In short order, and despite his initial intentions, Lucas cedes the lead over to Mark. Between Mark’s superior knowledge and experience, it would be foolish not to, and Lucas’s enhanced proprioception aids in his role as the follower enough to compensate for some of the performative ability gap between himself and Mark.

Not that something being too foolish has necessarily stopped Lucas all that often in the past, if ever.

Jonathan manages quite a few decent pictures between the dancing duo and the prodigal pair, and even sneaks in a few candid shots of Mikah, Miss Masher, Miss Chievous, and 23. Apparently, at some unknown point, Dan has wandered off again while no one was paying attention.

One photo that stands out, in particular, is of Miss Chievous with a rather pensive expression, watching the gamboling guys but clearly not paying all that much attention to them.

By the time Josephine finishes her first, decidedly excellent, song, she had already noticed the rather obvious movements of the frolicking fools. Getting into the spirit of things, she smoothly transitions into a lively, far more dance-appropriate song.

While Miss Calculated had been utterly transfixed through the first piece, she thaws a bit with the energetic follow-up. Not that she isn’t still enthralled, it’s just that now she’s tapping a foot along and has an amused smile while watching the dancing dorks, instead of giving her undivided attention to Josephine.

Partway through the second song, Mark is slowly introducing successively more and more complex moves. He had realized that Lucas is keeping up as long as he has a moment to figure it out first, and once he’s done a move right once, he’s able to smoothly repeat it.

As a culmination of their escalating performance progress, Mark can’t resist executing a basic salsa-style dip in time with the finale of the second song, supporting Lucas as holds his upper body mostly parallel with the ground beneath him. Lucas cracks up laughing and even lifts his left leg up to go along with the position, earning a significant amount of laughter from everyone watching.

Jonathan not only starts rapidly snapping photos as fast as the phone can keep up, but he’s also darting around at super speed to get a wide variety of angles before they end the pose, which only makes everyone laugh even harder.

Josephine even chuckles a few times, pausing before performing another piece. Taking a moment to look at the open doorway of the front of MF’s, as well as scanning over the visible parts of the sidewalk through the glass walls, she seems to determine that she has time for at least one more song.

Once Mark guides Lucas back upright, Lucas laughs again and takes off his jacket, tossing it at 23 who reacts quickly enough to smoothly catch it.

“Hey, hey, now that we’re warmed up, I get to lead one, yeah? Heh, I remember how ta dance better than I thought.” Lucas cracks a toothy grin once he’s done asking, looking directly at Mark.

“Ha! Sure, why not? I must admit, I’m a little surprised. I hadn’t expected that you’d actually already know several formal dance styles.” Mark doesn’t even try to hide the surprise and amusement in his voice, reaching out for a hold appropriate for the role change.

“Heheh, surprising, right? A buddy of mine convinced me to take night classes for ballroom dancing with him ages ago as a way to pick up chicks. And no, the irony of right now isn’t lost on me. But, well, he was right, to be honest. One girlie in particular became my regular partner, she even got me to take a couple of other dance classes with her afterward, too.” As Lucas is saying this in a lighthearted tone, he accepts Mark’s hold, and starts getting a feel for the new tune Josephine has begun playing.

Mark lifts one of his eyebrows and makes an amused “Oho?” full of understanding. Seeing that Lucas doesn’t seem to be about to elaborate, he goes on to directly ask “And just where is she now? You were making it sound like you’re single earlier.”

“Eh? Yeah. We just fooled around every once in a while, but it wasn’t like it was anythin’ all that serious. Hell, it was basically a lifetime ago since I last saw her.” As Lucas dismissively admits how oblivious he is, all three of the sisters facepalm, as well as Mikah. After a slight delay, Mikah has begun struggling to hold back laughter as well.

Mark snorts out a brief bit of laughter, but otherwise doesn’t harp on it any further. Besides, Josephine apparently decided that swing sounded like a good idea, so he’s a bit too occupied to concern himself with Lucas’s relationship history, and the denials thereof.

Once the dancing duo has gotten back into the swing of things, Jonathan found an angle he’s satisfied with, and is more or less staying in place as he continues taking shots of their frolicking about.

