CoLC crossover RP, main thread

As Vergil finished his little monologue, Dante had to laugh, shaking his head and resting his sword-hand on his shoulder. "Oh, man, I've missed these little chats, bro! You always know what to say to cheer me up."

Then the tone of the young demon hunter's voice darkened. "What's with you and power, huh, Vergil? Ever since we were kids, you've had some sorta screwed up obsession with it. Power, power power — without it, we're nothin', useless like normal humans, blah blah blah, et cetera, et cetera, a whole bunch of other crap I don't really wanna remember. You're even lookin' for it in this screwy city, filled with a whole buncha kids who did nothin' but live their lives up to this point. Man, I knew you were cold, but I thought there was at least some human left in ya.

"I don't need power. I don't want it. Alright? I'm fine where I am, and you should be, too. This whole frickin' power trip thing is gonna get you killed someday, bro — prob'ly by me. But I'm guessin' you know that, huh? And you don't care. Y'never did."

There was a bit of a pause, then Dante threw his hands up in the air. "Ah well. Sucks to be you. Bein' part human's pretty fun, I gotta say. I dunno why you wanna get rid of it so bad."

"Did that do it? Lightning? We can try that! We can try lightning to see if that works! Do we have anyone else who could make it?" Cole bounced up and down again. "Take her inside and tell the others! They can help!"

"Yes, it is I, Sir Redring" Sir Redring said, looking thoughtful for a few moments. "That blue color and your voice... Did we meet back during the cold winter day?" he asked the emotion.

As the bee girl rose into the air and floated around, she did indeed slowly quiet down. Her breathing was still a bit deep and quick, and she generally seemed blubbery, but it was certainly an improvement.

".. I know. Maybe someday I'll be able to" Miss Tairee muttered after a short pause. "Come on, I bet your friend Sadness is waiting" she added, standing up on her four legs and starting to make her way back downstairs.

Library

Nanoha sighed a little as Caro tried to get her attention.

"Well, if we need to figure this out then where do you think we should start? Short of finding an open space and trying not to blow anything into tiny pieces again."

Jack alighted on the edge of the building, slight dancing patterns of frost spreading out across the concrete where his feet had touched. With Twinetender cocked over one shoulder, he surveyed the wintery city before him; a pleased grin on his lips. He couldn't believe he'd once been worried that becoming a Guardian would have meant the end of his independence, and his ability to go where he wanted, whenever he wanted. As he'd once put it, the Guardians had been hardwork and deadlines, while he was snowballs and fun times.

But now, here he was. Jack Frost, Spirit of Winter and Guardian of Fun, doing the exact same things he'd done before, only this time he had more purpose. He knew who he was, why the Moon had chosen him. So, it was pretty much the best job in the entire world. Make snow, make snowball fights, spread winter and look after the kids. Easy.

Strutting down the length of the rooftop, Jack called upon the wind and felt it answer as it swirled around him. His feet left the roof as he shot up into the air with a laugh, held aloft by the wind like one of the many snowflakes swirling around him.

Then everything seemed to stutter for a second, and the swirling snowflakes froze in place. Jack began to panic. He couldn't feel the wind, couldn't move his body or call on his powers. His mind began to search for an answer. Why? Who would attack him? Pitch? It couldn't be. There was no way he could get more Nightmares, or whatever he came up with next, that quickly. Definitely not with how closely they'd been watching for signs of him since he'd been dragged back underground.

His worst fears were confirmed when darkness began to creep into his vision. Long dark swirls that could only be Pitch's nightmare dust. How?! Jack screamed in his head and he willed his body to move. As the world faded out and he was swallowed by Pitch's dust, Jack swore he'd make sure Pitch got what was coming to him for this.

Everything rushed back to Jack all at once, and he groaned. It hurt more then last time Pitch knocked him around.

Pitch!

Jack jumped to his feet. Or at least, he tried to. The moment he went to stand up, his body protested and he fell over backwards. "What."

Now that his head had cleared a little, the Winter Spirit realised that something was wrong with his body. What had Pitch done to him?! He rolled to his feet and opened his eyes, and found himself staring down at a pair of fluffy snow white paws, broken up by a few dots of black. "W-what?! How?!"

The now feline boy spun around in a circle trying to get a good look at himself, till a misstep sent him stumbling and rolling. Shaking it off, he decided to take a look from where he was laying. Much easier that way. Sure enough, looking down revealed the body of a big cat where his normal body should be. And he even recognised what it was. A snow leopard.

Hilarious.

