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Team JPR - Both Amber And Jaune Are Lucky That There’s A Pacification Field; Common Room
“Speak on her terms”? “Your best interest”?
Jaune balled his fists, and moved to go after Amber, until Pyrrha took hold of his arm.
“Jaune” She said, both in admonishment and concern. “Now isn’t the time. We’ll deal with her later.”
Jaune hung his head, and with one last glare at her back, joined his friends in turning away and walking towards Team RWBY.
Team RWBY + JPR - Featuring Ruby "Literally Did Not Know A Healthy Grieving Method When It Hit Her In The Face" Rose; Common Room, Cure's Throne
Or, y'know, the Cure could say the worst thing possible. That was an option too.
Ruby looked shocked for a moment, swallowed, and put on a neutral face. She nodded with the Cure’s reasoning, and his sealing of the loophole that a friendly Fox Faunus suggested.
“If you can’t bring her here, can you just bring her back to life back home?” Ruby asked quietly. “I know that’s something you don’t want to do. If she’s not here, you don’t get to watch her fight. But… please?”
She knew it was a weak ending, a weak shot. But she had to at least try, didn’t she?
—
As JPR walked up to Team RWBY, they could sense a definite shift in the mood. As well as the fact they’d been gone for long enough and there still wasn’t a Penny in sight.
“Something’s wrong.” Ren vocalized, gaining the attention of Weiss.
“The Cure is refusing to bring Penny back. He says that our group is too big to add any more people.”
Pyrrha’s eyes widened, before hardening. She took her own step forward, and in a reversal, was stopped by Jaune taking hold of her arm.
“Don’t.”
“Jaune, it’s my-”
“It’s not your fault. Ruby said so herself. And…”
“And as much as we want Penny back, we can’t lose you again.” Weiss finished for Jaune.
“And from what you yourself have told us, there is still hope for her.” Ren added.
—
While Yang looked on at Ruby sadly and anxiously, Blake turned to Yomi and offered her a small smile.
“Thank you, for trying.” She told the Dungeon Lord, before nodding at Morrigan. “But I guess you were right, yesterday.”
“Penny was different.” Yang explained to Morrigan. “She was a robot. They don’t usually have souls, but she did somehow.”
“Though we have a theory.”
“Maybe she’s gone somewhere good, or maybe her soul’s gone back to wherever it came from. We don’t know.”
But it wasn’t just about her, was it? This dashed hopes around more than just Penny. For the first time in years, Yang had hoped that she’d have a mother again.
And now that hope was gone.
Nora - Maki, You’ve Overestimated The Demand For You; RWBY RWMS
Nora’s eyes widened at Maki’s nonchalant response, and stood up as he walked away from her and over to the kitchenette.
“S-sure.” She replied. “Ren was gonna make you pancakes, but we weren’t sure when you were gonna wake up.”
Maki would find the bowls, and most of the kitchen equipment a little oversized. Judging by the size of some of food containers, this was more a testament to the average portion size a Huntman or Huntress consumed.
“When I talked to you, we didn’t know for sure if he’d done it. But we figured it out, and Amber herself confirmed it. I’m telling you because you deserve to know. Because secrets just hurt people. And there’s a difference between not being mean about dead people, and making people look like they were good guys just because they died.”
Nora walked up to the table, and took a chair, sitting across from Maki.
“I… I didn’t know the people who abused you made you kill for them. I thought all you’d done was kill people in self-defence.” She scoffed sadly. “I guess I was just trying to kid myself, then.”
At Maki’s last question though, Nora was silent for more than a moment. The confusion on her face was evident, and still wasn’t gone by the time she answered.
“Maki, I don’t mean to offend your or anything, but… What would I use you for?”
“I mean, you can blow stuff up, and that’s awesome, but…” She pulled her grenade launcher
from her back, and put it down on the table, pointed away from Maki. “So can I, and so can Yang, and so can Weiss. Everyone but Jaune, really, if we get the right dust bullets. Your power is awesome, but for people like us, it’s not super-useful. You need to set it up beforehand, and you mostly use it for ambushes. We’re the sort of people who get ambushed. You don’t have aura, so if we get into a fight and you’re with us, we’re gonna have to focus on keeping you alive.”
Nora looked across the table at him, smiling sadly.
“The difference between me, and Amber, and Shaw, and all those other people, is that I don’t want you to fight. I don’t want you to have to do that. I want you to be able to watch TV or play videogames all day, maybe go to an ordinary school and make friends your age.”
“But I care about what you want. And it’d be really hypocritical for me to say that you’re too young to fight. If you wanna fight, I’m not gonna stop you. I don’t want you to, but I wanna respect your wishes more.”
James Bond/Jack Bauer - A Warning or An Invitation?; Common Room, With Talon
A bad comicbook plot? Oh, if only she knew the half of it.
“Oh, it gets worse than that, believe me. Did you know King Arthur was a woman?” He said with a grin.
As the others returned, he sobered up a little, and nodded at them.
