Enter The Arena As Your Avatar -- The Spinoff!

???, Pseudo's base

Greyface looks at his phone, somewhat nervous.

"What if Elmadan won't buy it...", he mutters. Pilly◊ pats his shoulder supportively.

"When you were evil, you could pull off a good guy act for that one politician guy in Fourside, right?"

"Well, a business tycoon actually."

"Then why wouldn't you be able to pull off a bad guy act now?"

"Um..."

"Just go for it. In the worst case scenario, we can try to bargain with this Elmadan."

She gives him a thumbs up as she backs off a little. Elmadan would be able to see Greyface on a big screen, so Greyface can't have anyone near him during the call or the jig would be up immediately. Once there's nobody around him, he calls him up.

It takes a few seconds, but eventually, Elmadan picks up. And he doesn't sound too happy.

"Greyface, oh my god! Why did it take you so freaking long to contact us!? Master Giygas is furious at your lack of status reports, and he's already going nuts as he is so I don't want to be the cause of any fuel added to this eldritch fire!"

Greyface, holding the phone a little away from his face after that outburst, brings it back and starts talking.

"Calm down, three-eyes!", he says, doing his best to sound like a jerk. "I've been busy with something immensely important. Something that doesn't concern you, you lackey."

"Oh, is that so? Then why did you even bother calling?"

"I need the Apple of Enlightenment."

Silence from the other side for a few seconds.

"... Excuse me?"

"The Apple. I need it. I can't leave myself so I'm sending people over to get it."

"Oh, you can forget about that, mask-boy! I don't care how high in command you are, Master Giygas gave us specific orders to guard it with our lives! If I give it to you and you mess up, I'm going to be held responsible! I'm not going to risk my hide and future in power just for one of your personal rushes!"

"Elmadan, listen, it's really important that I have that Apple."

"..."

"... what's with the silence?"

"You sound different. Not like yourself. Is something up?"

"W-what!? Of course not! How do I sound any different from normal!?"

"You sound more... gentle. Don't tell me you got yourself captured or something. How pathetic."

Greyface almost panics, but, with some quick thinking, figures out what to do. He slams his fist against the wall, hard enough for Elmadan to hear it on the other end, then screams into the phone with all of his might.

"Alright, listen up, you tentacled moron! I'm on an incredibly serious and important mission that's been giving me damn headaches for weeks now! I'm in a risky situation that not even I can nuke my way out of! I'm hungry, I'm sweaty, and I'm pissed off! I am so goddamn close to the end as well, and I need that stupid Apple right now, and you're going to give it to me or I swear I'll turn you into fried calamari and feed you to your fellow Mooks!"

Pilly and Pseudo, still close enough to have been in earshot, actually appear startled. And judging by Elmadan's silence, he was caught off guard too.

"So!?", Greyface asks in between heavy breaths.

"... w... who are you going to send?"

"Just some new minions, I don't remember their names. Look, they'll tell you I sent them once they get to you, alright? Park the ship somewhere visible and wait for them."

"... y... yes."

"Good!"

Greyface hangs up, then sits down on the ground, slightly out of it and his hand hurting from that punch. Pseudo and Pilly walk up to him.

"That was frighteningly impressive.", Pilly says.

"I just hope it was enough...", Pseudo says.

Elmadan looks at the now blank screen in silence. He turns to Captain Deepsea◊.

"... what do you think?"

"Something doesn't -WHIRR- feel right about the way he spoke.", Captain Deepsea says. "However, I believe that it could genuinely be stress."

"Hm... well... I'll bring the ship up and we'll see what happens."

Lake Basel, Oblivia

Niiue's ship rises up from the water below, then lands onto the sandy area in front of it.

The Star Dragoon begins to approach the lake from Noctilum. Kirby doesn't feel a sense of urgency, so he's taking his time.

Neuff is doing’ streches on the beach !

« I can’t believe that Demo would fall that asleep. » She comments, before yelping when the ship emerges.

« Yah ! I hope no one hears that ! » she says, composing herself.

—

« Please, my tests are no mere valentine adventures ! »

Obliva

Thor◊, who was practicing near Lake Basel earlier, approaches the ship as it emerges.

"This plan you and Grayface have concocted had better be worth the risk, Pseudo..."

Upon noticing that Neuff was also nearby, he greets her with a wave, though she'll notice that he seems a bit more on-edge today than usual.

