in absolute and utter shock. She never turned her head around to show Danny and her friend the face she was making, but it was one of absolute dumbfounded surprise. What level of intelligence does this woman actually have?

Kotomi gathered herself though and fixed her face. Danny was for sure an over-sharer, whether or not her story was real or just some sort of lewd fetish fever dream, the woman was very quick to talk about it without any shame.

Unfortunately though, if her story was real it meant that Kotomi had no real way of exploiting her weakness. Kotomi wasn't magic by any means, at least not that she knew of. On top of that, she also wasn't able to emit the force of a single grenade let alone multiple. She'd have to either land a very impressive, singular blow on her target, or some how get that bracelet away from her to separate Danny from her power.

Continuing to walk away, Kotomi waved goodbye to the hero and her friend. "Maybe I'll see you later on, after all I'll be here for a few days myself." Then Kotomi continued on until she was sure that she was out of the sight of the women.

Though she had left, Kotomi's observation of Danny had not ended at that point. Instead she decided to pick a new vantage point, a nearby balcony filled with people. It would provide her with a height advantage that allowed her to peer down on the fake magician and watch her every move, it also provided her with plenty of people to hide behind in case she were in danger of being spotted.

Danny watched as Kotomi left with a smile. It faded to a smirk. "What do you think her deal is?"

"Why did you say half the things you said?!" Keeping her voice to a lower pitch, Tsukimi still lambasted her question.

"The half that didn't mean anything was small talk. The other half was seeing what her interest is." Danny cracked her knuckles. "We needed leads. On someone with magic. Nothing better than feeding a story. She knows if she can use magic, she can incapacitate me- or from what I said in the story that is."

"This plan isn't smart." Tsukimi felt a vibration in her purse.

"It is aggressive, but not dumb." Danny watched to see which building Kotomi dipped into. "Is that Tori?"

Tsukimi returned the cell phone to her purse. "She got arrested."

"That might be a lead too." They did enough on the street for now. Time to head to the casino giving off Tori's locator.

It didn't take very long for Danny to start moving, from Kotomi's perspective all she could gather is that the hero and her friend were originally waiting on something. Before chasing after the two, Kotomi walked down to the shop below her. She purchased a black snapback hat with bold white letters that said "Las Vegas" across the front in deutsch gothic font, and a white bandana with an ace of spades pattern on it.

With a new hat on her head and the bandana hidden away in her pocket, Kotomi had resumed her pursuit of Danny, following her from a good 70 feet or so from behind. Luckily enough her attire stood out enough that Kotomi would have a hard time losing her and her friend.

Interestingly enough, the pair had gone into a casino. Were they looking to pick up their act and move it here? Impossible, they'd need to be booked for such an event and it'd probably be pretty well known if a semi-popular hero was preforming at a place like this. It was far more likely, at least in Kotomi's eyes, that she was here on some kind of a mission. Maybe she and her friend were hunting someone like some kind of hero-bounty hunter. In any case Kotomi entered into the casino after the two, she continued to keep a safe distance from the two, but not a distance far enough away that she would eventually lose her targets.

The heat drove along with Danny and Tsukimi on their trek from opera hall to casino front to massive hotels and back to oddly shaped casino. The duo stepped up, taking a small reprieve in the heat from a gentle breeze throwing some water over the walkway. They stepped through the palatial opening

A man with thin rim glasses looked down his nose at a cell phone."The casino says they aren't going to press charges against Victoria for trespassing."

"Good. I didn't do anything." Tori sat with her cheek against her fist.

Both of Tsukimi's hands rested in her lap. "Our friend says she did not do anything and that should be enough for you."

"She was looking around in an area that was marked 'Keep out'."

Danny piped in. "That sounds suspicious."

Her hand fell to the table while a head full of vibrant Tori shot up. "Right? I saw a guy with a mask dip in there."

"Our friend saw a suspicious man doing suspicious things in a suspicious area. We accept your apology by leaving." Tsukimi stood up and pretend buttoned an imaginary button.

"Well, no one is pressing charges and we can't hold you against your will because of federal law, so you can go and we are not apologizing."

"Apology accepted." Danny followed Tsukimi out while Tori pivoted and followed.

The trio sat on the outside of the casino, thinking of what they went over. Tori first. "I think that guy may have been a stage magician."

Danny looked over. "Did he have a badge?"

"Yeah." Words pushed through Tori's barely opened lips.

"Doesn't mean he isn't guilty." Tsukimi lamented.

While the three continued to go over past failures, they began to make their way back to the base of operations at their mid size hotel off the strip.

