A Game of Gods: Infinities

Sanetoshi leaned down to gaze at Celty's PDA as she typed another message. What she wanted - what she believed she wanted, at least, the same way everyone else seemed to - was to simply stop Omega. Of course that was her answer. At the moment, he supposed, it was unreasonable to believe that it could be anything else.

It was a shame how short-term her goal was, but it still wasn't a setback. More of an opportunity.

He straightened, smiling once more. "In that case, I really wouldn't know. It seems like it would be best to find out for yourself."

Something flickered at the corner of his vision, and he turned in time to see the swirling hole rent into the fabric of the city. As the others filed into the portal, he looked back at Celty, gesturing to the portal.

"Shall we?"

I was going to type up what he'd do after this, but then I realised that that would depend on what Celty does. So after limboing Gaunt for days, I'm gonna just leave him with this. Sorry.

edited 3rd Jan '13 10:27:55 PM by KiriAme

Cloud stared.

He'd heard stories about angry spirits possessing inanimate objects. People tended to accept these as true.

He'd heard theories about the things the company did to animals. He believed these a bit less, but those theories would explain some things.

He'd seen the "wildlife" in Midgar do some downright unbelievable things — one of his squadmates had been eaten whole by what he had presumed had been a rat once, and the creature couldn't have weighed more than a small dog.

He had absolutely no explanation for the thing standing in front of them now.

"...the fuck..."

Unfortunately Athena - who had always been there......- started to giggle.

It had got to be one of the funniest things she had ever seen- the square sponge with the loud voice...the goons...the music...She had forgotten the complete absurdity of the place she had landed in.

What had she done? oh yes.....seeing the the maids were somewhat busy over the soup, Athena had slipped out when the portal everyone seemed to be waiting for opened.

The more she looked at that ridiculous piece of sponge the harder it was to control her giggling.

edited 3rd Jan '13 10:49:49 PM by biomechtraveler

Envy... had totally no idea how to respond. The weird machine, the duck's transformation, the background music and finally, a cheese.

A. Talking. Cheese. Wearing a pair of pants.

To say that Envy found this utterly ridiculous is a complete Under Statement.

"... Say, do any of you people see a talking cheese right in front of you or is it just me?"

Stranger dropped through and landed on the factory floor with no problems. Dusting himself off, he paid no attention to Dodger's accosting by machinery, he didn't really care what happened to him. The yellow, talking brick, however, made him pause then sigh. His focus was mostly on the guns the people carried however.

He activated his crossbow and subtly loaded it with stingbees.

Narancia picked himself up from the pile the group ended up in upon jumping into the portal. He rubbed his back, still sore from the landing. Then he cast his gaze upwards and saw....what the hell was he looking at. It was like a child's cartoon gone wrong. A square sponge with a huge nose acting like a gangster. He couldn't help, but giggle a bit at the absurdity of it.

When the talking sponge asked how they got there he raised up a finger. "Well-haha-excuse me. For one thing, having so many people in an abandoned place like this is really suspicious. Trust me, I've got experience with things like this. You want small groups of skilled people instead of big numbers." He explained, one gangster to another.

"We're a traveling band. We got lost on the way to the insane asylum." Johnny said, as sarcastically as humanly possible. Quite a feat.

Fumio crawled out from the pile. her chainsaw un-revved, but clearly at the ready in case things turned bad.

"The truth is, we were just dropped here by a portal." She pointed to the pile of Champions she'd just squirmed her way out of. "Think about it. If we were trying to sneak in, do you think we'd make such a messy entrance?"

She paused, then looked around.

"I don't know what's going on here, or who I'd talk to about it if I wanted to. And I don't want to... Getting involved in whatever this is would only slow us down. I have my own problems. Please don't add to them."

Fluttershy managed to land safely, using her wings to help herself float down gently on top of the pile of bodies. She got of as everyone untangled themselves. When Dodger inadvertently activated the factory machinery, the pegasus looked on at the duck's misfortune with a combination of awe and squeamishness, at the functions and the possibility of going through it all would be extremely painful as Dodgers had shown through example.

Then the group was surrounded by mooks with guns. The pastel pony immediately sat down threw her forelegs into the air. She found that these mooks being led by apparently a giant talking kitchen sponge with pants to be extremely odd, but for now she was more concerned about being shot at. However......

