Jenneva responded with a sly smile before she clapped her hands together. A puff of flame erupted from her palms, extending outwards to create two flaming blades. "My realm is with all things fire," she stated. Her performance was interrupted by a scream of hanger, and a gout of flame instinctively shot towards the man, encircling but not harming him. "Friend or foe?" she called out. "I suggest friend."

The lahmia looked around and talked to the snake. "Poison, huh? Well, you're luckier than me." She continued stroking it, before realising an answer was needed. "Oh, uh, I'm like, really, really, really fast, and I can wrap around people. Plus, I can get into places you wouldn't expect I could manage to fit into with my size."

She looked up at the roaring man, before shouting "SAXTOOOOONN HAAAAAAALE" back at him, giggling loudly.

Junko seemed to have acquired a pair of glasses and a smart looking ponytail. Perhaps being a quick-change artists was just one of the things that made her the "Ultimate" fashionista. She jotted down in her notepad:

-Junko, Leader, Merchant

-Mecha, Sturdy, Tank Possible NPC, could even be a raid boss!

-Harbinger of Ferocity, Astral abilities, Shaman

-Snek, Cute and Toxic (deceptive), Assassin

-Hangry man, Hangry, Berzerker or possible NPC

-Jenneva, Pyromaniac, Mage

-lahmia, Fast and Cunning, Rouge

Junko flipped her notepad shut and started to speak in an analytical tone. "After inspecting the party's skill set, I believe we lack a proper healer, as well as any sort of front line defense. I have also surmised that communication with the mecha appears to be fruitless, as it doesn't respond to any of our hails. Even when we offer to cooperate. It may need to be destroyed. Befriending the hangry man would be in our interests, as he would round out the party's low defense and high DPS."

"In honesty, I have not an idea of what it is you are speaking to or on..." The whiskered lips slowed for a moment as the rest of the body recalled the ever changing woman's name, "Junko."

The yelling forth and now back had the enormous beast's attention throughout, even when he had spoken, but was slightly more skeptical of the pale serpent of which had mutually discovered them rather than the long, angered shout. There was no shortage of, for lack of better words, unusual exceptions to the rule here at a school of all places, but that struck most deeply that the appearances of things were deceiving. The flame-kissed mage was a safe assumption, as was the naga-like entity, but a few others were unexpected. Little did the sabertooth know however, just how their reception was received, instead left to continue on, albeit at what still felt as a fair and safe ways away.

"Are you suggesting we contend with the machine?"

Junko removed her glasses with a sigh. "Right, no opposing digits. You probably don't play many MMOs." The fashionista folded her arms. "Yea, I'm totally talking about fighting that machine. If it's going to open fire on us, might as well be while we're tearing it's guns off right?" The corners of her lips curled into a smile. "I mean, I know it's bigger than we are. It's unlikely everyone would survive the conflict. But this thing showing up in front of a school CAN'T be legal can it?" Junko turned her entire body towards the feline. "You're the Harbinger of Ferocity right? Maybe it's time you started living up to that name."

"I just want to die."

-Sleeth 2017

"I am not so easily fooled, Junko." The great cat said, looking her over as she drew in with added skepticism, of which followed in manifestation the next time he spoke, "On what grounds are you suggesting we fight this machine? Thus far you seem convinced it intends to do us harm, but that I doubt; anything called a 'bondsman' means either it intends to enslave or indebt us, which it can try and fail miserably, or it intends for us to assist it under the guise of a quest that requires an oath of bonding."

First it gestured to her, a single index digit outstretched and pointing before sweeping onward and upward toward the gigantic mecha and splaying wide to emphasize just what the golden, striped beast was referring to. For as large as the Harbinger of Ferocity was, bigger than any extant cat, the metal leviathan before their small and ever increasingly odd entourage still towered over them. Not that the threat of death she mentioned had any weight of deterrence to the feline figure, just that her point was questionable.

Junko gave the cat an amused chuckle before setting her glasses on the bridge of her nose again. "It is pointing artillery at us, which makes the dictionary definition of the word bondsman I'm most familiar with seem appropriate. But it hasn't attacked us yet, so you may be correct." She adjusted her frames. "While I am a popular teen idol, I would like to remind you that English is not my first language, and I haven't graduated high school yet. So it is unfair for you to assume that I'm trying to fool anyone. I've been very forthcoming with my name and title. You are the suspicious one, withholding your true name while giving me your mantle instead." The fashionista lifted her finger into the air, as if to silence further comments. "Regardless, you are the party's shaman. You are a sort of spiritual leader, so I will defer to your judgement... This time.

When Junko turned to face the large robot, she was wearing a crown instead of glasses. "If it is coin you are after, your queen's coffers are loaded to the brim! All you need to do is assist me with my quest, and riches shall be yours!" The "queen" looked at her notepad again. "Are you capable of such tasks like walking me to rehearsals and the local market? The vagrants around these parts can be MOST unsavory, and your company on such a quest would be valued."

"Wait, you're a world famous fashionista and you haven't graduated high school? That makes no sense..." The naga frowned. "I vote not attacking the big guy. He has guns that I don't want pointed at me pointed at me. Plus warm engine segments are super nice to bask on, isn't that right little buddy... Hey, what's your name exactly?" The last sentence was reserved for the snake currently in her arms, of course.