This was starting to look less and less like something Pitch would do, especially since the Boogeyman hadn't started his typical bragging speech yet. The guy sure loved the sound of his own voice. Jack understood that, though. When you had no one else to talk to, you tended to talk to yourself. "Yeah. Still trying to work on that."

Getting to his feet... paws? Man that was weird. Bunny would be having a field day if he could see Jack right now. First things first. He glanced around and stopped Twinetender laying on the floor nearby, thankfully. He didn't know what he'd do if he lost it. Sure, he'd practiced using his magic without it a few times, but it didn't feel right.

Stumbling over to it, the Spirit quickly realised the issue. No thumbs. "Well, damn." Jack sighed, "Guess I have no choice. Good thing I know where this has been, at least."

Hesitantly, Jack put his head down and picked up Twinetender in his mouth. The staff had never been heavy, but it's length and his reduced size meant that the best he could do was lift one side off the ground and drag the rest. Or...

A rushing noise made his ears twitch as the wind picked up, answering his call. It swirled around him, a comforting presence.

Turning to look out towards the city he had spotted out of the corner of his eye, Jack tried to frown. It looked like a normal enough city at first glance. Until you noticed that it didn't seem quite the same each time he blinked. His frown deepened. "Ohk. Thish ish getting arh littlhe creephy nowh."

Jack could safely say that he had never seen this city before. And that wasn't right. He'd seen every city, he'd even watched plenty be built. Guess he had no choice but to look around and find and where he was and how the heck he was supposed to get home.

"Awright, winhd. Lesh, shee wherhre whe arh." He mumbled around the wood in his mouth, then let out a yelp as the wind picked him up and sent him spiralling end over end; His legs flailing desperately.

Hitting the ground with a thud, Jack groaned. He couldn't believe he was stupid enough to forget about his new body. It didn't move at all like his old one. Which meant learning how to fly properly again. He called on the wind a little gentler this time, feeling himself rising from the ground and trying to keep himself balanced. It wasn't easy, but he was pretty much a master at riding the wind now. So, he'd manage easily enough. Nothing like a sudden transformation into an animal was going to keep Jack Frost down!

Rising slowly into the air, the Winter Spirit-turned-kitty cat began looking for anything of interest.

Library-Ankh-Morpork (we'll hner hner hner them around the ears)

Susan started to become annoyed when Ben began to laugh, but that feeling abated when he became excited about visiting. Then he asked where he could go.

Well, there's always Ankh-no. He's far too young, idealistic and innocent for Ankh-Morpork, and if he goes there, he'll get killed. Or severely traumatised.

Her Grandfather's House? Also no. The geometry tends to do weird things to normal humans' minds.

Sto Plains? The questions and the ceremonies would suck.

After a long pause, Susan replied.

"...Quirm. Quirm is nice. It's where I went to school."

"You will find it difficult to kill me, brother, if you refuse to gain power. So long as you continue to remain at the level of the weakling humans you are so fond of, you will never be able to defeat me." Vergil said as he turned and started walking directly toward Dante. "One good thing about this situation I can say is that death is not final here, which means we can go all out as many times as we want. Perhaps if I kill you enough times, I'll finally be able to get the lesson into your thick skull."

"Of course!" Mary exclaimed enthusiastically. "Who knows? Maybe you could even be my mom!"

For a few moments, she did not say anything, and simply let Miss Tairee take her back downstairs. But that couldn't stop the nagging feeling that she was forgetting something. Something important about... right.

"Oh, and don't worry. I won't tell anyone what you told me if you don't want me to."

edited 30th May '16 7:25:13 AM by Katarsus

Pub, Cassiopeia Delta — Serendipitous Seedling Surrogacy

"Hmmm...."

Cassiopeia certainly knew a lot about plants, but bees were a rather different story. So preoccupied was she by attempting to recall what vanishingly little understanding she had of beekeeping that she barely even registered anything going on around her until the leaf-topped kid was staring at her pleadingly with arms outstretched. Well, at least what's needed in this one's case is obvious!

Gently scooping the child up from under his arms, she traced out a quick glyph◊ of Nature's Tongue behind his back just in case, which allowed the caster to hold completely intelligible conversation with flora and fauna of all kinds. Not that a plant child of this age was likely to have much vocabulary to begin with, but regardless, better to try than to chance that she could start talking and not be understood at all. That done, she began humming, adjusted her hold on the sprout to be more secure, and then rocked the youngling smoothly back and forth, the latter task made infinitely easier thanks to her convenient ability to levitate.

"My name is Cassiopeia, but you may call me Pea," she said eventually, after briefly glancing over with approval with Sans' partially-successful attempts to calm the bee-girl, "What are you called, little one?"