"Um, excuse me, Mr. Scary Sponge, sir," she asked nervously, "but, what is a toon, exactly? You mean, like, cartoons?" Due the complete lack of television in Equestria and the main visual media being movies, the pony's exposure to animated features was admittedly limited.

Shotaro then noticed that guns were pointed at him. He couldn't help but be reminded of the Museum and Foundation X and how they'd pull something like this. He cared not if the sponge was a Dopant or something else. All he knew was that he was leading a team of thugs, and he is known to take on thugs.

"So, outta of the gate and we're confronted by the Mafia? And I assume you're the leader of this joint? Very well. Let's go, Dubix..." Shotaro said as he took out the Lost Driver and placed it on his waist.

—

In the mental realm of Shotaro, Dubix's waist glowed as a similar Lost Driver appeared on his waist. He smirked as he grabbed the green memory and clicked it.

CYCLONE!

—

Shotaro took out his signature memory and pressed it.

JOOOOKER!

Soon, the two posed, pointing their memories, to the left for Shotaro, to the right for Dubix.

"HenSHIN!" The two said, though only Shotaro's voice was heard. Dubix placed the Cyclone Memory into the driver as Shotaro put the Joker Memory into his own driver. He then turned on the driver.

CYCLONE! JOOOOOOOKER!

A tiny song then played as gusts of wind blew around Shotaro and any champions near him. Soon, tiny particles, somewhat seen as junk, began to build up on Shotaro, creating a dark black armor. The usual purple accents on his armor was now replaced by green, as was his blood red eyes. On top of that, a scarf appeared from the collar of the armor. Shotaro then pointed to Spongebob.

"NOW, LET US COUnt up your crimes!" The two people, now combined in voices, said to Spongebob.

And then, without warning, the air ripped itself apart; a sudden rush of wind and noise that silenced itself before there was even time to object to either. The cool blue glow rippled where empty space had been stolen, feeling no need to explain or justify its split-second arrival to those gathered around it.

Apparently, the masked mystery man noted with quite a lot of incredulity, the group had taken that as an invitation.

Without Yee's speech, he'd have wasted no time in walking in the exact opposite direction of any mysterious gateways, no matter how good their taste in color scheme may have been. However, as no one else seemed to be objecting, and as he was not about to assume he was the only one in the group whose brain stem was still attached, he decided he may as well head in after them; after all, for all he knew, this was the start of the trail Yee was, presumably, sending them down.

With a few subtle button-presses and a twist of the knob just as he stepped through the door, the spy watched his stylish timepiece remove him from sight. With any luck, he'd have timed it such that no one had been watching him, or if they had, they'd see him vanish the moment he stepped through the portal, as if it had been just like the others' exits. As was usually the case, watching and waiting had paid off.

What had not paid off, unfortunately, was his landing. Now invisibly situated atop a graceless cluster of bodies, the rogue felt his cloaking field flicker conspicuously, giving him cause to crawl away and salvage his potential advantage. By the time he'd escaped the myriad of wriggling and grumbles, the talking duck had already turned the lights on and gotten himself caught in a bizarre sort of musical machine. Chuckling softly despite himself as the familiar tune carried throughout the factory - for that was what the lighting had revealed it to be - the spy found himself briefly transfixed with the entire process; unprofessional, to be certain, but he could not help but feel as though this was all too fitting a fate for a talking waterfowl, especially when the duck in question emerged with nothing wounded except his pride.

It was at that moment - and you can be assured, dear reader, that the retelling of this tale is as unusual as is about to become to read it - that a sharply-dressed, rectangular sponge emerged from the shadows and told his henchmen to hold the group at gunpoint. The once-whimsical atmosphere had been changed by a talking sponge. Well, alright, perhaps not changed, so much as...actually, never mind. The machine was perhaps slightly less silly.

The henchmen wasted no time in brandishing automatic weapons at the befuddled crew, and the man of mystery considered himself quite fortunate to have crawled out of the pile in time to remain hidden; or had he? He knew all too well what drawbacks his watch possessed, and if the sponge and his colleagues had been watching closely, they might have spotted him. If that were the case...well, he would certainly need to account for that.

The rest of the group seemed to take a rather laissez faire approach to staring down the barrel of multiple machine guns, particularly the one wearing the insect suit. Under normal circumstances, he'd have thought up several sarcastic quips regarding Shotaro's fashion sense, intelligence, and assumed lack of recent sexual activity (as he'd done for everyone else he'd ever seen wearing insect suits), but this was hardly the time; that would come later, when there weren't so many guns being pointed at everyone.

