Enter The Arena As Your Avatar -- The Spinoff!

"Well, this is gonna sound weird, but... I saw a vision of a blue ghost rabbit thing.", Bailey says. Eclipse tilts his head.

"The only rabbit in the Pizzaplex is Glamrock Bonnie, who is currently not present."

"It wasn't a robot! At least it didn't look like a robot. It really looked like a ghost. I only saw it for a moment, but I don't think it even had any legs."

"The only employees in the Pizzaplex are humans and animatronics. Fazbear Entertainment does not employ ghosts."

"But I know I saw it!"

"I can only assume you might have seen someone in a costume. I heard that our soon-to-arrive security guard is making a costume."

"But if it was a costume they would have legs!"

"It logically cannot be anything else, unless you just imagined it."

Bailey groans. This is going nowhere. And it doesn't feel like Eclipse is trying to gaslight him, it genuinely sounds like he has no idea what Bailey is talking about.

"Okay, then... I guess... keep an eye out for rabbits just in case? I saw it because of my Sp... eh, a danger sense."

"The concept is illogical, but if there is a dangerous rabbit running around, I promise I shall be extra attentive, as to ensure the safety of all the children here."

Well, that's something at least.

Edited by DevilPsyco on Mar 17th 2024 at 8:03:18 PM

Gwen tries to remember if she ever notices anything like what Bailey saw in his vision, but ultimately comes up empty. While there was something to be said about an eccentric robot declaring something illogical, she didn't feel like commenting on it.

"Okay, so... who's this new security guard you're expecting?" she inquires.

Weathertop, Luin, Church, Vermintide: FINALE

"It is not," Ammeltunn affirmed Lucien’s statement will a solemn nod. He stretched his hands, glowing with the energy of the sun, and pressed it against a fallen Saurus’ hide. In an instant the body was ash, lifted by the wind and carried off into the pale wintry sky. "Shockspines are known only to inhabit the deepest, darkest parts of the Writhing Swamps. If food is so scarce that it was willing to come all the way out here…things are truly worse than we thought. But come; I must address my people, and then we shall discuss what to do with each of you. I am not certain we should leave our ports open, given the obvious severity of the situation." He addressed those who remained, watching Lucien fly away and over the wall while hoping his hearing had the same range as his voice.

Ammeltunn turned away and skulked off towards the gate, now cooled enough to rise and allow the group entrance. Behind them came the magnitudes of Lizardmen that had either run out when the fighting began or been stuck out there. Their tales and heads hung low, either from shame of their direct defiance of orders or from sorrow at the lives lost. There was the wood elf recon party as well, at their head marching Captain Kelhorn with his daughter at his side.

——

Luin stewed on his words a bit.

"I see." So through her, he’d learn the moral code he was to follow? It seemed, simple enough…this was an interesting development, for sure. She wasn’t certain how much she trusted the development in question, but these were difficult days, and only a fool would think to deny aid, even from an unconventional source. And so, Luin nodded her approval. "You stick around, and I’m sure you’ll learn quick. But for now…" The woman glanced about herself from atop the hoors. "For now, I’m looking for someone. Big guy, red hair, golden armor. Should be here somewhere."

——

Such a massing of power rarely goes unnoticed in the Arena, and has a tendency to attract unexpected attention…

Fortunately, it seemed this was good attention. Nobody could quite tell when exactly he’d appeared, whether he had been there for an extended amount of time or had simply arrived recently without anyone noticing, but Cittufeni stood close by. A six-foot-six and heavily muscled frame, with smooth silver hair running to his shoulders. His face was sharp and angled, as though chiseled to michelangelic proportions…because, of course, it was. He looked flesh and bone, but the muscles beneath his tempered skin were synthetic and inorganic. His eyes were an unnatural blue and seemed to glow, ever so subtly.

"Church of Gor…" Cittufeni’s gaze grew unfocused for but a moment as he spoke in monotone, scouring the internet and digital archives for every detail he could find on the group, and then snapped back to attention. "They are powerful and influential, and evidently quite philanthropic as well. You believe one of them may be manipulating Thor into attacking his father?" He asked clarity, clearly misunderstanding the difference between the Thor and Odin mentioned.

