Ranbu Escalation (PMMM/Gaim)

[X] ...She'll have to play his game. Madoka didn't even know what the threat was supposed to be, but if it was this bad...

It didn't take long to get to the fruit parlour where Sid usually met with Beat Riders. Drupers wasn't a big place, but if anything, that just made it better for the Lockseed dealer. Not many chances of him being overhead, or running into someone other than someone looking to buy Lockseeds.

Sid was sitting in his usual place, as Madoka and Sayaka took seats on the other side of the table. Hitomi and Homura stood behind them, due to a lack of seating. The room was cornered away from the rest of the fruit parlour, mostly hidden from view, and while someone could look in if they wanted to, it'd be fairly obvious that they were doing so. Sid had a suitcase next to his seat, and as Madoka and Sayaka sat down, he pulled some sort of Lockseed-like device out of his pocket. It didn't have any sort of fruit pictured on the front of it, and as he popped the lock on it, nothing emerged. He left it sitting on the table, and reclined back.

"What's that?" Sayaka asked, glaring at the Lockseed on the table. "You made a point of getting it, what for?"

"Don't worry about it." Sid shrugged, his eyes shifting upwards. Madoka followed his gaze, and noticed him staring at Homura, who seemed agitated, being in the same area as him.

Madoka didn't like it any more than Homura did. Sid was someone she hadn't thought about too much before, but he was being incredibly suspicious today, and was even threatening them with... Whatever was supposed to happen if his boss found out about the Strawberry Lockseed this early. Spending time around him now was something she'd rather not do, but Homura had clearly been freaked out by the implications of his threat, so she didn't have much choice.

"So..." Sid began, looking back down to Sayaka. Madoka shifted to look at the Lockseed Dealer, who was lazily playing with another Lockseed in one hand. "I don't suppose you understand the situation you've put me in with that Strawberry, do you?"

"Aren't we here to make a deal?" Sayaka shot back. "Do we really need to spend time talking about your problems-"

"You're familiar with the market plan of card games, right?" Sid asked, cutting her off. "You introduce the ruleset, some basic cards. Get money off of those. Wait for the best plans to come forward, wait until people figure out what cards they need and buy those before stopping. Then you introduce new stuff, better stuff. People buy that. You let the power creep set in a bit, and every time an old set stops making money, you make it obsolete. You get what I'm saying?"

"The Lockseed." Hitomi replied. "You're angry that we used it before you planned to sell it, aren't you?"

"Not so much angry." Sid replied. "Just disappointed. People aren't going to buy the next lot unless it's on par with what you've got. I could've delayed that for another month if you hadn't done that. You've really cut into my profit margin here. Not to mention all these Lockseeds between what you've got and what everyone else has. Nobody's gonna buy those now, so I've been left with dead weight."

"Just get to the point." Sayaka sighed. "We don't have a lot of money, so if that's what you want-"

"Nah." Sid shrugged. "I know better than to ask for what people can't afford. No profit to be made that way. But you've got to make it up to me somehow, don't you? Then I can help you out by not tattling. You scratch my back, I scratch yours."

"We were already here to make a freaking deal." Sayaka sighed, through gritted teeth. "Can you just stop being obtuse and tell us what you want so we can bargain already?"

"Alright, no need to get impatient." Sid said, as he leaned down with his free hand to open his suitcase. "There's a few different things I want, and I'm curious to see if you girls can get me any of it. So here's how this is gonna work. I'm going to tell you what you can do for me, and you can decide what you think is worth doing."

Pulling something out of his case, Sid put his hand in his pocket before he continued.

"The major thing you could do, is pass on some information." He said, his eyes shifting again. "I know some stuff, but not as much as I'd like. And since I've been hearing this rumour going around that your friend with the braids is a Magical Girl..."

Homura took a step back, and hearing the shift, Madoka spoke up.

"Just say what you want to know." Madoka spoke up, trying to follow Sayaka's example regarding pushing Sid along. "You can just say what you want to know and then we can talk about it, so-"

"That could be a bit difficult." Sid noted. "She's the Magical Girl, and she hasn't said a word since I've been around. Unless she's talked to you three a lot, I'm going to need the shy one to hurry up and speak up if she wants me to talk."

Sayaka and Madoka looked back at Homura, and the blue-haired girl sighed.

"Here, sit down." Sayaka began, as she stood. "Just..."

She trailed off, not sure where to go from there, and Madoka picked up from where Sayaka left off.

"It's going to be fine, Homura." Madoka assured her. "Just say what you can. I'm sure you can do it."

Homura looked at Madoka, then nodded slightly, sitting in Sayaka's spot in the process.

"Good, good." Sid noted. "Now, Magical Girl. Akemi, right?"

Homura nodded, nervously, and Sid smirked.

"Akemi, then." Sid continued. "So, I don't suppose you'd be willing to show me your Soul Gem?"

Homura grasped her hand, holding the fingers of one hand in the other, and Sid took note of her reaction.

"I guess not, then." Sid sighed.

"How much do you know about Magical Girls?" Madoka asked, distracting him from Homura for a moment. "Maybe we'd be able to know what to tell you easier if we knew what you knew."

Sid shrugged. "I'll be honest, I don't know that much myself. Magical Girls make contracts with something or other, get a Soul Gem to reflect their magical ability, need to hunt monsters to keep their magic."

Hunt monsters?

What monsters? Madoka hadn't heard anything about that before...

"Right now, I'm curious." Sid continued, as he pulled his hand out from his pocket and put it on the table. Opening his palm, he let the object within drop to the table.

"Do you mind telling me what this is?"

It was a small black orb, with some sort of metal-like cage thing around it, and a pin extending from the end. It seemed...