For now, he waited and watched. He knew he might need to solve this, assuming the others could not; and if they could, then he'd soon know exactly how they could solve it; that was valuable information all on its own.

edited 4th Jan '13 2:32:11 PM by DoctorThunder

Jack, due to his extensive experience with portals, both from his time here and in the previous challenges, handled the process well and managed to land on his feet. He was promptly buried under the rest of the group who came tumbling out and only now did he pick himself up, dust himself off, and attempt to respond to the demand made upon them. Admittedly, the sentient sea sponge was one of the stranger things he had seen, but like everything else, the samurai took it in stride, casually resting one hand on his sword while he spoke.

"It is as my friends have said. We came here unwillingly from a faraway place and intend no harm towards you or your interests here. We will gladly leave at once if that is what you desire."

He glanced around carefully, observing the factory/warehouse with a certain interest. He deeply hoped that this place did not turn out like the ill-fated and brief 'superhero' challenge, but so far, it seemed to function on some of the same principles.

Celty had turned her helmet to watch as the portal appeared and several of the others moved through it. It must be a mission, she thought apprehensively, watching the group move out. She considered staying behind, refusing to play along with Omega - but what would that accomplish? Sitting around in the empty crystal city didn't seem like much of an alternative.

Squaring her shoulders, Celty turned back to Sanetoshi and nodded. As they turned to go, she hurried over to her bike, wheeling him beside her as she walked through the portal. Well, here goes nothing...

Taking Shooter suddenly didn't seem like such a great idea, as the portal apparently deposited them in mid-air. In the second before they landed, a shocked Celty willed her familiar to drop his disguise. As a result, instead of being crushed under the weight of a motorbike, the group found a pitch-black headless stallion landing nimbly beside the pile.

Celty pushed herself to her feet, looking around frantically as she heard the sound of several guns being prepared. They were almost surrounded, shadowy figures in what looked like american gangster costumes levelling rifles at the group. The dullahan got to her feet, one hand reaching for Shooter's reins, the other held out away from her side, ready to construct her scythe. However, she looked over incredulously as a bizarrely high-pitched voice threatened them from teh head of the mobsters - a voice belonging to a small yellow sponge-like thing. Celty just stared for a second, shaking her helmet in bemusement slightly.

As several of the others responded, Celty stayed silent, ready to leap atop her horse if things went south.

Yee, Crystal City

Wrapped in the sudden hush that had settled over the Champions' passing like a heavy blanket, the Remnant looked at the place where the portal had once been in heavy silence.

"...I leave it all to you now."

With that, he leaned on his cane and began his slow, laboring walk towards the towers of crystal. It had been so long since he had ever set foot in such a place, and he did not particularly wish to do so again... but in this new solace, he would rather comfort himself with memories of the past than thoughts of the future.

The future was too close for comfort.

Link, Slightly To The Left, Heap of Challengers, Conveyor Belt, Abandoned Warehouse, Toontown

He needed a while to make sense of everything that was happening. It was just as well that he was rather good at putting two and two together... except in this case, the answer seemed to be eight-and-five-sevenths.

Having avoided most of the jostling, bumping, squashing and spraying of various substances simply by keeping calm, staying put in the heap, balancing out the weight on his back and letting his remarkably firm grip on the side of the moving rubber belt do the rest, the Hero crawled out from underneath the pile, looking at the sharply-dressed, nasty-looking men and the yellow porous rectangle for several moments in mounting disbelief.

He had seen stranger, it was true, but it was also true that he had seen more threatening things in unassuming disguises. As it was, he was kind of at a loss of what to do...

His thoughts were momentarily interrupted by Shotaro's transformation, the swirling winds blowing his hair back into his face and forcing him to shield his eyes. When he had blinked enough to allow himself to look back up again, he found himself rather surprised by the Rider's new appearance. Green and black, now?

If his previous black form had been Kamen Rider 'Joker,' then according to the rectangular devices he had been using, this one was 'Cyclone... Joker.'

"Shotaro, wait. We don't know if he's really that dangerous yet -"

An arm brushed past his shoulder, and Tachibana stepped out in front of him.

Tachibana, In Front of Link, In Front of Spongebob, In Front of Conveyor Belt, Abandoned Warehouse, Toontown

The agent peered at the back of the black-green form in front of him. So, this was the detective's transformation. He still wasn't entirely sure how it worked, but at least he hadn't been lying about the capabilities of his device.