——

There was a sharp scream, wretched and awful, echoing across time and space alike. But this was no scream of war, nor of joy or pleasure. It was a dying scream, the howl of a battle lost. Disembodied arms and heads and torsos and limbs unknown fell from the sky as the rifts closed, monstrous in appearance and deeply foreign from anything any of them had ever seen. The darkness withdrew from the realm of mortals and suddenly the world about them grew brighter, the darkness above lightening to a deep shade of blue.

The late night was silent for a moment, only a moment…before the faint singing of distant birds heralded the coming of a dawn without Chaos. Father Pucci staggered to his feet, tried to walk, and collapsed to his knees. A thin line of red dribbled from the corner of his mouth and he coughed, crawling blindly to the East. He did not need to see to know, he needed only follow the warmth. The priest dropped again onto his side, with a smile on his lips as he gazed sightlessly over Hyrule made gold. The first sunbeams of a new morning fell upon his face, and upon Melia, and upon Azura, and upon Raex, and upon Murasa.

The Long Night, and all the fear that came with it, had ended.

…

..

.

They were ushered out from the tunnels in droves, leaving the bodies behind.

They came out into a ruined castle and a ruined town, ruined homes and ruined walls and ruined markets. The streets were littered with corpses of defenders and attackers alike, and a foul stench poisoned the air. They were ushered over the bridge by the Children of Man, Alwyen at their head: the barbarians had gone into the Light, and in their place were kindly men and women with sympathetic smiles and warm embraces who comforted the ones who lived. They wept as they passed the bodies, and some recognized the faces of a loved one. When they rushed to hold their beloved one final time, they were not hindered, but the others were kept moving.

The Children of Men led the people out of Hyrule Town as a whole and out onto the field to the south, where at last they rested as well as they could. Tents were established and relief was provided; medical aid given as were provisions of food and comfort. The children were gathered in the center of the camp, and to them the parents were directed. They had wept as they walked through the ghosts of their homes, but now the only cries raised were cries of joyous reunions between family and friend. The others, left alone, were simply too tired to make a sound. Weary eyes gazed northwards to the smoking ruin of their city.

Hyrule’s destruction was significant and thorough, and seemed then like it would last forever, like future generations would forever know the city of Hyrule to have been reduced to rubble on that night.

No one in that moment wanted to hear the words of hope in the midst of pain, that “we will rebuild” as they yet mourned bodies still warm, but they knew it was true. And, in time…they would. The cataclysm that had taken to threaten Hyrule would never be forgotten, but the pain would heal eventually. There would be scars…but like a broken bone, they’d come back stronger, because they won. Chaos had taken lives beyond count that night, but Chaos had lost. It was a victory, hard-earned and won in blood, but a victory nonetheless, and for the lives lost, it’d have to mean something. These were the ones blessed enough to survive the Long Night, now all that remained was for them to make the most of what came after; for the darkest nights bring the brightest days.

But for now, they grieved.

Edited by ISZATSO on Mar 17th 2024 at 3:32:52 PM

"Oh, quite the lovely girl, at least from what I've heard. There hasn't been an official introduction yet, but the accessible data files tell me her name is Vanessa. She has a recommendation from the higher-ups, so she must be good at her job."

Eclipse clasps his hands together happily.

"The staff personnel grows more by the day. Soon enough this will be the place to be for children and grownups alike to have fun. I can hardly wait."

"Huh, so there's gonna be an actual human worker here?", Bailey asks. That gives Eclipse pause.

"There are plenty of human workers here."

"... nnnnooooo, there's only robots.", Bailey says, a little weirded out.

"According to my most recent log data there are over 40 human employees still currently active in the Pizzaplex. It is a little odd I haven't seen anyone around today yet, but I suppose they must be busy. This place is growing by the day, after all." , he laughs.

Gwen raises an eyebrow, looking just as befuddled as Bailey. Either these human employees took working behind the scenes very seriously or, and she had a feeling this was the more likely possibility, something was wrong with this picture.

"Well, it wasn't a human who got in my face and ordered me to take a map," she says. "You sure there are actual people working here? Might wanna double check."

"Positive. I got a check-up from a trained Level 5 Fazbear technician yesterday!" , he happily says. "They had the security mask, so they must have been a certified technician. I went into sleep mode for the procedure and rebooted earlier today, just like how it usually goes."

