CoLC crossover RP, main thread

Arcade stared at his paper and tried not to glare at Tester when he called his gun sub-par. Part of him wanted to defend it as some of the most advanced Enclave tech available, but he realized that he'd simply end up sounding like Orion at best, and one of the soldiers who would try to kill innocent wastelanders at worst.

That was a facet of his history he wanted to distance himself from.

He did glare at Rex when he said Arcade was just a 'normal guy'. It took him a few seconds to not immediately yell at Rex not to insult the people who trained him. He didn't want Rex to know anything more than he already did.

"Yes, I can heal people. I just want to help Silanea, so maybe we should do as Cole said and head out," he said, trying desperately to sound neutral.

"Woah-woah-*uuurp*-woah. I'll have you little *urp* you little punks know that I possess a *urp* genetically engineered, cybernetically enhanced liver capable.... capable of-of safely filtering six pints of Plooforpian hyper-gin. Do you have any idea how much... liver that is? It's the hardest-working liver in the - in the multiverse," he snarled, patting what he thought might be his liver somewhere in his torso.

"That's - that's a power. I don't... I don't care whatyousay... that's a power."

Cole was being surprisingly mature and serious about the entire thing, not that he didn't know he was capable of that. He didn't act like a kid all of the time, just most of it. Rex did have a point about how he never listened though, so Sans didn't even try to argue anything back and just shook his head in disapproval. He did not, however, approve of Rex's atittude towards Arcade being a normal human compared to everyone else.

"having superpowers doesn't matter when you spend three turns failing to kill the easiest enemy around, rex" Sans retorted.

Eve|Mindscape|Rex Just Does Not Learn

Rex ust shook her head. "...Rex, all of us can heal now. Having someone who can only heal isn't necessarily a bad thing," she pointed out, "...and you really can't criticise Cole for not listening." She drew away from the hug with Arcade, and patted him on the arm. She turned and started to walk away. "...we should work out how to get down... I can fly, but that doesn't solve the problem..."

Cole looked at Rex when he spoke, raising one eyebrow slightly at him as he spoke.

"Rex, you don't have to keep trying to prove you're stronger or smarter than me, or that you have a wider variety of skills than most of us. I'll just go ahead and agree with it now. You're stronger and smarter than me, and you have a wider variety of skills than most of us. But Arcade brings knowledge and skills you don't...Rick brings knowledge and skills you don't. I bring knowledge you don't, if not necessarily physical abilities. I'm perfectly happy to acknowledge that you're better than me, if you could acknowledge that you don't have all the answers about everything, all the time."

He glanced around again. "Listen, I know the odds are great that I will be killed quickly, so I have to be sure you understand. Everything here is Silanea. The ground beneath us, the air we think we are breathing, perhaps to some degree even the forms we have taken. We have made ourselves part of her, we are all now joined together, as a smaller part of a larger entity. Everything we do here will have an effect, on her. Anything that we do to each other, to ourselves, we do to her. Any discord between us, is between her. Coming in here, we left the city behind, along with any problems we carried out there. Silanea is the all of what is for us now...and if you want to stay focused on things outside of her, then her mind will more easily reject your input here as not belonging."

Cole looked to them again, spreading his arms slightly, as though to encompass the whole lot of them. "I know it can be hard to put down your own pains, how hard it can be to push away what troubles you in favor of listening to someone else. I've struggled with that since I became more human. But you must try to put away all that which you could have brought inside with you. The worlds inside of a person are far, far more malleable than the worlds outside of us. You have to devote yourself to this...and only this. Or I can promise you, this will fail."

He let out a breath, then started after Eve. "We should get moving. The longer we are here, the more damage we risk causing. I do not think anyone came into Silanea's mind to hurt her more than we all already have."

"For the protection of Silanea and the fairness of this challenge, not literally everything done here will have an effect on her; as I explained earlier. However, in general, Cole does have the correct idea in mind" Tester mentioned to them.

