A Game of Gods: Infinities

"Thank you for your hospitality, sir. I'm used to threats of summary execution should I fail a delivery."

Cletus sat down, removing his helmet and waiting for the others to begin eating. He doubted Wasteland table manners would go over well here, so he'd have to go by example. He'd never seen so many forks.

"It's bad manners to tell someone they're damaging their health? Oh..." said Byakuren, who was thoughtfully looking at the meal and mysteriously started gently shaking Nanoha's shoulder, "Nano-chan, Nano-chan, wake up—there's food."

Nanoha's eyes fluttered open.

"Mmmmg?" she reached up and rubbed her eyes, turning to see what was going on. That was a lot of food... Nanoha blinked. "Ehhh..? What happened?"

"Don't worry, Nano-chan," said Kohaku, as though she'd known the younger girl all her life, "we've just been invited to a feast~"

Well, it was quite the banquet layed out before them, she had to admit, even if she knew she could do better. Then again, there was no way it could be any worse than her sister's cooking, so...

"You fell asleep, then a portal opened and I brought you through here. The nice blonde lady who leant you the blankets is here somewhere." The magician youkai said, looking very serious. "I think that it'd be better for you to sleep on a full stomach, so I woke you up."

"Oh," Nanoha looked at the food for several more moments, and then yawned. "The food looks good..."

She realized, after a few moments, that someone new had spoken her. "Oh... hello, I'm Takamachi-"

She yawned again.

"-Nanoha."

"Well of course you are!" said Kohaku cheerfully, that ever-present grin sticking to her face. "Don't you remember Kohaku-chan? Well, I suppose no-one really takes notice of a maid, ufu~"

This was cause for some confusion for Nanoha. She was sure she hadn't seen Kohaku before, but then again... it wasn't impossible that she'd somehow missed her. So many people showed up so quickly at that crystal city. "... I don't remember seeing you. Sorry."

Starting to wake up a bit more, Nanoha considered the fact that Kohaku was apparently a maid. It reminded her of Suzuka's maids, Noel and Farin. "You're a maid?"

"Ah, I suppose I'm not the memorable type, ufu~" Kohaku kept on smiling, though. "And yes, I'm a maid. I've been one for... Oh, since I was about your age, actually~"

She and her sister had been at the Tohno Mansion since they were eight, after all. Not that she particularly liked to reminisce about those days or anything.

"I'm sure you're really memorable!" Nanoha replied, before yawning again. She still hadn't quite woke up all the way yet. "I just don't know if I saw you, people appear really fast all the time back in that city..."

"I didn't see you before." Byakuren said rather tactlessly, having been occupied with eating the tofu... thing. She hadn't really been paying much attention to what it was supposed to be but it certainly tasted nice enough.

As the group passed through the multi-hued portal, they would find themselves standing in the middle of a wide dirt path. Looking around would reveal a strange conglomeration of structures...what looked like old, broken down cathedrals surrounding the area, all in various states of disrepair, some of the towers and spires even broken to a point that they leaned ominously over the path. Around them were what would have looked like creepy but otherwise normal large, barrel-trunked cypress trees...except that a great many of them had a large number of rope nooses hanging from their branches.

The very air around them seemed to have a greenish tint to it, as though there were some odd fog hanging. There were strange animal noises to be heard from some sort of forest behind them...faint roars and cries of beasts unfamiliar to most of them...but ahead, the trees seemed to thin in favor of more and more cathedrals.

The sky itself seemed to be abnormal...rather than being clear blue, or a starry night, it was cloudy, but the clouds appeared to be in a state of frenzy...churning and boiling rapidly as they tore across the sky, shifting frantically in their color...from normal shades of white and varieties of gray up to nearly black, up to some traces of colors no clouds should ever have...greens that matched the strange colorization of the very air, faint hints of pinks and dark blues. Despite the alien nature of it, the vague fear it might inspire, it was still strangely beautiful in a way, as though it were purposely made in that image, and despite the clear turmoil there seemed to be no malice to it's design...it simply was the way it was.

That wasn't the only unusual thing, though. All of them would discover that their usual clothing had changed as well...instead of their regular outfits, they were all know wearing some variety of leather or otherwise unusual garb. Rey himself was a bit surprised to discover that, instead of his armor and the black-and-white wrestling uniform he'd had under it, he was now in a pair of somewhat tattered blue jeans and heavy black boots, a simple leather belt with a skull-shaped buckle on the front, and thick leather wrist bands with steel rivets along both cuffs. Rounding out the unusual (for him) ensemble was a black T-shirt◊...and a black leather version of his mask, with matching rivets around the eyeholes.

Rey took all this in, frowning somewhat as he looked around, studying the landscape in puzzled silence. Though he wasn't aware of it, any of the others in their group with any more powerful of a sense of hearing would be aware of the dull rumble of some sort of incredibly large vehicle headed their way from further down the road.