Now, it was time to join him.

Tachibana had made the decision not to bring the Rhombus along - a fortunate decision, it seemed, given the fact that he had been considerably buffeted in the tumble down the shaft. He didn't want to know what a motorcycle would add to that, though he assumed that it would produce a sizable amount of injuries and even more grief.

Still, he didn't need the Rhombus to be a Rider again. He was here, faced with a cartoon character and a bunch of gangsters out of some American noir film. The Garren Suit was bulletproof, he was not. The choice was obvious.

To conquer his fears...

Slipping the Garren Buckle out of his jacket pocket, Tachibana gazed evenly at Spongebob - then he pulled out his Change Card with his left, and slipped it into the clear window on the front of the device, before placing it to his waist and letting go.

With an audible flicking noise, a series of gray-backed cards fanned out from the right of the Buckle, clipping onto the side and forming a silver beltstrap. A deep, electronic strobing noise resonated through the warehouse as Tachibana took up his right hand and raised it into a fist, clenching it firmly.

"Henshin!" he called, before whirling his left hand around and pulling the black slide on the side of the Buckle's window.

<<TURN UP,>> the device responded in a synthesized male voice, and the window flipped over to reveal a green surface with a golden diamond in its center.

A flicker of light. Expanding out from the belt, a translucent rectangle of solid blue light spun out right in front of Tachibana, the symbol of the Undead Ace of Diamonds on its front. Without flinching, Tachibana walked through, feeling the familiar dense warmth as it molded over his form and he stepped out beside Double.

The Category Ace and he were one again. He could feel it, prying at the back of his mind in renewed malice and disgust.

He suppressed it, like he had been trained to do.

The figure, armored in maroon and silver with faint highlights of gold, looked over at Spongebob with its green compound eyes, hand on the red gun holstered at its thigh.◊ There was a noticable, repeated diamond motif all over his suit - on his chestplate, on his spurs, on his pauldrons, on his belt, even on his knuckles. His helmet itself seemed styled after a beetle of some sort - the more entomologically-minded would identify it as a stag beetle, what with the streaks running from his eyes, the mandible-like lower section of his helmet, the pointed tips.

He did not say a word, but all the same, his seriousness seemed to radiate out from him like a palpable aura.

Garren watched, and waited.

edited 4th Jan '13 6:59:45 PM by troydenite

Chun-Li landed off-kilter from the portal, but soon stood up to see a couple of gangsters and a walking, talking block of... according to Envy, cheese. Needless to say, the cheese had practically admitted to being a part of a smuggling operation, right in front of an Interpol Special Agent who specializes in narcotics. Rather stupid, the cheese was. Kurd for brains, you could say. This was certainly going to be a fun fight, as save for the cheese, this was not anything she was not used to when dealing with Shadaloo.

"So you're the Big Cheese of this narcotics outfit," Chun-Li chuckled a bit at her pun, and turned to the others. "Let's just kick his butt and get this over with."

Chun-Li got into a fighting stance, ready for anything they might throw.

Sanetoshi stepped into the portal after Celty, tumbling forward as the ground vanished out from under him. His coat flared as he fell through the darkness, strands of hair swirling through the velocity-whipped air, grace lost only momentarily as a stray lock threw itself between his teeth.

Every fall has its end, though, and Sanetoshi's was on top of a pile of squirming bodies. He dropped to one knee on top of the mass, before neatly stepping down to the front. Men in comfortably familiar uniforms stood around a spongey yellow rectangle. The last part of that was unusual. The result of a spell, most certainly, but Sanetoshi wasn't entirely sure why it would have resulted in this, of all things. Perhaps someone simply had an odd sense of humour.

Then again, it might not be magical at all. There were many other things in the crystal city that should have been magical and yet acted like they weren't; it was not safe to assume anything until he had evidence to back it up.

So Sanetoshi stood at the front of the group and merely smiled at the yellow sponge, taking the time to contemplate the comfortable murmur and clank of the factory machines.

Looking at the two guys (and one very beautiful lady) taking a step forward and comfronting the sponge, Edward decided it was time to do the same. He nudged Cloud with his shoulder, whipsering "pay attention to this, Doc" as he took a step forward, clapped his hands and transformed his metallic hand into a blade once more. "I agree with the lady." He said, nodding at Chun-Li with a grin. "I've taken care of lots of people like him. This is going to be a walk in the park."