"Yes! So please, stop fighting!" Friendship said, hands clenched together in front of her and a determined expression on her face. "The battle ahead of you is going to be difficult; you shouldn't make it even harder by bickering! And if you fail, all your arguing would cause Resentment to come back faster. Maybe even stronger" the little emotion continued.

"One of the holes has a way to climb down. It should be..." Trust trailed off and glanced over the landscape. "Over there" the emotion added, pointing towards behind the group's approach, and off to the left.

"Silanea can't ask you herself right now, so I beg of you for her: Stay focused. When you fight with each other, you're hurting her too" Friendship then pleaded.

Suburban House'

The Riddler kept his gun trained on the entrance to the mouse hole and tried to keep an ear out for his pursuers.

"Ok so, he has... whatever that means" Rex added after Rick corrected him on the team's powerset.

Sans decided to bring up the fact that Rex had failed to hit a basic Guilt three times in a row after the latter explained Arcade didn't have powers. Rex blushed in response, not wanting to get humiliated in front of Arcade and Cole.

"...that was just bad luck, ok?"

Cole wasn't amused about Rex's attitude and in a surprising move admitted that he wasn't on his weight scale. But he also pointed out Rex wasn't the only one with a functioning brain and that others had valuable skills he couldn't ignore. It also wasn't a good idea to keep arguing inside Silanea's head since they could not only lose track of their objective but actually make things more difficult for them as it had already been made clear by Lewis' little contribution to the team.

Friendship backed up Cole's fears and confirmed that pointless infighting would just end up hurting Silanea even more.

"Look, just stay behind me, ok?" Rex answered, resigned at the fact that Cole had actually made a good point.

If they were not going to waste more time fighting or arguing over who should do what, it was better if the team started actually getting to the center of Silanea's issues. Trust pointed out a convenient entrance that lead to the bottom but Rex knew that was going to take a while so he addressed Tester.

"I can still use my wings, right?"

Cole did another speech about how things worked, which was somewhat backed up by Tester and Friendship, so what he was saying did have some merit. With all that being said, Trust then pointed towards where they had to go next.

"since next fight is gonna be tough, i have a couple suggestions to make," said Sans, then looking at Arcade, "arcade, you should stay close to curly, her strongest moves are ranged, so you can stay close to her without risking yourself too much. she also has the most health here so she's the most likely to get sustain a lot of damage. if you don't need to be healing anyone, you can just join her at shooting stuff from a distance." He then looked at Lewis. "lewis, you can heal yourself if you get incapacitated and i can rescue you from anywhere as long as you're in my field of vision, so try to stay close to me, 'k?"

Sans then looked up at Tester again.

"by the way tester, out of curiosity, since i was basically defending lewis against the enemies that whole time, can we actually use our turns to take damage for someone else if we feel the need to do it?"

"Um. Okay, well, uh, last I checked everyone was in a giant crater and they were- they were fighting evil clones of Jackson and, uh, um, Sans," started Morty. "And, uh, they were like -they were obtuse symbolism for Silaena's screwed up mental states and was a - there was a bad dice roll and I died."

"But also - I mean - jeez. That team in there is a goddamn wreck." Morty stared furtively at Silaena's door as though trying to catch a snatch of the team in action. "They can't do anything. I mean - I dunno what Rick is doing now but even brefore that it seemed like-"

"And the liver!" shouted Rick angrily when Cole launched into his monologue.

"Oh, cool!" Louie commented as he saw the hippogriff. "Let me bring out one of my team for this" the trainer then told Astolfo, before grabbing one of the pokeballs and tossing it forward.

With a flash that seemed more intensive than usual due to the size difference, Swishee the pelipper appeared, standing at almost four feet tall, making her around eight times taller than Louie. "... Oh, right. Uh, Swishee! Down here!" Louie called up at the pokemon. After a brief and seemingly confused glance around, Swishee looked down when Louie spoke and then let out a startled honk; Louie cringed and clamped his hands over his ears. "Ow! Yeah, I know Swishee; this weird city, right? Could you please be quiet though?" the trainer asked of his pokemon. Swishee plopped herself down on the ground and just stared at Louie, blinking a couple times.