Then there's sounds of someone coming out of the slide and going into the ballpit.

"Oh, another kid to watch over. I will have to go, but if anything happens or anyone wants to do some arts and crafts, don't hesitate to come tell me. Have a Faz-erific day, kids~"

With that, Eclipse ascends once again, going back to the ballpit. Bailey ponders.

"I dunno about you, but it sounds to me like he was shut off for a long time and doesn't realize it or something."

Gwen nods in agreement.

"Which, of course, means there's definitely something going on here," she replies, glancing to see who just slid into the ballpit. "You wanna see about getting to the bottom of it?"

GROMTIME

It was a blessing that Cecil had talked to Corrin because the latter's mood would've found a way to be worse than it already was without him. Perhaps it spoke poorly of the young man's morals but the sight of Luin getting slapped like that was more infuriating to him than the sight of the gobbos getting slaughtered. Maybe because he'd seen how deeply evil and cruel they were to one another? Or perhaps because he cared more for someone like him than he wanted to admit.

Or perhaps because he knew Luin from his time in the Shepherds, having helped the young woman against a pissed-off mother wyvern. He knew her to be a strong woman because of that, one who had taken harder hits before and who could survive them too. But the sight of her crumpled body, and Grom's petty reason for bloodying her up so bad, has the prince testing out his new Death Glare.

Corrin clench his fist hard enough to casually -and accidentally- crumple his cutlery. And he prepares to get up from his seat with an improvised but effective speech, rightfully criticizing Grom as a fat tyrant who deserved to be killed and forgotten instead of having entire banquets made in his honor. Then, he'd take his swords out and would try and spear the Greenskin himself, even if the rest of his allies were to remain in their seats, unbothered by the violence.

It was a grand noble opportunity for Corrin to break away from his earlier deflection of what he saw. Even if he were to die to kill Grom, then he'd at least respawn. And he wouldn't be going back to his old habits, enforcing the rules of tyrants, letting them flaunt their power around with a lowered head and gritted teeth, outraged at orders he gallantly enforced, sights he simply looked away from, actions he did nothing against.

So why was it so hard for Corrin to rise from his seat? Why couldn't he spar a shout of concern for Luin? Why did he listen to Anna, as she explained that Grom was apparently the tamest of his bunch? If there was an entire army of Greenskins like him, surely they should be stopped instead of negotiated with, so that they could only torture and murder a smaller portion of the population.

Damned coward. Corrin didn't move, nor did he bother to say Anna this was the last straw. He knew he wouldn't live up to his premise if he did that. And though he was annoyed at her, he knew she was probably working for the greater good here. Still, he'd definitely not take any new mission for her sake onwards into the future. She'd have her greenskin friends to back her up for those.

He just yearned to go back home to Beruka, Joker, the other Anna, Jake and the rest of his friends (not Morgan) somewhere civilized. That meant gritting his teeth for a few more hours but it was a lesson, right? A lesson that he should look more closely into the fine print before going anywhere. And thus, Corrin decided to do like Xander, Leo or Camilla, by simply making a few disapproving grimaces and sticking to that.

But then, to his dismay, something good happens.

Cecil is proved right. And Corrin's disgusting meal prove particularly appealing to Grom's taste, the rotund warlord pleased by the sight of it and driven to an almost orgasm over it. To his horror, Corrin make himself one of the three most unforgettable personalities of the night by greatly pleasing Grom. So what does he do, with that sudden bit of fame? Nothing. He just smiles and nod.

And then Luin dare to speak, not even getting up from her crumpled position to do so. This snapped Corrin out of his daze, the young man coming to his senses as Grom discarded his tears and Luin continued her speech. Why the fuck did he just sit down? She was there, wounded and already down for the count, but she had the defiance to speak back to Grom and ignore Anna.

Luin was more than a strong woman. She was a stronger person than he was. How could he have let his morals be this compromised? If he were to let her die, he was going to be no better than Xander. He didn't know why he had felt so much fear at the idea of confronting Grom nor why he had waited this long to act, but he felt like he had to act while there was a sliver of courage found within his breast.