Miss Chievous decides that there aren’t enough shots of Jonathan himself, and he’s been obviously avoiding them as much as he can, so she goes to take matters into her own hands. Upon activating her powers while no one is paying any attention to her, she sneaks over and taps on the rear-facing camera right before Jonathan takes the next picture. Knowing that staying invisible won’t give her any additional opportunities of this sort, she just drops her power, turning the picture into a shot of both of them.

Jonathan is, as expected, surprised. Before he can manage to fix the camera setting, she even taps for a few more shots before he finally gets the phone away from her.

“You’re not allowed to delete them! Don’t think I didn’t notice you taking pictures of everyone, you need some candid shots too!” As Miss Chievous makes this request, she is still flailing about, trying to reach for the phone again.

“Fine! Fine! Just stop!” Upon Jonathan shouting out his agreement, Miss Chievous does actually oblige him and backs off. As she goes to step away, he turns to snap a shot of her, as if this counterattack would somehow bother her. Instead, she sharply turns back around and sticks her tongue out at him, and he, of course, returns the gesture.

While Lucas had taken a bit of time to get acclimated at first, he and Mark have actually been cooperating rather well. Mark does need to concentrate a bit, though, as he’s clearly not used to following.

Roughly halfway through this third song, a young man in his late teens gets out of a black sedan that has just double-parked in front of the store. Hastily locking the car behind him, he hustles up the steps to head into MF’s Fashion Boutique. Dressed in a fitted blue plaid button-up shirt with khaki pants, he does appear to be part of the normal clientele.

Without even needing to look around, he heads straight towards Josephine. Given the fact that he has the same smooth inky black hair, fair skin, clear blue eyes, overall lithe build, and the unfortunate fact that he is short for his age, it isn’t much of a stretch of the imagination to realize that they are related.

He is effectively silent throughout his journey over. Once nearby, he stops a few feet away from her, but he is making no efforts to catch her attention. Despite the prominent earplugs he has in place, he is bobbing his head along to the rhythm of her performance, tapping a foot as well once he’s stopped walking.

He is being so quiet, in fact, that none of the other people present even realize he’s there.

-----

Lucas total kills: 7

Lucas total deaths: 11

Lucas total assists: 1

Lucas current GDV: 17.18

Lucas's fame level: 5.0* (Already beginning to receive authentic global attention. His local levels are effectively maxed.)

Lucas's hero suspicion level: 2.5* (More than just passing suspicion for many paranoid individuals, numerous people have realized he's an impulsive idiot.)

Jonathan total kills: 7

Jonathan total deaths: 2

Jonathan current GDV: 5.96

Jonathan's fame level: 2.75* (What fame he does have is predominantly local.)

Jonathan's hero suspicion level: 3.0* (More than just overly-paranoid people are suspicious at this point.)

Willy's fame level: 1.5* (Anonymous meme fame, local fame primarily as 'Xenoclast's dog', but some strangers know him as William/Willy now.)

Supervillain social circle size: 15

-----

Little character theater:

Jonathan has his guard up against any repeat offenses on Miss Chievous’s part, but otherwise has mostly gone back to actively providing photo evidence for Lucas’s performance with Mark.

The three animal tangle is merrily snoozing through all these ongoing events.

Lucas is having much more fun than he’d openly admit.

427 had instantly honed in on the new arrival, bringing up what data he has available, and relaxing right away upon reading confirmation that he is effectively harmless: ‘...Heh. Makes sense, I suppose.’

Author, flashing a toothy grin: You guys are lucky that it’s been a while since I watched Ballroom e Youkoso, or I probably would have been compelled to get technical with their dancing. Or maybe unlucky, perhaps you would have been into it, heh. I’m still debating if I wanna do a proper pool volleyball mini-arc, thanks to being a fan of Haikyu!!

Mr. Quacks, nestled in amongst the feathers and fur of the animal nap pile, but alertly side-eyeing the newly arrived male, intentionally softening his… voice? Whatever, he’s quiet so as not to disturb his companions: Quack.