Nicole flashes a grin at Cinke.

"C'mon, Cinke, you wouldn't really deny those lovebirds a chance to do the test together now, would ya?"

edited 23rd Mar '18 10:38:35 AM by IchigoMontoya

Once the three get near the ship, a platform descends from the underside of the ship, Elmadan standing on it. He adjusts his sunglasses as he watches them approach.

None of those look anything like the kind of people Greyface would hire. ... Well, except maybe the blond guy., he thinks to himself.

Once it's on the ground, he steps off of it, awaiting their arrival to greet them.

Kirby is still about halfway to the lake. He notices Thor and Neuff. Oh, hey! It's those guys! he thinks silently.

"Hey Thor ! Just to warn ya, erm, my sister teamed up with Oca and the butterfly knight, be wary if ya see them." she says."A pal managed to tell me about it."

She then turns to Elmadan and raise her hand;

"Yo." she declares, before glancing over at the incoming Kirby.

"Hey, it's the super-strong fluffball !"

—

"Hm... I'll have to make separate files for them then."

edited 23rd Mar '18 10:53:02 AM by Bolded1

"Well... No wonder the latter deigned not to reveal his client's identity when he foolishly attempted to slay me..." Thor quickly replies to Neuff. "As if that vile witch weren't enough of a problem, now she's actually found replacements for Katre..."

Shaking his head, his gaze flickers over to Elmadan.

"Elmadan, yes? I've come here to accept a certain apple on Greyface's behalf."

For obvious reasons, he doesn't yet notice Kirby.

"Cool. Lemme know what results they wind up scoring. I wanna in advance if I can expect Neuff to start going on about beating my score next time we meet."

edited 23rd Mar '18 11:14:24 AM by IchigoMontoya

Elmadan greets them with a sly smirk, but despite that, he appears to look like a more decent type than Porky Minch is.

"Hm, yes... I just had him on the phone, he told me you were coming. C'mon in, I'll bring you to the Apple. In the meantime, how about you tell me your names? If you're Greyface's minions, we might end up working together at some point, so it'd be nice to get to know you."

He steps back onto the platform, motioning for the others to come stand on it too.

edited 23rd Mar '18 11:18:42 AM by DevilPsyco

Kirby comes in, smoothly landing on the platform as he dismounts from the Star Dragoon and switches to ESP. He quickly scans Thor's mind to get an idea of what's happening, then says, "Hi, sorry I'm late. I'm Kirby." He's pretending to be in on this... deceit?

"Morpho dude is dangerous, as well as Oca, but they're both pretty very willing to fight in 1V1 I heard."

"Also, Oca rely on transformations to fight against us. If you manage to beat him up before he can access his higher forms, it should be easy. That said, he know how strong we are and I don't think he's stupid enough to go in his "base" form."

She shrugs.

"He seemed like a chill dude, hope we can make it up. Hey Kirby !"

Neuff smiles at the being, a bit weirded out, and climb on.

"I'm Sarah." she says. She did fight Greyface before, so she'd rather be careful with her names. "Nice to meet you !"

—

"She is of a boastful nature !"

edited 23rd Mar '18 11:26:05 AM by Bolded1

Kirby will learn from the scan that Thor's here to retrieve the Apple of Enlightenment from Elmadan for Pseudo and Greyface while posing as one of the latter's henchmen.

"Donald Blake," Thor himself says to Elmadan, before looking to Neuff as he follows her and Kirby onto the ship.

"Then I suppose we ought to make sure our allies are nearby, should we ever have to deal with them again. Catch them off-guard."

"Barring Ain and Deut, you could probably say that about all the Sisters. If I missed any exceptions besides them, just lemme know."

He chuckles.

"A pleasure to meet you too."

Once everyone is on the platform, it ascends, bringing them into the ship. Elmadan starts to walk, the others just having to follow him. The hall they're going through is only dimly lit. It's not dark enough that they'll have to expect a trap or ambush, but it's just dark enough to be a little unnerving.

"So there's other allies I don't know of yet? What're they like?", he asks without looking back at the three, his tentacle-arms behind his back as he's walking, which only serves to strengthen the current vibe, even if Elmadan's question sounds sincere.

Uncertainty

She kind of walk along, not really being creeped out. After all the demon possessions and fights for her life, she's used to creepy things, a dim light will not be scaring her anytime soon.