Just looking at it, Madoka got a bad feeling. Like it wasn't something she wanted to hold too close to her. It was a subtle feeling, but it was an odd one.

Homura's eyes widened, as she looked at it.

"That..." Homura stated, looking at it. "T-THat's a..."

Madoka reached over to put a hand on Homura's shoulder, hopefully reassuringly. Homura looked at Madoka for a moment, then looked back at Sid, trying to focus.

"...Grief Seed." Homura explained, trying to keep it brief, presumably so she could force herself to talk. "It's... M-Magical girls fight Witches. Witches leave b-behind Grief Seeds. Grief Seeds purify Soul Gems."

Sid raised an eyebrow.

"And how does that work?" He asked. "I would've thought this would be a battery. My boss does say it has some sort of energy in it, but we don't know what."

"...Using m-magic generates grief." Homura stammered out again. "They... Too much grief in the Soul Gem is... It's bad."

"So, are these one use then?" Sid asked, picking the Grief Seed up by the pin. "If Magical Girls need to hunt and get more then one?"

"...L-limited amount of Grief." Homura continued. "If a Grief Seed takes t-too much, they... The Witch comes back."

"Interesting..." Sid muses a bit more, pocketing the Grief Seed again. "But, these Witches, why don't people know about them? We know about Magical Girls, but we've never seen one fight a monster."

"...Labyrinths..." Homura muttered. "They... They hide. In... P-Pocket dimensions? I d-don't k-know, t-they're not in this world when they... Only a v-victim or M-Magical Girl can g-get in..."

Sid's expression changed, at that. Before, he had a vaguely curious, vaguely bored look about him. Now, though...

He seemed intrigued. As if what Homura had said was the most interesting thing in the world.

"Well, this is really interesting, now." Sid noted. "I don't suppose you know where there's any Labyrinths nearby?"

"...I could f-find one, if I... If I looked." Homura confirmed. "Why-"

"In that case." Sid continued, taking a moment to consider his words. "Perhaps you could do me a favour?"

Homura looked at Madoka, and the pink-haired girl quickly took over the exchange for her.

"What exactly are you asking from her?" Madoka asked. "That she find a monster for you know to show off? You..."

She wavered for a moment against Sid's bored look, and in that moment, the Lockseed Dealer took back the flow of the conversation.

"She needs to hunt these Witches anyway, doesn't she?" Sid asked. "I just want to watch. Take notes. Doesn't even have to be today, I don't mind waiting until tomorrow to have a look. And if you can do this for me, then I'll consider that a deal."

Hitomi cleared her throat. "The deal was in regards to information. We gave you information. You-"

"Didn't get all that much, really." Sid replied. "Nothing I can use. I want to see what this Labyrinth looks like. I want to see this Witch. Is that really too much for you?"

Homura looked at Hitomi for a moment, biting her lip, and looked down.

"Fine, then." Sid continued. "If you don't wanna do that, we can find another deal."

Holding up the Lockseed he had been playing with in his hand, Sid took a moment to look at it.

"Your Lockseed messed up the plan I had for the Lockseed power creep, you know." Sid reiterated. "But I can salvage it, maybe. I'm just going to need you to go on the offensive, jut right."

"...Explain." Sayaka demanded.

"I'm going to need you to keep it up for a while." Sid explained. "Visit the lower teams for a while. With a Lockseed like that, you could probably go around from stage to stage and just keep winning. Take them out so they lose their Lockseeds, they come to me to buy more. If I let that happen enough, they'll get desperate enough to pay a lot for better Lockseeds. I might be able to make more than what I would if you don't lend a hand."

"...We're not going to have time to dance, if we spend all our time going from stage to stage to engage in Inves battles." Hitomi noted.

Sid shrugged. "I don't really care about the dancing. You'll only need to keep it up for a while, at least. Once I get people buying better Lockseeds and wanting to make deals, I'll leave it at that and you'll be good."

"And then we stop winning contests again." Sayaka bit in, bitterly. "And then we don't get to dance again. Why would we agree to that?"

"It's not my fault if you're bad at your job." Sid replied.

"You..."

Hitomi put a hand on Sayaka's shoulder, and the blue-haired girl stepped back, to try and cool down.

"So, what'd'you say?" Sid asked.

...Madoka took a moment, to think about it.

On one hand, the thing about the Witches and Labyrinths... She was worried about it, to a degree. It sounded like something she didn't want to be involved with, and Sid being suspicious meant that she didn't want to be in that kind of situation either. Theoretically, Madoka could just stay outside while Homura and Sid dealt with it, but...

...Well, she was worried about Homura. She didn't want to leave her alone with Sid either. What if something happened to her?

But on the other hand, the other option didn't sound all that appealing either. Even discounting the points that Hitomi and Sayaka had brought up..

Oh, she was getting all hesitant even in her thoughts, now.

The point was, if the group just went around taking Lockseeds and fighting teams...

Even if Homura had said that they need more Lockseeds, that wasn't a good thing, was it? Going around with the intention of taking Lockseeds and stages away from people, the other Beat Riders wouldn't be that happy about it. Madoka was bad enough with people as it was, and even if she had been able to ignore that bit to put on a brave face for Homura, she wasn't sure she could take it if all the other Beat Riders hated her and her friends.

...Looking at Homura for a second, Madoka tried to think about what the better option was.

[X] ...They both seemed like bad deals. Maybe they should just forget about the deal.
[X] Homura needed to hunt Witches anyway. Maybe it would be better to get it out of the way..?
[X] Collecting Lockseeds had been part of the deal they were going to try anyway. Even if it made people hate them, maybe it was worth it...