Once Mikah is satisfied with the amount of affection granted to Willy, he stands upright, his back still turned to Clarissa. Loudly clearing his throat to make sure he has Lucas's attention, he opens up the folder holding an extensive deforestation project covered in ink and brightly colored markings.

When he notices he has Lucas's attention, he uses his eyes to indicate Clarissa's direction, then Miss Masher's as well, before finally speaking up.

"Well, with greetings out of the way, I do actually have work to attend to. Additionally, my boss and I decided we would streamline a few things, and take care of them while you're here as well." Lucas can't ignore the fact that Mikah put such emphasis on not saying Mark's name. Nor the fact he made a point of indicating the streaming fangirl as well as the oblivious oaf girl beforehand. With all of this taken into account, Lucas puts two and two together to realize he should actually resist the urge to call Mark, well, Mark.

"Oh, how considerate of you and YOUR BOSS. Uh, I guess it has to do with, er, our talks about a potential HQ location?" While Mikah had made some degree of effort to be subtle, Lucas on the other hand is beyond being concerned with such petty concepts such as tact. He should be glad he didn't just outright call him Mark.

Jonathan stifles a brief laugh at Lucas's heavy-handedness, and Mikah does snort out a short laugh along with him.

Miss Masher is, as one would speculate, confused. However, she isn't actually oblivious, she was merely uninformed. Noticing their bizarre efforts at covering Mark's name, she looks around and finally notices that Clarissa is holding her phone up, pointed at them in such a way that she is definitely recording them.

Confused anew by the fact that the others seem aware, yet haven't done anything about it, Miss Masher wrinkles her brow in thought for a few moments. Even if they weren't going to resort to violence to stop her, surely they could have asked her to stop if they wanted to discuss things they didn't want to be recorded. Also, she can't help but wonder yet again; just who IS Mark?

Willy, being amused by their various antics and efforts at subterfuge, has pieced enough information together to know who they're talking about. Even though he slept through most of the phone call, he understands that Dan is Black Ash Snow from their previous conversations and that Mark's business is close to Faunahorde. Adding in an entire floor's worth of 'promotional materials', as well as their apparent level of influence, he's been able to speculate that Mark is Mind Flare. Knowing this, he's been sorely tempted to try to communicate this fact via the mini Mind Flare chew toy, but has decided against it. He'll play along with hiding this information, they all seem to have their reasons for behaving this way.

"Ah, yes, but that's not all. Here. Here. Heeere. Aaand, here." Grabbing handfuls of paper, Mikah keeps handing a small stapled bundle over to Lucas every time he said 'here'.

Now holding several documents, full of more than their fair share of legalese, initials, and signatures, Lucas just stares down at them dumbly for a few seconds.

"Uhhh, all of this is..?" Lucas looks back up to make eye contact with Mikah while asking this. He hands the largest stapled bundle over to Jonathan, keeping the three much smaller ones for himself. This may or may not be related to the fact that all three little piles together are still less than the one big bundle.

"Well, Jonathan is holding the rental paperwork. What you have is alliance agreement paperwork from my boss, the boss across the street, and also the boss of a certain organization you recently interacted with. It was made significantly more complicated by the fact we didn't actually know what name you were going to go with, so we had to fill out other additional forms to give explicit consent for you to fill in the name yourself, eligible for just this one instance, etcetera, etcetera. Oh, as well as temporarily granting me the authority to finalize the forms in all of their places, as you can't just turn it in alone. All of them actually showing up themselves would be an incredible feat, haha." As Mikah explains to an even greater degree than would have necessarily been needed were 427 able to chime in, Lucas is stuck staring at the paperwork for a few moments.

Thoroughly impressed, Miss Masher lets out a wolf whistle once Mikah finishes speaking.

"Three alliances all at once, right out the gate, huh? Oh, we should too then! I'll tell Calc." Immediately wanting to join in as well, Miss Masher pulls out her phone, which is shielded in a similar max-thickness nanogel case with a picture of a dumbbell on it. Typing away for a few seconds, she informs Calc of the alliance agreements, as well as asking to do their own.