Kotomi followed behind the girls for a while, carefully choosing when to move and when to blend in with the crowd, as not to get noticed by the people she was effectively stalking. Her interest in their reason for being here only grew more and more, for people that were only interested in "enjoying the sights in the sounds" they sure seemed quite impatient as they hurried about. From casino, to hotel, to back to casino, Kotomi was just about to write her off as nothing more than an idiot with far too much free time.

Before deciding to walk away though, Danny and her friend had managed to run into a man at the casino. Looking to not be caught, Kotomi dipped of to the side and stood next to one of the poker tables. She took her long sleeve plaid shirt from around her waist and tossed it over her shirt while also using one of the larger men at the table as cover. She tried to make out what Danny and her friend were talking to the man about, but the distance was far too great and the casino was far too loud, all the same she was able to infer a little about what had happened when she saw Danny and Tsukimi gaining an additional member to their group. It would appear that this girl had been detained for being somewhere she was not suppose to be and now she was being released.

How suspicious. Normally those who come on vacation, especially women and especially in vegas, tend to stick together for safety, so why were one of the members not with the other two? Unimportant. It was getting late and they were headed back home, so as per usual, Kotomi decided to follow far behind them until they made it to their hotel. She herself didn't dare to enter behind them though, it would be far too risky. Luckily enough for her though, the group seemed to be located on the floor level of the hotel so watching them through the windows of the building was easy and allowed her to see exactly what room they went to. Kotomi had done her investigating as detective Amari for the day, now it was time for the White Owl to get some answers.

Kotomi stopped by yet another nearby store and bought a hoodie before returning back outside. She put on the new article of clothing, tied her bandana around the bottom half of her face, and pulled the hood over her hat to hide the top half of her face. Not her normal get up, but you make do with what you got.

The White Owl made her way to the building next door to the hotel Danny and her friends were staying at, picking up a discarded 1.5 inch thick pipe along the way. The building was another hotel that stood about 10 stories high and Kotomi wasted no time taking the stairs all the way to the top. From there she looked down and took a deep breath before jumping off. On lookers screamed in panic as Kotomi quickly descended rapidly, but as she hit the ground nothing happened, she didn't even make a thud with her impact. Instead she absorbed all the kinetic energy right before the moment of impact.

With her charge of kinetic energy, Kotomi bent down and unleashed all of it from beneath her feet and shot forward with the force of 12 sticks of dynamite simultaneously exploding, effectively sending her flying. She smashed through Danny's hotel room, destroying several walls on her way and filling the room with dust and debris from pulverized drywall and stone. She then took her improvised pipe weapon and swatted the air, knocking away enough of the dust to make herself visible. "Your friends should leave." She said with pipe leveled and pointing at Danny.

"You can't just roam around convicting people of being guilty." Danny tossed a bag on the bed. "So, do we just go back to the strip or do we have other bad courses of action to run through?"

Tsukimi started to make her way to the dresser. "Let's go grab-"

A concussive force akin to a bomb detonated. It lacked a distinct point of origin. From Danny's point on the ground, she could not tell if the bomb came from the road or from inside of her hotel room. The dust floating around definitely originated from the drywall, and the breeze must come from- "I can see the outside. Through about five rooms!"

Danny picked herself up off the ground, brushing dust from her magician's costume. Coughing came from Tori's general direction. Coughing never killed anyone. "Suzy?" She looked over to the bed. A body slumped into the bed at an awkward position, dropping Danny's stomach. A slight twitch, leading into the body extending an arm made her feel slightly better. "She's down and out, but still alive."

"I think we found our suspect." In between coughs, Tori managed to get out a line.

The dust began to part, giving Danny a view of her antagonist. "She found us."

A voice gave a command and a warning.

It took her a little longer, but Tori got to her feet. "I'm not leaving."

"You need to get Suzy somewhere safe." Danny looked over to the bed to see Tsukimi somewhat flailing.

"Um fun." In her plight, Tsukimi rolled over on a pillow, unable to get her face out.

Danny eyes crossed from Tsukimi back to Kotomi. "Sure thing."

A blade appeared on Danny's arm. "They don't want to leave, but we all want you to go. Since that probably isn't going to happen so quickly, maybe it's time to- wait, did you knock out any support beams?!" Danny tried to peak behind Kotomi. "If you did, I need to take care of that before dealing with you! I'll just knock you around- cool pipe by the way, and I feel like you really want me to complement your bandanna- but if this building collapses, we're all in for a bad time. Oh, and the people above us."

Turquoise supports would rise at every hole Danny could see, bracing them and keeping stable for the mean time. "Okay, so yeah, like, we're fighting now. You couldn't just message me? I get villains threatening me on Instagram all the time. Some of them turn out to just be basement dwellers, but it's the principle!" A shield appeared on Danny's left arm. "Now, first tell me why we're fighting, then maybe we can figure out a peaceful solution. If not, we're fighting!"