Ben nodded, trying to keep Quirm in mind. "All right. Well, if you ever end up in my world, I'd show you around. Even though it's supposed to be impossible. But hey, so is what I can do. But I don't know how I'd explain that to kinda thing to someone like you... if you thought round worlds were a myth you'd probably think half the things I can turn into are a myth too..." He shrugged a bit.

Library - Strategies and training

Caro frowned at Karkat's partly confusing, partly horrifying description of his world. " ... I see. That's not quite what I ask but ... It sounds like you had it rough. I'm sorry you had to go through all that." Trying to think of something that would distract from all that pain for a while, she asked, " Though what are sessions and dreams bubbles? Those don't sound like anything I have heard of before."

Zelda said that she had been about beating the challenge as well, but they should focus on forming a plan to distract the Lord of Change and Ruckus and then defeat their intended target.

" Yes, we definitely need a plan, specially since there will essentially three somewhat large groups: ours, the Lord of Change's and the small army that we would have to defeat to complete the challenge. That will require much more planning than if we were facing a single target and without any other opposition, like it seems had been happening before." She looked around and began considering what role each of them could play in such a fight. " Now, let me put this in terms that we use in the TSAB. There are four basic positions that can present in a team: Front attacker, center guard, wing guard and fullback. A front attacker would obviously be someone that could fight in the frontline, someone who could both take and deal a lot of attacks. Grimlock would seem to fit that, for example. a wing guard would focus on mobility and be able to move to intercept attacks or attack weak points. That could be possibly you, Zelda, at the least in this current form. A fullback would be someone would stay back and provide support to allies, such as healing, boosts and other supportive actions. That is usually my position, so I will retain it."

Caro glanced at Nanoha once again before continuing, " Now, a center guard would be in a central role, possibly a commander, and would focus on long-range tactics to support us. That could be Nanoha, if we can get her to help us, despite not knowing Mary or situation. Given what I know of her from my time and what I have heard about her like is now, I don't think that will be much trouble." She then turned to Negi and said, " Negi, I know that we just met and you probably don't Mary yet, but could you help us? She's a girl that got caught up with some really bad people, including a extremely malevont entity called Lord of Change, that were manipulating her. There is a challenge that we have to face, where we would to defeat a small army, in order to grant a particular wish of hers and those same people will also be trying to complete in order to get her back in their control. Now, if you would accept, I don't know what your magic is like, but would you fit a long-range position as well?"

It was then that Nanoha approached and asked what they should do to figure out how to use magic properly in their current forms. " Well, maybe we focus on other spell types for now, like barriers, binds and support. That's more my type of spell anyway, I only really have one outright offensive one. At the least then if we get it wrong at first, there shouldn't be any damage. After we get the hang of that, there should be less trouble with more offensive spells."

Caro then attempted to activate her Device, given the usual command , " Kerykeion, set up!", which thankfully worked somewhat. She didn't have a Barrier Jacket, but Kerykeion had actually taken a form fitting for current own, looking more like footwear than gloves, with the gem-like core still on the top. She activated Third Mode, causing the usual mana wings to appear from either side of the Device.

Caro briefly turned back to Negi, saying, " Well, looks like you gonna get to see Mid-Childan magic in action, at least when I get used to casting when I am like this. If we are ever back to normal, I can probably show and tell you more."

She then raised a hoof and said her intended spell's aria, " Boosted Protection!" Both her horn and her Device glowed with a pink aura, which slowly expanded in a bubble shape. However, it easily disappeared after a few seconds. She had to try this again and again until she managed to make it permanent. " OK, that's better. I think I getting the hang of this again."

Then turning to Nanoha again, she said, " Nanoha, there's something I need to ask you. There is a girl that I and a few of my friends here know and she's quite a bit of trouble. There is an evil entity called the Lord of Change that has been somewhat manipulating her into doing ... really bad things. A few other friends managed to get her back from him and his group, but there this challenge we have to face, which if completed, will grant a wish of hers. Now, if the Lord of Change and his followers complete it instead of us, it is likely that would go back to them and that can't happen. The challenge apparently involves fighting a small army, of what, we don't know yet. So, once we can properly fight, could you help us with that?"

Karkat - Library

Karkat looked at Caro and tried not to laugh. YOU REALLY WANNA KNOW? BECAUSE IT'S GONNA TAKE A SHITLOAD OF EXPLAINING.

"Oh! Um—sorry. My name is Sadness."

"Thank you, again, for helping us," Sadness added. "You brought Mary and me through the storm on that day, and gave her some new clothes. I'm not sure if I ever thanked you - you just disappeared for a few days."