Jonathan realized right away that the hell of legalese had, in fact, not ended. Diligently beginning to chew his way through the documentation, it is actually rather straightforward. It has all of the typical building rental agreements, and there isn't even a clause against pets. There are even listed conditions for doing construction within the floor, the strict prohibitions are generally against destruction, both on the floor listed as well as the rest of the building. But only that specific building.

Seems a potential indoor pool isn't out of the question, it will just require an additional form of consent from the owner. Considering how quick he was to willingly share the existing amenities, there's a good chance it will be approved, at the cost of shared access.

One thing that hadn't been discussed at all, but is clearly written on the form, is which floor number it is. While Jonathan has no opinion one way or another regarding the number, Lucas certainly will once he sees it; 13.

After the few brief moments of Lucas stiffly standing in place, he blinks a few times then looks back up at Mikah once again.

"Oh, uh, thank you. I'm not quite sure what to say, this was certainly unexpected. Though I probably should get started on mine before worrying about this?" Opting for procrastination in regards to the gift, Lucas stuffs the paperwork into Jonathan's hands before heading over to the service bot to finally begin his own share.

Before Mikah has a chance to wander over to one of the other service bots for his own affairs, Jonathan speaks up while looking at one of the later pages of the rental agreement.

"Wa-wait. Um, sin... Since I'm one of the, um, since I'm the second in command, does that... Does that mean I could be the one to sign this?" Given his extremely hopeful tone, Jonathan clearly wants to be the one to fill it out.

"Ah, hmm... Normally, I would say yes, but I believe as a minor you would need an additional signature from an authorized guardian." Mikah is lost in thought for a few seconds before answering, Jonathan slouches a bit from the answer.

"Oh, th-then that'd just be d... Um, Lucas any-anyway." Jonathan ends up shyly locking up before managing to say the weighty 'd' word once again. Noticing his reaction, as well as some other secretly audible information, Mikah smiles brightly at him.

"Oh! Congratulations. Do you mind if I tell M... Ahem, my boss what happened? Unless of course, you'd rather do so yourself, or to just not talk about it at all." Hearing Mikah's congratulations, Jonathan has a genuinely happy smile.

"Hehe, thanks. You can, um, t-tell him if-if you want. It's Okay." Giving his consent, Jonathan hands over the rights to a piece of gossip for Mark to delight in chatting about. Which he will. A lot.

-----

Lucas kills this chapter: 0

Lucas total kills: 7

Lucas deaths this chapter: 0

Lucas total deaths: 10

Lucas current GDV: 9.06 (+.01 +.01 +.01 = +.03 net change)

Lucas's fame level: 2.75* (Mostly just local)

Lucas's hero suspicion level: 1.5* (Only highly paranoid people)

Jonathan kills this chapter: 0

Jonathan total kills: 5

Jonathan deaths this chapter: 0

Jonathan total deaths: 2

Jonathan current GDV: 2.03 (+.01 +.01 = +.02 net change)

Jonathan's fame level: 1.75* (Just local)

Jonathan's hero suspicion level: 1* (Only highly paranoid people)

Supervillain social circle size: 11

-----

Little character theater:

Jonathan, a little disappointed he can't formally fill out the paperwork for the rental agreement: In just a few years I can, at-at least!

Willy, lying down a bit to the side, out of the way, near Lucas's new position at one of the service bot service counters. While he's purposely chewing the Mind Flare doll he's looking straight at Mikah, hoping to make eye contact: Bark!

Lucas, dreading the amount of paperwork he's about to have to do the old-fashioned way under Mikah's supervision: It's too much! Yamete kudasai!

427, pleasantly surprised by the surge of alliance agreements, now experiencing a new form of difficulty in staying quiet; resisting the urge to explain just how big of a deal it is to Lucas: [..!]

Author, sighing softly: Well, at least everyone wised up about oversharing on the internet.

Mr. Quacks, diligently flooding the stream's chat with rubber duckies whenever someone says something that is potentially problematic for his, er, their organization: Quack!