Halt Criminal Scum (CLOSED)

Each of their reactions produced an equal amount of personal intrigue for Sterling, who almost never went out of his way to interact with the general public. No matter what came from their mouths or how it was presented, they all shared one thing in common: they were, without a doubt, the worst liars that Sterling Midas had ever laid eyes on.

For starters, neither of those cards were truly rare. Hell, he had eight copies of Behemoth sitting in another portfolio back home. That all of them were willing to submit positive reviews to the schoolboy, which he ate up like yesterday's pasta carbonara, yielded further evidence of how paper thin their deception was.

They want to keep telling lies? Then so shall he.

"I can't exactly claim that I'm skilled at playing this game, myself," Sterling admits sheepishly, brushing the matte silver surface of his attache case. "Its mechanics don't quite fill my particular niche." He glances at the girl in goggles, beaming at her as if to show that he felt a sense of solidarity for her casual-minded outlook of the game.

When the older male with terrible brow hair made mention of a card shop several meters from their current location, the golden-haired gentleman pats his card case sharply. "Or, I could help you kids save for college and give you some of mine," Sterling posits without skipping a beat, undoing the clasps of the metallic box in his hands so that he might open and spin it around for them to gaze inside.

Tucked neatly inside black elastic bands, grouped together in perfect little clusters, were deck upon deck upon deck of some of the game's rarest and most powerful cards currently in production, a vast majority of which were either printed in a glossy, prismatic, or holographic foil finish. And, just like Sterling had mentioned, none of them were Behemoth or Ouryuken.

"If simply taking them makes any of you feel uncomfortable, we can always trade instead." Not only was he insanely loaded, but incredibly modest to the point of excess. Most people would have turned down the opportunity to hand-pick some of the game's best cards for themselves without any strings attached.

Sterling anticipated that all four of them would have far... baser inclinations.

made by eden @ gs and thq

To conceal the truth from Sterling, every last child at the table summons a lie of their own. This only fascinates the radiant young man even more, for now they were really playing with fire.

Goggle Girl takes the approach of an arrow loosed from the bow and aims straight for the path of denial, fittingly enough. Suggesting that she ought to pay a visit to a psychiatrist (and not a psychologist, who merely studies the mind as opposed to diagnosing actual problems with it) would not only have been an utter waste of finances and time, but may lead to far more dire consequences. Would she really want to make it even worse by seeing a so-called 'professional'?

It seemed as though Little Boy Blind and his older male counterpart were quite coordinated with their own answers, as the two reassured Sterling that their mention of Tamerdom -- as well as the school boy's infectiously cute pink spider -- was little more than a term related to the fan base. But why go out of your way to attach a feminine pronoun to an inanimate object, if all it was was fake?

Sterling Midas felt justified in believing that this child would likely grow up to have problems of his own.

"Oh, what a relief! My, I just feel silly for asking now!" Sterling laughs again, expressing nothing short of total sunniness for the children and their so-called 'sense of humor'. How he simply wanted to vomit just for saying that. He wouldn't press the issue, though. Why spoil the fun they were having playing make-believe with the only supposed non-Tamer here?

Haru segues rather spontaneously into a commentary on the Tenno Towers bomb threat. Instantly, a pang of annoyance stabs into Sterling's gut like an iron spike, though it does not show on his smiling face, even as it diminishes into an expression of moderate concern for the situation. They all speak their individual pieces on the harrowing ordeal, sharing details among the rest of the group like campers trading stories -- or cards, in this particular case -- around a warm fire.

Someone messages major corporate stakeholder Masao Tenno of an explosive headed for Tenno Industries, then he returns the favor by branding him and another as terrorists to be captured by his ever-loyal Shinjuku Busters. A 'hologram' rampages throughout that same segment of Tokyo, causing enough collateral damage for the same exact child Tenno had branded a criminal to openly comment on its suspicion. Glass-eyes down there just wanted to know why the economic giant was willing to jump the gun on such a fiasco and incriminate only two people.

If Sterling knew any better beforehand, he would have brought some popcorn along for this show.

The golden-haired businessman frowns, still holding an open briefcase full of rare cards. "I've only gotten the tail wind of the news reports, unfortunately. I was in Hong Kong attending a charity auction not too terribly long ago," he adds to the party's talks, tilting his head to face the ground for a moment to think--capturing the outline of a certain electronic apparatus on the figure of a certain girl in green--then lifting it back to face the group, his distinctive glow renewed.

Mostly because he had reminded himself of just how positively lovely his new Tang-era vase was.

---

- Sterling Midas is quite loaded. Quite.

- He is an extremely dedicated collector of cards.

- He has no apparent knowledge of Digimon outside of its associated mediums.

- He is unaware of the recent chain of events that have occurred.

- He is paying complete attention to everything that is being said, shown, and done.