"Okay, good. We're going to go flying to look for the hospital, alright? Now lean down a bit so I can climb up" Louie told Swishee, then hoisted himself up on top of her bill before looking back at the library. "Is nobody else coming with us? Hmm" the trainer muttered, before looking over towards Astolfo with a question, "so, is it normal for guys to dress like that, in your universe?"

"... Okay, but they haven't died, see?" Dave said, glancing at Ben.

Footsteps approached from the hallway, and Fastanook arrived, carefully carrying a few shrunken militia members, including Rachel and Larry. "Ben, can we ask you a favor?" Fastanook asked as he put the other militia members down onto the mattress. "Since I'm one of the only militia members who wasn't shrunken, Wells wants me back at the prison, just in case. Could you handle helping defend here?" the gremlin explained.

There was still no sign of anyone coming through the mouse hole after Riddler for a solid minute or so. It seemed that route was clear, and he couldn't hear anyone else entering the house...

But then, there was a creak of floorboards from another room, and footsteps. Big ones. Someone who wasn't shrunken was in the house, and was moving towards the living room that Riddler had found himself in.

"Yes, but you can still only carry one other person with you at most. Unless Lewis reverts to his locket" Tester replied to Rex simply. After Sans' question, Tester replied with a quick, "checking rules..." before going silent as all his screens quickly flashed on and off.

"... Yes, in an expansion rule book, actions for defending others in combat were added. Against ranged attacks, if two allied characters are in melee range with each other, the one being fired upon may attempt to use the second character as cover; they may even do it without their cooperation. However, if that second character does not cooperate, and successfully uses Dodge against the ranged attack, the first character will be hit by the attack. Additionally, when two allied characters are in melee range with each other, one of them may use their turn's action to defend the other character; this will work against all types of attacks, counts as a defensive action in turn order, and any attack on the defended person will go against the Defender instead. However it will not double your chosen defensive value as normal, and cannot be used with a defensive skill that requires movement; unless the character has skills specifically for it, which at present none of you do. Lastly if an attack aimed at the defended person gets a natural 20 and beats the roll of the defender, the attack will circumvent the attempt to defend and hit the defended person" Tester then explained at length.

edited 23rd Aug '17 9:35:40 PM by FirockFinion

There were people who actually called themselves that? As a group name? "Oh. Never met him."

I pulled my knees in further. Cole wasn't high on my list of people I liked being indirectly told off by.

sans was rattling off strategy now. Right off the bat, some counterargument floated to the surface. But I choked it down. Until he got to me.

I flinched backward without thinking, but then realized what I was doing and tried to play it off, choke down the brief burst of terror and act indifferent. Which didn't involve hiding the locket. You didn't see that.

"...Ah don' need yer help."

Rex seemed at least somewhat mollified, though Cole didn't think that he was going to stay relatively under control long. Best to try and minimize the damage where he could elsewhere.

Rick...Rick was...well he was Rick. He could handle himself.

Sans seemed...bothered, that he was here, but he seems all right, he was planning and coming up with strategies. That was good, someone needed to try to take the lead here.

Eve? He put her on the list.

No, right now, it was fairly clear who needed...something the most.

Without a word, Cole made his way over to Lewis, looking up at him in silence before holding out his arms, as though offering something to the ghost, either a hug, or just an acknowledgement.

"It's going to be all right, Lewis. I know this is hard, but you're strong. I know you can do this. I know you have power to help. We can do this, all of us together. I...I wouldn't mind if we could...show we have our trust in each other still. I want to know I have faith in you, Lewis...for whatever that might be worth."

Arcade nodded at Sans. He made an educated guess that Curly was the only member of the group whose name he didn't know at that point. They could position themselves better once they were actually fighting.

Though, it seemed like the fight was being put on hold as Lewis seemed even more broken than he had outside. There was no way to ask what the hell had happened to him without reopening some wounds— and Cole was probably more qualified to help him— so Arcade just stood next to Eve, waiting for some progress to be made.

Library

Garrett decided he might as well take the chance and head to the hospital. Maybe Rex will come to soon.