"Ah, well, it's a maid's job to remain unseen, isn't it? Ufu~" replied Kohaku, as she dug into some of the tofu herself. "You'd be surprised how many times I've snuck up on Akiha-sama and Shiki-san, ufu~"

The Doctor walks out in an outfit he's familar with.◊ "Well hey I did like this jacket. Don't know why I stopped wearing it..."

He looks down. "Where's my bowtie!? I have no bowtie... Why? They're cool. This world obviously wanted me to look cool."

Nanoha had since climbed out of Byakuren's arms and began eating, well... basically the first thing in reach. She didn't know what it was, but it tasted pretty good... After chewing and swallowing, she spoke up. "Um.. are we on another 'challenge'?"

As he emerged from the portal, onto the road, and saw the darkness of the world, Jack's heart sank. This world reminded him too much of the dark future Aku had created for Earth. He might have been wandering through some remote place there. But yet, this surely meant there was opportunity to do good as well. One hand drifted down to where his sword would usually be, but found nothing there. He was alarmed for a split second, until he realized his clothes had changed, as, he recalled, it sometimes had on the original challenges. He devoutly wished, however, it had become something else than what he was wearing.

His new outfit consisted of blue jeans, ragged and tattered at the ends, bright white sneakers in place of his sandals, a white shirt with the sleeves torn off and that stopped well before the waist, a vest of black leather with many pockets, green sunglasses-which did nothing to explain the strange fog-black leather bracers, and a black, soft top hat that tilted over slightly. His sword was on a bandolier, with the hilt protruding over one shoulder. While some of the colors were different, he recognized the style from the lost souls that he had saved from Aku's music, and this told him something about the nature of this world.

As he stood there, looking around at the ruined cathedrals and wondering what kind of people had built so many in the first place, his keen ears heard something off in the distance. What, he wasn't sure, but nothing good, most likely.

Hearing the Doctor remark upon his own change of garb, Jack was compelled to reply, "From what I understand, 'cool' is an arbitrary concept at best. I certainly do not consider these kinds of clothes 'cool.'"

"If challenges involve portals then yes, yes we are." Byakuren supplied, wondering how on Earth she was supposed to sample the soup... it looked delicious, if spicy, but she couldn't get at it from here...

"I think I like this better then the last two," said Nanoha, before taking another bite of the tofu-like food. After swallowing, she continued. "The last two were weird."

Fluttershy emerged from the portal. Since she did not wear clothes usually, her person was not changed at all. She then took a good look around this new environment, gazing up at everything. She found the world around her to be strangely beautiful, especially the shifting colors of the clouds, but found the overall tone to be a bit too macabre for her taste. This place would be good for Nightmare Night, but otherwise.....

Her ears picked up something heading towards them in the distance......something probably large......

"Um......does anyone else hear that......?" she asked nervously.

Without a word, one of the waiters appeared and moved the soup closer to Byakuren, before disappearing back into the gloom again.

Toriko himself was simply sipping at his wine, though his keen ears were listening to the conversation. However, he did not respond in the least, for he was loathe to pry in other's affairs. He would wait until the meal was done to dispense exactly what was needed of the group.

Gunner herself was busy scanning all the food to check if they were poisoned. They were not, so she was able to sample the appetizer, which was good due to its texture. The soup smoothly flowed down her throat like molten gold, instantly warming her to her core, though it was a good kind of warmth. The meat provided something substantially stimulating to chew, springy and firm along with a savory aftertaste.

It seemed that once again Tyrell had made a rather...interesting entrance. He woke up under a table, covered in curry, and with a pumpkin on his head. Punching some eye, nose, and mouth holes so he could see, breath, and talk more easily Tyrell thought to himself;

Ah, no! Now she can't taste my curry! Oh well, I WAS saying I needed a helmet before. Now I have one...sort of. Now where is-Ah, there he is.

Taking his "Helmet" off Tyrell grabbed Erio by the scruff of his coat and dragged him out from underneath the table.

"Hi guys. What's new?" Tyrell asked the champions. He failed to notice Toriko seeing as he was standing right in front of him. Tyrell scanned the room but he wasn't entirely sure what he was looking at. He'd never seen a dining room before and he certainly didn't recognize anything on the table as food.

"What's that stuff on the table that you're cutting up?"

Antroz seemed to be the one least affected by the colour change....excpet he did do a shade darker in red in his mask and feet.

He looked around at the scenery.....

Quite a contrast from swirling rainbows isn't it?

Antroz turned to Jack.

"So Jack, what do we do now?"

-Brutal Legend-

With a thud Grievous was out of the portal and onto the ground. As he stood up, he noticed his new additions. His cape sported three triangular spikes per shoulder and loosly around each wrist was a leather belt with spikes. He looked back and forth at the area and narrowed his yellow eyes.

“Where are we?”

Jack, seeing nothing dangerous upon first inspection, answered with a shrug.

"We choose a direction and start walking. Down the road seems the best choice."

The Doctor snaps to attention. "Keep your eyes open any of you. This already doesn't look serene. Reminds me of the 20th century music style known as...Iron was it? But yeah it reminds me of Iron covers... Ace used to love Steel... That was it Steel!"