"We're his elites but he has a few, yeah." she says, hoping that Kirby and Thor will follow up. She doesn't respond to the latter yet about Oca and Morpho.

—

"Ho, is that a stealth insult at me ?"

"Um, well... I don't know any off the top of my head, but... there's a big armored guy with an axe who I once met. I... like to distance myself from Greyface. I mostly get his orders through these two guys."

edited 23rd Mar '18 11:56:35 AM by KiriK

"We're actually quite a diverse bunch," Thor chimes in as he follows Elmadan down the dimly-lit hallway. "Among our numbers are a master of illusions and a woman who's part-machine."

"Just a simple observation, doc. Didn't mean anything offensive by it."

"That's pretty interesting. I hope I'll get to meet them one day.", Elmadan says. He then laughs a little at what Kirby says.

"Very understandable. I can't stand him either."

He then stops in front of a door. He opens it as he continues talking.

"Has Greyface introduced any of you to Giygas yet?"

Once the door is open, they'll be able to see a room that has a lone pedestal in it. Encased in a glass cube is the Apple of Enlightenment.

"I don't even know who this 'Giygas' is," Kirby admits. Seeing the Apple of Enlightenment, he adds, "Heh. Reminds me of Whispy Woods. That tree's life is terrible because of me and my brethren, but he never stops trying to kill us... with actual apples."

edited 23rd Mar '18 12:16:34 PM by KiriK

"No, of course note. We're not worth the immense honor of glimpsing His form." she says. She actually doesn't take a worshipping tone, more like the kind of tone that some phone operator would use to a client. She doesn't quite want to ham it up, after all.

Neuff's impeccable poker face twitch briefly when Kirby speak up.

"As you can see, some of us do not even know about Him !." she affirms, before looking over at the apple. "Impressive... I can feel its importance from where I am standing."

"I'm hungry as shit for apples." she then think to herself.

—

"Haaa, good, good." she says, awkwardly hugging Nicole

edited 23rd Mar '18 12:16:29 PM by Bolded1

"Of course, he's also relatively new in comparison to myself and Sarah," Thor adds coolly. "That being said, I myself have never actually been introduced to Giygas either."

He then merely looks at the Apple.

Nicole blinks in surprise, but nonetheless hugs Cinke back despite the awkwardness.

"Yeah, it's... really good."

edited 23rd Mar '18 12:33:51 PM by IchigoMontoya

Unbeknownst to the rest, since they can't see his face, a glint appears in Elmadan's eyes as he adjusts his sunglasses.

"Ah, I see. Well, I'm not surprised that Greyface didn't go into detail about him. He has a pretty big ego."

He walks into the room, motioning for the others to keep following. Once he stands near the pillar, he takes the glass casing off and then moves aside.

"Here you go, the Apple of Enlightenment."

"I don't trust myself with such a powerful item," Kirby says. He starts to turn around. "Mind if I keep watch outside?"

"It's okay to have a big ego when you're in his position. These fools of the Arena are so busy warring or talking." she laughs. "He can make his operations under their noses and they won't know a thing."

"I'll hold on to it." she says, reaching out to grab it. "I am swifter than lightning, after all." declares the Sister. "In a mere minute, he'll be done contemplating the apple, and it will lay in the palm of his hand !"

—

"Haha ! It's nice to hug people ! I don't do it a lot ! Only Deut really allow me to hug her "

She let go.

Thor answers Kirby with a nod, then looks to Elmadan as Neuff takes the egg.

"It was a pleasure doing business with you, Elmadan."

Nicole chuckles mildly.

"Mmmhmm, Deut's a real sweetheart like that, ain't she?"

edited 23rd Mar '18 12:54:52 PM by IchigoMontoya

When Neuff grabs the Apple, Elmadan grins.

"Indeed it was."

He then presses a button behind him, which makes the wall open up, a mechanical claw grabbing and pulling Elmadan in, after which the wall closes again.

The lights in the room turn red, and the floor opens underneath them, revealing a long fall down to the ground. As it turns out, the ship had gone back up in the air while they'd been inside of it.

To make matters worse, the ceiling suddenly drops down as well, which means that they have only three options now:

1: Fall down 2: Fly down 3: Get smacked down

Because down is the only direction they can go in right now.