The tiny thief hesitated a bit — he couldn't be sure that the boy hadn't seen him earlier with the Riddler — but decided to take a gamble. "Hey!" he shouted, running towards Swishee and waving his hand. "Room for one more?"

Astolfo I Onward, to the Hospital!

"Nope! Just me~ " Having answered Louise's inquiry, Astolfo suddenly. "It's quite a story, really, if you want to know! You see, I used to wear something like this to distract and calm down this one naked companion of mine from wreaking havoc everywhere he went. It was quite a riot, let me tell you, that not even entire armies could stop his rampage, so we had to do something. And all of it was because he was heartbroken! You should've seen it in action!" The young paladin recalled the scene in nostalgia. "Anyways, the plan worked, and everyone else who was with me managed to pin that madman long enough for me to return his bottled wits back to him and turn him back to normal. I happen to pin his leg at the time, but sheesh, the guy sure knows how to be persistent."

"... Oh, if you meant why I'm still wearing what I'm wearing, well, it's because it's cute! Oh, I guess you can say that it's also to honor my friendship with that man, but mostly the former!"

Jail Cell, Robot Police Headquarters

"My career...", Ring Man groaned as he sat in a corner. Why oh why did Roll have to blow his cover like that, innocent as it was? Actively helping her and the other Light-bots escape...if he were lucky, he'd only get a demotion. As he sat sulking, Auto, who was in the same cell, kept asking all sorts of questions. "Why am I still in here? What are you doing in here? When can I get out?", and other questions like them. Frankly, Ring Man wasn't in any state to answer.

Suddenly, Auto stopped. What had gotten him to shut up? Ring Man tried to look, but found that he was literally unable to. His sulking was instantly replaced with panic. Was he malfunctioning?! He was helpless to watch as darkness swallowed his vision...

The darkness only lasted somewhere between a moment and an eternity. When it finally subsided, Ring Man found himself...not in his cell? What on Earth? He quickly scanned his surroundings. It appeared that he was standing on a large balcony, with enormous toy-box buildings(?) ahead and a seemingly endless void just behind. Now he was even more confused...

With nothing else of interest on the balcony, Ring Man did the most rational thing he could think of: Look for somebody. He left the balcony and ventured off into the toy-boxlike city.

Reigen approached the bike. "Well, it was nice meeting you, sir," he said to the Grinch, "and I hope you find your book or something."

It took a bit of finaggling on his part to get on the bike...but that was because he was trying to sit down on it backwards. "Don't want to make things weirder, right?" He asked, voice uncertain, as he hunched over the back end of the motorcycle, holding the edge of the seat and his feet braced against the outer wheely part or whatever you call it, you know that thing that covers the wheel, that thing.

"It's okay, take care!"

Yuna was a bit disappointed to see Astolfo go, but if... he had to go to the hospital, then she wasn't in any position to stop him. However, merely a few moments later Yuna realized something extremely important.

Hospital. They were going to a hospital. Hospitals were buildigns designed specifically to aid the ill and the injured. She was looking for a way to start helping. What better place to begin than somewhere where people in need of help were sure to gather? It was brilliant!

"Hey, hey wait up!" Yuna quickly called out to Astolfo and his friend with the big bird. "Can I come too?! I want to visit the hospital!" She immediately turned towards Vambre and the armored Caboose. "Are you coming too?"

Tester confirmed that Rex could still build his wings but carrying people wasn't going to work because here there was an arbitrary limit of people he could carry, just one. It's not like he was actually going to do that, though.

"That's all I needed to hear"

And while Sans gave orders to part of the team so they could handle what was to come, Rex saw the hole in the ground and approached it.

"See you at the bottom!" He told to no one in particular and then jumped down.

After a few seconds of falling down that took his mind off from the current shitshow the team was facing, Rex finally slowed down his descent by building his wings and safely flying down.

"Well, I might not be welcome at the hospital after the shenanigans I did..." Hedging at the hopeful look on Yuna's face, the adventuress pulled at her collar while wiping away beads of nervous sweat that began drifting down her forehead from the thought of THAT giant pileup. Still, the girl seemed young and sweet and thus must be protected from the hooliganism of the City in general.