Corrin leapt out of his seat, uncaring of who he'd have to knock over in doing so, and began rushing for Luin, his intent to shield her from harm. Because he knew damn well that Anna was going to be throwing her to the wolves as penance for what she'd said and that the others wouldn't mind.

Maybe they'll chop my head off for this, but I won't have kept it down to make it easy for them! His first priority was getting out. He could do so fairly easily thanks to his powers but he still looked for anything he could use for an easy escape. A window. An exit that wasn't well-guarded. Maybe water, though he was sure and certain he wouldn't find a drop of it within all of Gobbotown.

First thing first, he'd try to grab Luin by wrapping his arms around before deploying his wings to cover her and himself.

Edited by Bolded1 on Mar 17th 2024 at 9:37:19 AM

It ends up being a random kid Gwen and Bailey don't know.

"Sounds fun. But how?", Bailey asks. "I don't know much about computers and animatronics, so how should we get started? I don't think Eclipse is gonna be very helpful since he doesn't seem to know anything might be wrong."

Gwen offers Bailey a slight smile.

"I'm sure we'll figure something out. We probably just have to look in the right places, and the clues'll be there waiting for us," she assures.

"Alright!", he smirks mischievously in excitement. "Let's look around. Since I'm you sidekick, you get to lead."

He says while leaping onto the nearest jungle gym already. That quickly gets some awed kids looking his way though. Guess he got to impress them after all.

Gwen cracks a wide smile.

"Just follow my lead, Spider-Boy!"

Not to be outdone, she leaps onto the same jungle gym as Bailey and performs a one-handed handstand.

Skull Island

Broly◊ is currently sitting in the middle of the Iwi village, munching on a sizable chunk of meat he'd been cooking over a nearby fire pit.

Well, now they have all the kids' attention, including the one Eclipse brings in.

"Now how did they get up there?" , Eclipse asks, curious as he moves towards the jungle gym, though doesn't go up it just yet.

"Be careful now, children!"

Broly might suddenly hear some light footsteps nearby. Is someone sneaking up on him.

If he looks in the direction of the footsteps, he'll find that it's a kid. He wasn't sneaking, they were light because he's small. He's sniffing the air, and then his eyes settle on the meat Broly's eating.

"Oh, that looks tasty!", he says, excited. "Do you have more?"

He doesn't look or sound at all intimidated by the enormous height difference between the two of them, despite him being small enough that Broly could probably step on him by accident.

ords

Curse you, Ganonderp, for zzPREVENTING the CHANCE to GET DAT DERE WEELLIAM.
*CRASH*

Luckily, Fighter can play stall, too. He hunkers down, crossing blades in front of himself to weather the assault.

"...!"

The second Ganondorf's last blow starts to end, he starts to push back with sudden force, hoping to throw him off-balance!

Centralis - Excelsus

Croque's boosters kick on as she jets backwards, the drill recompacting and warping out as she does so.

"Hmm... I've got an idea."

She warps in a back-mounted system, black in color like the rest of her suit and decently compact. It comes with an odd tool- it looks like a laser designator, but scaled up into a rifle. She points the beam at the MG EXCELSUS, which doesn't do damage.

However.

"Rift systems stable, warp-lock ready! Let's see how this thing deals with some portable heavy firepower! Mirage Burst!"

She just doesn't let up, does she?

A barrage of bullets and missiles warps in from all sides, aiming to pummel the Metal Gear a decent amount.

Greenhall

...

The fork Ivory had been holding snaps in half. To say he's pissed would be an understatement. He grabs his halberd from his chair and throws his bag back on.

"Oh, to hell with this! Enough is enough!!"

Ego Projection - Strength

Ivory projects his mind unto himself, bolstering his form. His halberd feels lighter than ever now, though he still tries to keep himself from doing something stupid- like cutting Grom's head off at the neck, and then some.

He notices one other with the same reaction as him- that being Corrin. Well, at least someone here has a moral compass.

"You people really think this is acceptable?! To let someone act so barbaric just because he's the strongest in the room? Hell, I doubt that!"

Ivory's voice is fully of barely-constrained fury, wisps of a rainbow light coming off his body.

He levels his halberd at Anna, turning his focus to her.

