JJBA: The Chain

04 - Quest

Allison crawled out of bed as a feeling of soreness would nearly overwhelm her. The fighting from yesterday had left her with bruises, while also giving her an odd feeling of satisfaction. Any fight leading to her victory - whether or not it lead to the offender's death - always gave her confidence and happiness, though she couldn't help but feel curious after all of that. She wondered why Brut's stand suddenly retracted in the middle of its use, as well as how her coworkers and boss would even react to his corpse.

She glanced into the mirror. Her amber eyes would be shining, and she noticed her roots already showing a large and obvious blonde streak, along with a big bruise on her chin. She huffed before standing up and walking over to the desk across the room. 'I need to hide this shit.' She thought, reaching for her makeup box. The box would contain foundation, which she would then use to hide the bruise.

Before she could reach for her colored contacts, she heard a light knock at the door. "...One minute!" She shouted as she quickly scrambled to shove a random pair of contacts into her eyes, which were both a dull hazel color. Afterwards, she finally opened the door, only to be greeted by a familiar face.

"O-Oh." She muttered upon seeing Ellas outside her door, who then gave her a small, nervous smile. She was wearing a different skirt and pair of boots, both being completely black. Plastic Love was also in her hands, though it retracted at its user's sight of the other person.

Ellas looked away. "...Uh. Could we hang out today?" She asked shyly. Allison stared at her for a moment, thinking about all the possible excuses she could say to avoid the presence of this person. She sighed after realizing she had nothing else to do today. "Alright." She reluctantly replied. "What do you wanna do?"

The two would eventually find themselves at the local clothing store. Both of them were used to the shop being full of people, though today it seemed almost empty, aside from its staff.

"Hm..." Allison looked around. Her friend looked up at her and nodded. "Yeah. Weird, right?" Ellas said. "It's usually loaded by now... but I guess everyone's been unsettled because of what they found down at the gym this morning." She looked away and began scanning the aisles across the room. Allison attempted to avoid her words, and instead began walking towards a ramdom aisle. 'Yeah. Watch me get fired for that later.'

Ellas followed Allison into a discount shoe aisle. The shelves had several unsorted pairs of shoes, most of them not even being with the same shoe. Allison looked around anxiously. "...Uh. I think I should save a bit of money." She forced a pathetic chuckle out before grabbing a pair of black high heels, both not being the same size. "Oh. Well, I suppose you can manage to get something out of here, then." Ellas shrugged. "Maybe... maybe these would look nice?"

Allison looked over at the pair of boots the other had grabbed. They were the same kind of shoe, though with completely different colors. One was white, and the other was a deep shade of pink. "Maybe... maybe..." Her words trailed off at a light behind Ellas reflecting off of a distant stranger's glasses. Allison glared at them behind her, only to notice that said stranger was staring directly at her. The glasses were large and completely round. This person would be wearing a long teal coat, and was holding a small notepad and pen.

She tensed up. "Ah... let's look at other stuff, Ell." She gently grabbed Ellas' arm and lead her to another aisle after handing her the heels she had previously selected. Ellas would only grow concerned as she was walked into an area with even more discount clothing.

They approached a part of the store with several racks full of dresses and shirts, all unsorted with big tags hanging off of their sleeves. "Let's see if they have anything good here!" Allison would shakily say as she looked around again. It wouldn't take long before she dug into a round rack of shirts. "M-Maybe they have..."