"If I could interject~" Jenneva stepped forward, the tendrils of flame wrapping around her like snakes coiling around their prey. "This mechanical monstrosity has done nothing in the time I followed it except step on a handful of flowers. If that is cause for preemptive elimination, I suppose we should all be ready to give up our lives. I know I've done a lot worse things to flowers than simply step on them."

"Uh..." the loudspeaker clicked a few times. "No guarantees about not stepping on these 'rehearsals', but if you can get me a new ERPPC, we have a deal." The mech turned slightly in the naga's direction. "Make an ill move, spheroid, and prepare to be eradicated."

"Not everything has a name as you know it or understand it, Junko."

The felid's attention moved away for a moment, becoming more distant and aloof. This was to be expected of any cat, particularly the larger sorts and one seeming to have some semblance of mortal cunning and intellect. Regardless, the cupped ears remained forward, still managing to listen as she carried on about his mystical tendencies, of which he was none to keen to reveal. There was a time and place for everything and that was not here, at least not now.

"I assume it is pointing its arms at us in the same way you would a hand, which in of itself is a weapon - or just as the mage does with her flames. No less, it is probably a gesture." A smile cracked at it jowls as it then looked to Junko from the corner of its golden eyes, almost toying with the notion it did not fear the injury or death that was the tremendous barrels.

The attention moved from there to the red woman wreathed in flames, the serpent and that one smaller it held, then back again to the machine.

"So, construct, just what is this object you refer to? What purpose has it?"

A click from the cockpit and booming voice. "Spheroids, the stravag space-mongrels, schooled only in dishonor, incompetent machines and poor combat."

The smol snek emiited an echoing shreak back at da hangry man, before snaping their head back at the others, pupils now in slivers. "Hissssss.... the snek beconed them to follow it to a stash of weapons they found before.

"You've still yet to define just what a 'spheroid' is, construct. Let alone what this new item you seek happens to be or what role it fulfills." The rumbling words replied in answer.

"Begin with the who and what as we might be inquiring forever without it."

The beast finished, the expression it produced subtly changed by the withdrawing of its ears sleek to its furred head and the flicking of its short, bobbed tail moving from one side of its hindquarter to the other. One did not need to be an expert in the unspoken words of animals, but it did appear it was growing tired of repeating the same inquiry in multiple ways. Such perceptiveness would hold true, for the elegant, striped beast longed for some sort of answer, even if it were vague to require going on a venture all its own for more.

"I believe, Mighty Feline, that these spheroids might be some human enemies of this Mecha, or perhaps alien." Jenneva turned to the Harbinger and doused her flames with a flick of the wrist as she approached. "Perhaps we should find adventure that does not involve the destruction of hopefully innocent machinery or its pilot." She extended her hand towards the cat reaching upwards towards its great mane. "Might I? I have not seen a beast so magnificent in eons. If I were allowed to run my fingers through your mane, perhaps to scratch your ears, it would bring me great joy."

Accepting the contact without further word in reply, the ancient being permitted the touch, allowing the wise caution of the woman's hesitation to speak for her. The gesture of so much as moving a hand toward the face of a cat was a symbol of threat and not taken lightly, one of many reasons man often fared poorly with them, yet the allowance of such a motion was a symbol of willing trust. It only gave its answer after the handling of its short mane and ears.

"As I reasoned they might be living things, but there are many of those and such a broad assumption could mean anything."

All of the fashionista's accessories had vanished. "You may be right, Harbinger." Referring to his assessment of the robot's guns. It was hard to tell if her lingering smile was sincere or not.

Junk rolled her eyes at the naga. "Well yea, it doesn't make sense for normal high school students to be this popular. But I'm a special case. Ultimate isn't just a name for show, I really am the best at what I do. Not to brag, but everything is pretty effortless for me. I'm pretty much the perfect human being. Perfect looks, perfect body, perfect mind, I guess that's why I find so many things... boring..." She let out a girlish giggle. "Kidding, kidding! I just come from a rich family. It's easy to get a good start when you have money."

Junko flipped open her phone and ran a google search on ERPPC. "Ummm, don't see any on amazon. I'm sure we could work something out. I know a guy who knows a guy." She flipped the phone shut again. "I would like to know your name though, pilot."

The fashionista looked at the snake. was it possible that she was able to understand it too? Or was her mind playing tricks on her? "Weapons? I have no use for them. I'd break one of my nails if I tried to handle a weapon."

"Arms and armor might be of use, but we have still yet to find ourselves made knowledgeable on just what a 'sphereoid' is or why it poses anyone, let alone an animate golem of metal, a threat."

A voice of reason made itself known and the difficulties in even facing a threat that had no foundation; how does one fight that which they do not know? It was a simple premise, one none too foreign to those of old. It seemed now in this new era that the prospect of conflict was perhaps more swift to rouse than to not. Not that a carnivore such as the great beast opposed this natural competition, but if it were to be had, it needed purpose; the hungry did not hunt for their amusement after all.