"And you- you're just going along with this! For what, the reasoning that he's the lesser of two evils?! Why not just take out both evils and be done with it, huh?! I have half a mind to burn this place to the ground right now!!"

Of course, he'd teleport all the people who actually seemed to be some semblance of 'good' outside first, but...

Ivory slams his halberd into the table in anger, clenching his teeth.

"But go ahead, do whatever the fuck you think is 'right'! I'll be there to chop you to shreds when it starts being wrong."

With that said, he just... stands there. His halberd in one hand, the other clenched tightly.

Gwen flashes a grin.

"Oh, I work out and get plenty of rest. Y'know, eat your green vegetables, kids!"

She follows up on her earlier stunt by performing a few cartwheels across the jungle gym, though she does watch to see what tricks Bailey might have in store.

Understandably surprised that he had company, Broly wheels around to find himself face to face with an oddly familiar kid. The hulking Saiyan raises an eyebrow, trying to remember if he'd ever crossed paths with this boy who didn't seem intimidated by their vast height difference.

"Yes. There is plenty of food."

He grabs another piece of meat off the spit he'd used to roast it over the fire, then offers it to his unexpected guest.

Bailey does a full-on backflip from one jungle gym to the other one. Needless to say, all the kids are thoroughly entertained.

Eclipse flies up to the roof of the jungle gym Gwen's on.

"As impressive as you both are, please don't give the children too many ideas that could get them hurt." , he says, though doesn't try to physically stop them yet.

That may change if they continue doing dangerous stunts though.

"Thanks!", the kid happily says, practically bouncing over to Broly to take the meat. He hastily eats it, showing a similar appetite to Broly.

... actually, wait, the kid has a tail too, just like him.

"Don't worry, I won't!" Gwen assures. "Remember, kids, don't try any of this at home! Me and my sidekick are professionals."

After executing one final somersault, she takes a bow for her audience before gesturing for Bailey to join her. If he does so, she'll raise his arm triumphantly into the air as if she were a referee.

Between the boy's distinctive tail and his large appetite, Broly begins to get a good idea of who his mysterious guest might be. Or rather, what he might be.

"Are you... a Saiyan like me?"

Bailey jumps back to her, but instead of just landing normally, he ends up right above Gwen and holds his hands out so that he can grab her shoulders and keep himself raised up above her, upside down, as if it was a circus act. Eclipse would probably have a stroke if he could.

Right after though, he lets himself fall back down, letting go of Gwen and landing on his feet, then doing a bow too, after which he'll join her by raising his own arm too. The kids are ecstatic.

"That was all really impressive, but... please, do not do things like that again while in the Daycare."

The boy looks up at Broly with his mouth still full of food.

"Whas ah Saiyah?", he asks without swallowing said food first. He does so right after though.

"What's a Saiyan?"

Looking suitably impressed by Bailey's final trick, Gwen flashes a grin at Eclipse.

"We won't, we won't."

Taking one final bow, she backflips off of the jungle gym and sticks a Three-Point Landing Black Widow would undoubtably be proud of. Once Bailey has joined her on the daycare floor, Gwen shows her sidekick a proud smile before playfully ruffling his hair.

"Oh my god, you were so great back there, Bailey!"

—-

Broly tilts his head, caught off-guard by the kid apparently not knowing that he was clearly a Saiyan.

"It's... what you and me are," he replies. "Who are you?"

Bailey proceeds to mimic her once again, this time doing the exact same backflip and landing. Once his hair is ruffled he laughs a bit.

"Thanks! And hey, you were really cool too!"

Eclipse also (slowly) descends down from the top of the jungle gym.

"You said you are professionals. Did the company hire you to fill in for the band while they are gone?" , Eclipse asks, genuinely not sure how else to explain the why and how behind it.

"Huh? I don't get it."

He then flashes a wide smile.

"I'm Goku! I'm journeying around to train myself!", he cheerfully says, tail even slightly wagging.

Edited by DevilPsyco on Mar 17th 2024 at 11:52:17 AM

Sarah looks at the newcomers. Cittefuni, Belen, Emma... the last one got her to do a brief double-talk. Shit, talk about enthusiasm. But it's Icarus who gets the most of her attention this round, Sarah listening to her explanation pretty intently. That, and what Artemis has to say, although her relative vagueness means that Icarus is more interesting to her.