"But I'll go over there I suppose, since helping others is a good thing to do. Now, will we be traveling by your giant cow fairy or should we try out my Hoversword?" Throwing the trinket into the air until it enlarged to a surfboard sized sword that did as advertised and hovered off the ground, Vambre awaited a response.

Louie just stared at Astolfo with a very perplexed, weirded out expression, before having his attention switch to some of the others choosing to come along after all. "Hey! Yeah come on guys!" Louie said, patting Swishee on the bill, who turned with a slight hop and leaned down a bit again for people to climb up.

Tester was waiting in silence with his screens still turning on and off occasionally, until Rex moved over to the nearest hole and hopped down. Then Tester's screens flashed quickly for a moment, before returning to normal.

"D-did he, just..." Friendship stammered, mouth agape in shock, as Trust face palmed.

The plus side down here was that it wasn't so dark, and it wasn't raining everywhere; only in spots where there were holes above, and a lot of the rain was evaporated before it even came down to the ground. It was however, hot, and smoke was everywhere, somewhat choking. With a pixellation effect, a copy of Tester appeared next to Rex, floating down alongside him. "This is not a good idea" Tester commented simply.

Stretching out ahead of Rex was a village of simple wood and straw huts in constant flames and just general mayhem and destruction. In other words, it was the same as the last vision of Silanea's memories, just perpetually stuck in that state.

Gon, no use waiting in the library

Gon decided to not stick around and run towards the nearest edge of the librarian's desk.

He carefully positioned his arms and legs on a corner and began to slide down inch by inch because he didn't have any suitable equipment to safely go down.

Note to self. Get climbing gear for next operation.

"Do you... do you know what I really hate? Really hate," said Rick out of nowhere as he noisily chugged back another slurp of alcohol and wiped his stained chin. "Look, y-you guys... are... you guys are - w-we've been through a lot lately and I gotta *urp* I gotta get this offa my chest."

Rick paused.

"Pistachios. I- I hate *urp* I hate pistachios. Th-they- they're like -" Rick tripped and nearly fell flat on his face "-people say that they're a snack food but they're so tiny and fiddly and you always *urp* and - and you always have to expend a disproportionate amount of effort to get the fucking shells open in the first place for this... this... this tiny, shitty little nut thing that's just a wad of salt..."

Rick stopped and stared at the gigantic, hundred foot hole in the middle of the wasteland, a solitary gaping hole in the desolation, the kind of abyss liable to stare into you and inspire thoughts of Russian humanism. It was ominous enough that Rick briefly trailed off as he stared down into its black, lightless deeps. His momentary interest quickly subsided when Rex decided to jump headlong into the depths.

"Wow. Oh look. A- a big natural obstacle. How on... *urp* how on Earth are we gonna do this without all plummeting to our respective dooms." Rick rolled his eyes, reached into his pocket, and fired a portal down into the bottom of the yawning abyss. Accordingly, the bottom of the canyon lit up, casting a faint green glow as a portal materialized somewhere beneath. Rick sighed, fumbled with a few switches, and fired a second portal at a nearby rock, the gelatinous mass of swirling energy bathing the party in green light, throwing their features into sharp lime-tinted relief.

"Alright, alright, let's go. One at a *urp* one at a time, don't overload it." Rick glared vaguely at the remaining members of the party as though one of them might deliberately do so. He thought a moment.

"And I know that unshelled pistachios exist. I still *urp* I still... hate them."

Eve|Mindscape|Rex, You're A Fucking Idiot

Eve watched with disbelief as Rex threw himself into the hole like an idiot. Luckily, Rick opened up a portal down there, which meant they wouldn't be separated for long. Also, she found herself wondering what pistachios were. Some kind of food, most likely. So she had a choice. Fly down the hole and stop Rex from getting killed, or go through the portal. Both had the same end result.

Eve turned to Arcade. "..I'll meet you down there," she said, before stepping into the hole. About a third of the way down, her wings unfolded, and she descended leisurely, before hovering to look at the landscape below.