Tali wasn't immediately aware of who Karkat was, and was quite alarmed at the sudden shouting, her flames flaring up higher than usual as she screeches loudly, "SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!" She hides behind Zelda a little, not sure what to make of this angry red... THING.

"Y'know, you keep sayin' that," Dante chuckled, not even flinching as Vergil began moving in closer. "But I dunno, none of our little spats have really turned out that badly for me, have they? You're too busy focusin' on that power to really think about anything else. It ain't just our dad's blood that makes us good fighters, bro — well, not me, anyway. I dunno about you.

"But hey, y'know what? Guess not bein' able to die is a good thing. I've always wanted to really show ya just how stupid it is, this path that you've been takin'. You always were a better learner than I was — I'm lousy at it, y'know that. So if anyone's gonna learn their lesson, I'm bettin' that it's gonna be you."

Vergil failed to hold back his mocking laughter this time.

"We shall see about that."

Then he struck, suddenly breaking into a run as he rushed Dante much faster then his armored form would suggest he was able to as he took a swing at Dante's head, then followed up with a swing from his other arm at his chest, testing Dante's defenses in his new form.

Library

Susan nodded.

"That would be nice."

Then as Ben continued, she was confused as to how to explain the Disc to him, so she didn't.

"Myths are different depending on where you're from. Perhaps what is normal for me is a myth for you, and vice versa."

Library

"Of course I will. I'm not about to stand by and let this Lord of Change bend her happiness to its own ends."

Ben thought for a moment on how to explain the Omnitrix to a woman who believed other worlds could not exist. He exhaled, then looked up at her. He showed her the device on his wrist. "This is the Omnitrix. It's a machine attached to my arm that I can use to turn into aliens. Creatures from other worlds like mine. I use it to fight people who commit crimes or hurt people. I like to think of myself as a hero." He smiled. "I think that if you have a lot of power you should use it to help others."

Library

"Okay."

The watch-like thing was confusing, at least for Susan, but she was the grandaughter of a skeleton, so she couldn't exactly talk. Then he mentioned being a hero. She held her breath for a moment, before letting it go as it continued.

"Where I'm from, people can get away with almost anything if they call themselves heroes. But as long you focus on helping people, and not on power, I'm sure you'll be fine."

Cole was maybe too excited by the prospect of electrocuting people and he wasted no time in telling Rex that the others could help.

"Sure, but stay with me and don't try to run away like an idiot again"

Rex entered the library and walked a few meters inside the building. He then proclaimed that curing those influenced by the demon was possible, without the fanfare it deserved.

"Hey, guys, I think we found a cure"

edited 30th May '16 5:05:12 PM by DeisTheAlcano

Cole seemed momentarily a bit miffed at being told to come with Rex, considering he still wanted to look for Sans, but he followed along back into the library anyway, still sounding a bit excited at the possibility. "Rex said that he hit her with lightning, and I can't feel the demon in her head anymore! That could be the answer! We have to find out for sure!"

Jack landed on another rooftop, and slumped down bonelessly with a groan. He really needed to find out how to go back to being human. His jaw was hurting from holding Twinetender in his mouth for so long, and just trying to keep hold of it. He'd gotten the hang of riding the wind again pretty quickly, even with the stupid body, but the more he flew, the more he realized that the city was insane. He'd look down one street, then turn back and find that the area he'd just look at previous was completely different. Or he'd blink and face the exact opposite direction to what he'd been facing. The spirit swore he could feel a headache coming on, and he hadn't had one of those since he'd become Jack Frost! "I didn't even know I could get headaches." He grumbled to himself, trying to massage his temples with paws. He was less than successful.

The people living in the city didn't help, either. The majority of what he could see were animals of countless types and things he'd never even seen before and could hope to name. The way they went about made him think they might be more than simple animals, especially with his own current feline issue. And then there were the creepy book golem things, that seemed to just wordlessly follow the creatures around, miming stuff. They seemed harmless enough, but they were still freaky. "I'll take Bunny's egg golems over them any day. At least they have faces."

Jack sighed and idly batted at his staff with a paw. He knew he was just stalling, and he hated to admit it, but he was lost. Not literally lost, though he was starting to feel that too. But mentally lost, which sucked. It was a feeling he'd hoped to leave behind once he'd found his centre, but here he was. Again. It was like fate was laughing at him.

The only other option he could think of was the tall building that seemed to sit dead centre of the city, no matter where he went or how much the rest of it changed. Usually the big fancy building was where important things happened. It seemed to be a rule no matter where he went in the world. "Then what? I highly doubt anyone here would be able to see me." Jack grinned as an idea came to mind. "Though, it has been a while since I did my last poltergeist prank. That should cheer me up."