On one hand, there being a dissonance in narrative make sense after such an event. On the other hand, Icarus was the thorough sort. And seemed to be fairly safe from nefarious mind-control. She could trust him to have come to the same conclusions and used comparisons to properly deduce what could be simply a bad memory from legitimate manipulation;

Still, what he had to say was critical. And Sarah started to scratch the tip of her chin in contemplation.

... Both those facts seem to point to Meteorika being tied to something sinister. She says, kinda hoping Artemis would miss out on being too cryptic. There's a chance she could have directly messed with Thor's mind then. He's a pretty steadfast defender of the Arena. It'd make sense to send him on a suicide mission fighting a God. THOR himself didn't seem surprised about Odin's dealings, and there was him defending the Arena at a time where his world was in danger too, so she wasn't going to say that Odin couldn't be at fault but...

The culprit became much clearer in that case. Meteorika had tricked Thor and had arranged him to believe "Gor" had contacted him. What Gor knew and had to say, Sarah didn't know. But it had convinced him and he seemed like he'd give the church a chance if they were to get attacked. At the very least, he might even work with them if given the chance or more manipulations.

That pissed Sarah off. But even without that taken into account, the Church, or its head, was clearly up to something bad. Sarah smirked, enthusted by having real "evidence" and just being a bit amused at how Icarus seemed to find the "taking credit" part more of a crime than the mind control.

If Meteorika is just a fraud using "Gor" as a proxy to spread her mind-control, then it means we probably won't need to face down the "real" Gor. Sarah said, although it definitely wasn't farfetched to imagine Gor was real. Still, there were equal chances Gor was a sham created by whatever mind powers controls Meteorika could have.

Sarah recapped the situation for the new arrivals.

Cittefuni! Good to see ya. Hi, Belen! Hey, Emma! Ermm, good to see you! Just be careful to hold on to your horses around the magic users. She was "safe", so was Icarus or Cittefuni, but... ah, here's hoping Emma wouldn't turn against them.

One thing to know if there's a fight - within the church, there's a man named Saitama. He's got tremendous physical power, enough to put THOR to his knees in one strike. We're gonna need to plan around him, Sarah huffs. Icarus or anyone who was at Centralis during the Greentide, is there anything you recorded or saw that could hint at the powers the other "elites" within the Church wield?

In the meantime, we should also talk about what we can do. I don't think any of us have been in a team before, so it's good to know what we can do ahead of time and plan around any combination, wouldn't ya agree? We'll head out soon, but I'd like for us to be prepared. This could turn into a clusterfuck if we aren't careful after all.

Gwen flashes an appreciative grin at Bailey's compliment. When Eclipse descends upon them, she merely answers his question with a nonchalant shrug.

"Did we really need a reason to wanna make those kids' day?" she asks.

Broly blinks in surprise, looking as though he'd just seen a ghost. He does a double take and gives Kid Goku a look that can only be described as visible confusion.

"Wait... Kakarot? You got smaller."

"I suppose not. I was just wondering." , Eclipse says. "But if the children are happy, then I am as well."

"Hey, quick question.", Bailey asks. "Where do those technicians work exactly?"

"Oh, they're all around, usually to fix things if they get broken. They're usually at work in restricted areas, however. Those aren't accessible to the public."

"What's a Kakarot?", Kid Goku asks before chomping down on the rest of the meat he was given. It's gone in seconds. He then looks up at Broly, silent for a moment before looking awed.

"Whoa, wait, you look really strong."

He smirks energetically.

"Do you wanna spar after we're done eating?"

Centralis

"I, er... am kinda cut off from Exotic Ventures at the moment, so I don't have access to their archives. I believe one of my colleagues was around to help defend the Church, I was in charge of commanding some of the fighters. So I can't really tell you folks more about the Church's abilities."

From the way Sarah talked about her plans, he had a feeling she was eager to walk in guns blazing. Icarus hates that idea.

"As for plans, if they have such a powerful defender in there, maybe we should be civil. Maybe we can directly talk it out with Gor herself, see what she thinks of the situation. How much do you know about this Meteorika, Sarah? What makes you think she's responsible for the mind control?"