CHAPTER 21:

  As of 2025, the golden hall mall in Athens was sprawling. People from the surrounding area would go over to shop there

  Oftentimes, buying things out of desire, not need. Such did our heroes do this time

  While in the golden hall mall, Lana spoke, groggily

  “Ugh, this is a mess. Are we even sure we have the money for this?”

  From across her. Scylla and Charybdi were running around ok the concrete and shining floor

  The front plaza, before you would enter the upper scales, was mostly filled with benches

  There was a check counter to the far west of the front plaza, but that was only for needing assistance

  “Get your hopes up. I managed to scrape some dollars off my bank account”

  Haru said, whilst rubbing the back of his head with his hand

  “Much appreciated. Seriously, I need to get a job, I'm barely scraping, but”

  Sylvia sighed, her hands flailing in the air dramatically

  “This is so much fun!”

  Charybdi slid down the floor. It was not slippery, but it was smooth to glide on

  “Wait! Ugh! I can't reach you if you go that fast”

  Scylla, on the other hand, was flailing her whole body. She was trying to keep up with her sister, having never experienced this she barely managed to stay on her feet

  “Oh come on! It's very easy! Just let the floor do the work for you”

  Charybdi stopped sliding around. Annoyed, she stood up from the floor

  Making her way across to help her sister stand

  “Phew”

  Hearing that, Charybdi rolled her eyes

  “You need to toughen up. It's just a smooth floor”

  “Hmph, I don't care. I don't usually indulge in such activities, you know?”

  From afar. Haru moved his head to look at Preston. He was sitting on a nearby bench

  Drinking coffee. Oddly enough, he wasn't watching over the twins

  “Uhhh, are you doing this deliberately?”

  “No, it's a mall. It's our relaxing time, so nothing's threatening them”

  “Ha. You never know. We are a weird group, after all”

  Accidentally so

  While Haru and Preston were talking, Zoe knocked over Preston's coffee

  It spilled all over the bench and on the floor below

  “Oh no! Sorry! I didn't mean to, ahaha”

  Zoe said while trying to clean the coffee she had spilled

  “...”

  Preston was left speechless at the sight before him

  Meanwhile, Haru could barely contain his laughter

  “Kids these days, so noisy”

  Sylvia gave out a sigh, she grabbed a napkin from her pocket

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  The napkin in Zoe's hand was already completely wet

  “Need another one”

  “Uhhhhh, yeah, thanks”

  Zoe now moved more tentatively, her shaky hands got in the way

  “My coffee….Sasha, you owe me this one”

  “What? What did I have to do with any of this?”

  Her voice was half irritated and half unbothered

  “You should be watching over Zoe. Why didn't you do it now?”

  “You said it yourself. There isn't any danger here. There is no need for me to do so”

  Watching from the sidelines, Annabelle scrunched up her nostrils

  “Yikes, that's a mess to clean up”

  She took off her headphones for a second, resting them around her neck

  Near the incident, Sylvia glanced back

  (Are those my headphones?! Noisy children! Ughhh. At least they are not the expensive ones…)

  From there, they moved up to the second floor of the golden hall mall

  The second was the floor was even bigger than the entrance hall, much bigger, in fact

  You could probably fill multiple football fields in there

  On the second floor, where all the shops

  You could virtually find any brand that you wanted there

  This was just the second floor

  They were at least 2 more floors above this

  The golden hall mall as a whole was a construct of extreme sizes

  Possibly the second biggest shopping center in all of Greece

  So. They split up in multiple groups, and each group looked for the desired item

  Some wanted bags, others' food and fun, and others wanted collectibles

  Haru was currently with Annabelle and Lana

  The two were gossiping amongst themselves

  “You heard? They said that they were releasing a winter special, Louis Vuitton would never”

  “Seriously? A winter collection you say, do they have different colors for the handbags or entirely new handbag designs?”

  “From what I heard, they have a deal going on. For every designer bag that you buy, you get a makeup kit for free”

  Lana gasped loudly at the hushed words

  This was a pretty sweet deal. Considering the prices of things nowadays

  In the background, Haru was left leaning against the wall of the Balenciaga shop

  He sighed to himself

  (When does this shit end? And I thought my mom was bad while shopping…)

  “Have you guys picked anything?”

  “Shut up! We're having a serious discussion here”

  Lana puffed out her chest proudly

  Immediately, she went back to the chatter, only if it were gossip

  Annabelle and Lana went on to pick every single bag that was available to them, and some Balenciaga designer coats

  The total amount coming up to 7.000 thousand dollars

  Across the Balenciaga store, there was a Zara store

  Annabelle and Lana went on to style themselves even further

  Annabelle got her curly blonde hair tied back with her roots being done and the strands off the right side of her face falling over. Rather beautifully

  Lana went on to have the blond ends of her hair turn black, giving her an edgy aesthetic. At least, that was what she was hoping for

  From the side. Haru was left standing with the countless bags in his arms

  His pout petulant, like that of a child

  (I wish it would get paid for this…)

  Lana instructed him to leave the bags with Annebelle as she was doing her hair

  That was only the beginning of this mess, though

  Haru's eyes glazed over as Zoe was happily hopping around Sasha, who was in a chair. She was getting the black ends of hair turn blonde, she either stole the idea from Lana or ome told the other

  (Uhhhhh…)

  “Your hair will look so pretty! The blonde does really suit you. Who was it that came up with the idea?”