Snatching up his staff, Jack pounced off the edge of the roof and let the wind drag him up and away, spinning and weaving towards the tall building, not noticing one or two of the nearby animals watching the flying snow leopard with the strangely styled fur on its head go.

After a few more turn arounds when the city decided to change again, Jack was close to trying to find whoever thought that was a good idea and freezing their feet to the floor. Still, he got there eventually.

Circling above, the spirit spotted several figures down below and drifted towards them. As he got closer, he could better make out who, or more accurately what, they were. A robot that looked like something from one of Jamie's cartoons, talking to a rabbit in a hat(And wasn't that strangely comforting), and two armoured figures that looked to be about to fight it out. And sure enough, not a moment after he thought that, the dark figured launched itself at the lighter one.

Jack drifted around the sight, close enough to see and hear anything that was being said and plainly in view of anyone looking, even though he was unaware of the fact. He could spare a few moments to watch these two things wail on each other a bit. He cocked his head and he took in the two figures. "Ish dhat a gun on yawh arhm? Aight, Ah puth my mohney on yoo then."

edited 30th May '16 6:12:57 PM by Alleydodger

Library - Bird Whisperer?

Zelda listened intently to Caro's explanation, although her expression started to look a little lost about halfway through it all.

"Well, that will help during the fight itself," she said once Caro had finished, "But that still leaves the issue of the Lord of Change. What I'm hoping we'll be able to do is keep the Lord of Change focused on something that isn't the fight, so the people who are undergoing the challenge can do so without it or its underlings interfering. As to how to do that..." She frowned. "...That's what we should be trying to think of now. And probably soon; it might not be long until the challenge starts."

While Caro started talking to others and testing out her spells, that bird from earlier suddenly came over and decided that Zelda would work as a perch. Zelda looked over her shoulder at her with a curious expression. But before she could open her mouth, Karkat opening his was enough to spook the bird into letting out a screech and then hiding behind her.

"...I'm fairly sure he's not dangerous," Zelda said to her calmly, before glancing back at Karkat herself, "He's just...special." Then she turned back to the bird. "By the way, who are you?"

edited 30th May '16 6:32:13 PM by Yomegami

"Wow, Rick, h-how'd you get this all set up?" The skeletal structure currently taking shape in Rick's lab seemed oddly familiar to Morty, who had trudged down the stairs carrying a bag of assorted parts. On his haunches, he stared up at the thing as he spat out the necessary equipment.

A ball of grey-blue hair hopped off a nearby shelf. Rick was carrying one of the robotic arms he'd built a few days ago in one paw, working the servos with one claw. "I dunno, Morty, maybe it's because I'm a genius, even when I'm stuck in the body of a *urp* of a stupid hairball-hacking piss machine?"

"Hey, wait! I remember this!" Realization dawned on Morty's gormless little dog face. "I-I-i-t's like that, uh, like that time when you made Snowball super-intelligent, and, uh, he took over the world, and... uh..." Morty trailed off as he remembered that particular adventure.

"Yeah. It's like that, Morty. Remember when you pooped yourself? Oh boy, y-you really pooped yourself there, Morty. Hope your little doggy body is *urp* housebroken, cause that's not an experience I wanna go through again." If Morty was human, he would have blushed profusely.

"D-don't gotta bring up the past like that, huh, Rick?"

"You brought it up first, Morty. Gotta accept the whole past, otherwise that's- it's *urp* that's historical revisionism, what yo'ure doing. Not cool." Rick grabbed a soldering iron in his mouth and hopped back up onto the skeletal walker. Clutching the tool in his mouth, he started tapping wires into place, accompanied by the occasional tink of cat claws tapping against metal.

"Mgurhg, mghtry, use yghr pghws, hlpyghrgrnpaout."

"Wha?"

"I said-" Rick spat out the arc welder. "use your paws. Help me weld this... *murp* this blade into place."

"Uh... okay." Morty did his best to stand up on his hind legs as Rick started working on something. "I mean, uh, i-i-is this okay?"

"Yeah-yeah-yeah. Hold that right there... right there..." Using the salvaged mechanical hand, Rick lowered the welding torch into place... only to lip at the last moment, setting Morty's fur on fire.

"Agh! Rick! I-I-I-I'm on fire! I'm on fire, Rick!"

"Ugh, great, now look what you made me do Stop drop and -and rURGHal, Morty."

edited 30th May '16 6:56:14 PM by Locoman