Cloud simply opened and closed his mouth a few times. It had finally happened. He had finally snapped. He knew a lot of cadets usually couldn't handle the pressure of being in the military, but he thought he'd been doing okay...

Evidently not.

Cletus looked at the guns, shaking his head as the Riot Gear◊ formed around him, spawned from the Pip-Boy's digital storage system, and drew his revolver, firing at the guns in the thugs' hands. He wasn't much for waiting when threatened, after all.

"You morons really think those pea shooters'll work? I've seen kids with better weapons."

edited 6th Jan '13 10:55:29 AM by Krautman

Hisui

Somehow finding herself dragged along with Athena, Hisui trembled in fear at the sight that she found herself facing. And then the two Kamen Riders transformed, leaving her in a situation she really didn't feel she belonged in. Maybe Nee-san would, but she was nowhere to be seen. Unable to cope with the bizarreness of it all, she fainted, hitting her head off the floor as she collapsed to the ground.

Kohaku

"Hmmm, anyways... Lunchtime, ufu~!" Grabbing Rin's arm, Kohaku dragged the magus towards the kitchens, where she was greeted by... No-one.

"Whaaat?" Confused, the maid at least noticed that someone had taken some of the soup. Unfortunately, the lack of anyone left her very worried about one thing. "...Where's Hisui? Where did she go? Tohsaka-san, what happened to my sister?"

Rin, not able to react quickly enough to avoid being dragged into the kitchen, was surprised to see the room empty herself. She was sure people had headed into here... Was this one of those challenge things that she'd heard about? "I don't know what happened... Hisui has to be around here somewhere."

At least, hopefully. If this was a challenge, she could've been pulled somewhere else...

Deciding to keep the weird maid in sight, Saber followed and stepped into the kitchen behind Rin and Kohaku. She looked around,

“It would appear we have been left behind by everyone. Again in my case.” She ground her teeth together as she stalked over to the fridge and started going through it, looking for a snack. Turning back to the pair, she had what appeared to be an apple in her hands as she took a chunk out of it and swallowed,

“Now...tell me exactly why do you think I am someone you know? Neither of you are my master, but you are familiar with the Holy Grail War no?”

"Please, I'm a sponge, not a cheese. Really, if that's the kind of pun that shirtless buffoon considers funny, then the Animation Division is on its downfall." Spongebob said, not even noticing as two of its thugs dropped their weapons thanks to Cletus' shots. "And do you think I'm going to go without a fight? I'm tired of having to pander to the lowest common denominator! I'm this close to finally making it a big, and nothing, not even some crazy cops, are going to stop me!"

He pointed at the ceiling, and even more lights lit up, revealing even more thugs in some catwalks upstairs, and some of them hiding behind the machines. They all cocked their 50's looking machine guns as Spongebob pulled out his spatula, pressed a button and laughed as it transformed into a jetpack-like weapon, allowing him to float into the air thanks to... bubbles. "Tom, Kenny, everyone... BLAST THEM!" He yelled, swinging his finger around as all thugs began to shoot at the group, their bullets whizzing by the heroes and distracting some of them as Spongebob flew towards the window on top of one of the warehouse's walls. "Freedom! I can almost smell it! And it has a fresh scent of lime!"

"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Dodgers yelled as he ran across the room, swinging his arms, and ended up hitting his head against those three containers filled with colored dust. One of the containers shot a concentrated blast of dust at one of the thugs, and said thug suddenly gained fairy wings and started to fly, hitting the wall as he couldn't control his wings. "I don't want to turn into swiss duck! I prefer America! SOMEBODY HELP MEEEE!"

"You shouldn't have done that. I have a higher body count than any of you!"

Scowling, Fumio revved her chainsaw, deftly dodging the bullets... Which was easier than it sounds, as it seemed the thugs couldn't shoot very well... And surged foward, her chainsaw ripping through the stomach of the nearest thug with a quick, glancing blow, leaving behind a gory mess as she darted behind the disemboweled corpse-in-progress, waiting for an opening before she made her next move.

edited 6th Jan '13 10:37:24 PM by Scrounge

"Tch!" Edward yelled, immediately jumping back to Cloud's side. "Doc, come on! No time to stand around doing nothing!" He said, running over the conveyor belts while dodging the bullets. The blonde quickly jumped over the conveyor belt, kicking one of the thugs in the face in mid-air and landing safely on the other side.

"Doc!" He yelled to Cloud, pointing at the containers full of dust. "Attack those things! Should distract them!"