  “Shut up, and I'm not telling you, now stop moving around goddamnit!"

  A vein popped up on Sasha's forehead, she teeth clenched her teeth, her eyes widened

  At the sight. The hairdresser was left stunt, the brush in his hand nearly falling before he caught it with shaky palms

  “Hey! You better not drop it! I paid you for this”

  “Uh yes, of course…im so sorry miss”

  The hairdresser shaked his head up and down, and multiple sweat beads were exuded

  “Oh Sasha. Remember what we said, deep breaths now, deep breaths”

  She messaged her shoulders from behind the chair with her eyes closed

  Sasha shrieked in her chair. Her cheeks momentarily flailing up

  (You gotta be kidding me…we are supposed to be the 9 strongest on earth, and this is the shit that we do?...)

  Haru was left questioning his existence

  Well, he didn't have anything else to do here, so he moved on. Already regretting his decision

  In the kids section in one of the numerous stores, this one was off brand, were Charybdi, Scylla, and Preston

  When Haru entered, he wasn't surprised this time. Like at all

  Charybdi had already managed to turn the shop into a mess

  The employees of the store were running up and down

  Some tried to put out the fire that was running rampant while others evacuated the other customers

  Preston nudged Scylla

  “You gonna do something?”

  “I suppose”

  She tapped her fingers twice

  Without any clouds or a sprinkler system. Rain started to pour from the ceiling

  The fire was stopped. Whatever remained was soaked in water

  “You party pooper”

  Charybdi stuck out her tongue to her side

  Which prompted Scylla to lightly pull on it with 2 fingers

  “Ahhh! How dare you, sis!”

  “Next time you pull crap like this, I'm gonna use a blizzard”

  “You wouldn't!”

  “Guys calm down. There's always the calm way to settle things, with a fuel to the death”

  Haru spat out his imaginary tea as his head whipped forth

  “Preston what the hell!”

  “Sorry…the joke worked better in my head”

  “Please, don't make a joker ever again”

  Scylla said while looking up at Preston. Unblinking

  “You two are really the sisters from heaven and hell”

  (Seriously? Why do I even keep having these internal monologues? What a drag…)

  On the flipside of the 1st floor of the golden hall mall where Garcia Matthew and Sylvia

  Instead of browsing for anything new, they were debating about furniture and color saturation

  “I told you already, open green is gonna look more ascetic in the living room than red”

  “I concede to that point, but what if we paired it up with some black furniture? Now that'd be sick”

  Garcia scratched the underside of his chin, pulling on the strands of facial hair

  “I don't know… I like both options, I would personally suggest purple, it's not aggressive or passive”

  “Ho! Nice choice, true, though. Purple is a shade you almost never consider”

  Sylvia responded while adjusting her glasses. She looked like a fascinated scientist, somebody tell her that it was just colors…

  (This is the calmest store so far…should I intervene? Nah, this is too good for my own sake)

  Haru scratched the back of his head and whistled. He turned back with his hands in his pockets

  The three of them, the elf, the seater, and the historian, continued to have their debate

  Ultimately, they agreed that they should pick other colors for the kitchen and hallway, everyone won…

  A camera outside the store moved suspiciously, a dot in the corner of its lenses shined bright red

  Haru noticed the dot on his white shirt. He moved his hand to cover it

  “Huh?”

  He furrowed his eyebrows and turned around to look

  No one was aiming a gun at him or anything

  So where was the red dot coming from?

  (Strange…maybe it was a machine that targeted me?...)

  Before Haru could realize it, the camera that was pointing at him turned off

  The head of the camera high up in the wall slumped down as its electricity was cut off

  Almost like someone pulling a plug

  “Well, whatever…i better get going, I need to help Annabelle with the bags anyways”

  He unknowingly continued walking towards the direction of the Balenciaga store

  For now, the one who was behind the camera act got away with it. For unknown reasons, the culprit chose to remain hidden. It's unclear if it was a warning or not

  Having paid, Sylvia slumped her shoulders. 10 thousand euros down the drain

  It wasn't just the designer coats and the messy that Charybdi made

  It was also the fact that all kinds of accessories and clothes were bought by the others

  Such as expensive jewelry, blouses, dresses, summer, winter, spring and autumn clothes. Things like that

  Even Lana got her hair done. The end of her blonde hair now Black

  It looked like her credit card was wailing along with her

  Due to this. Matthew had to physically teleport her back with others to base

  Everyone relaxed for a short while, each showing off what they got at the mall, either various reactions

  From the fireplace, a thought still lingered on Haru's mind

  (Why specifically me? Was it a message, maybe? A warning?...I can't know if it doesn't happen, or at least, if something similar to that doesn't happen again…)