“Now, I’m not gonna pretend I’m a expert. But I can tell you that he’s not half-bad a captor. There’s a whole world out there to see, and if you survive the day, he’ll give you a wish. Anything your hearts desire, besides going home. I’ve seen dead people come back to life, people be handed magic and technology, some people even got superpowers out of the deal.”
“And a word of advice? Stay away from Outworld and Castlevania. The latter’s where Dracula’s living, and the former isn’t too friendly to outsiders. Friend of mine barely got out of there. Don’t know much about the rest of them though, but I have heard Hitler himself was spotted going into that City 17 place. Might be bullshit, but ya never know with this place.”
Edited by GeekCodeRed on Oct 12th 2018 at 1:12:31 PM
They do have medals for almost, and they're called silver!
The Cure turned to look at Ruby as she made her plea, appearing to consider her words. Then he spoke.
"And how would you know if I had? You have no way to check, no way to be sure beyond my own word. Such desperation will cause you to be eaten alive by other forces on this planet. Forces which you have already met."
He let this hang in the air for a second.
"I will have to refuse, but not out of malice. Such an act is not within my power. Within my world, my dimensions of my own creation, the laws of reality are mine to shift and bend as I will it. Such truths, however, do not hold elsewhere. Were I to venture to your home reality, while I would still no doubt be a powerful force that few would be able to defeat, my power would not be absolute. Such an act as pulling a soul from the afterlife, forcibly bringing them back, regranting them a body, and bringing them back to the mortal coil with no side effects, that is only something within my power here. And those who I bring back here remain here, bringing us back to the original problem."
He shifted in his throne, before adding something. "If it means anything to you, girl, the succubus is not wrong." He said as he motioned toward Morrigan. "This is indeed how it works in the majority of universes I have observed, and the one in question had a soul close enough to human that the same would apply to her."
Edited by Meanken on Oct 12th 2018 at 10:19:15 AM
Glory to Arachnos
Zone-Vehicle station
The stalkers looked at Virgo with surprise, and at Sagittarius with utter confusion. Shaking off their weird new allies, the stalkers turned to Lucy and Crow nodded.
"Sounds like a good idea. Me and Dominic will move out with you and Virgo, while Pietro stays with the horse man."
"Wait, what?! Why do you want me to be with him?" Pietro said in anger, it seemed he was quited creeped out by Sagittarius.
"Well, mainly has to do with the fact that with the creepy comment you gave to her. We're STALKE Rs, not actual stalkers. You dig?"
"...Fuck you, Crow."
"Love you too, Pietro. Well, It might be best to move out now. Who knows if the bandits could execute our boys in any second."
If anybody nearby would listen, they would hear the whirring of helicopter blades in the air, the stalkers quickly getting down as if not wanting to be seen, and even motioning to the others to get down.
"Damn, didn't expected the pigs to be up in the air so early!" Dimitri said, looking worriedly that might be gunned by rocket and machine gun fire any second now."
Though once Crow looked at the helicopter, it was not a military Hind-D, but a green civilian helicopter with the emblem
of the Ecologists in it. As he saw it, he signalled his men to relax and they got up.
"The hell are the eggheads doing in the Cordon? Would had thought they'd be more interested in being near the center of the Zone." Pietro said, scratching his head in confusion he was looking at the helicopter going to the military outpost.
"Guess it might have to do with our weird friends over here" Crow said, giving a quick glance to Happy and Lucy. "But right now, our mission is our focus right now. You'll take lead, Miss. Hope your plan will get our boys safe and sound. Pietro, stay with the horse man, and keep watch with him."
"Oh, come on.."
Strelok- Far Harbor
Strelok studied the map with interest, and there were some things in common in the Zone. Mutants, hostile cults, dangerous areas. Hm.
Strelok decided to move into the town of Far Harbor to explore it in order to get to know it's people, and maybe even find some work in this place for somebody.
...Maybe that way they won't look at him with distrust if they see that he doesn't mean harm.
Kruglov Scientist Crew- Zone to Common Room
The civilian helicopter arrived in the military checkpoint, landing in a helipad of the checkpoint. First came out Professor Kruglov of the helicopter, looking at the surroundings, and noticing the portal nearby.
"Interesting." Kruglov said to himself. "Come on, get out of there, who knows if this portal is temporal and won't last much longer!" He waved at the others inside the helicopter and they started coming out.
First was Assistant Semenov, wearing a orange hazard suit
and currently fiddling with a professional video camera. Followed by him was Assistant Stefan, wearing a white
◊ hazard suit and carrying with him a tablet, noticing the portal, he was taking photos of the portal. Last one was Assistant Petro, wearing a blue hazard suit
◊ and carrying with him a microphone that reporters usually use.
"You sure they will not shoot us in sight, Professor?" A british voice came out of the helicopter,as Kruglov turned around and spoke to the mysterious source.
"No, Mist. I told the Army that you and Shade would come with us as protection. So yes, you two can come out now without expecting a bullet to the head."
After a few seconds, two mysterious men came out of the helicopter.One was clad in blue and black western armour
◊, with a gas mask covering his face, and he was carrying an M4 assault rifle, something strange in Ukraine. Another was in an exoskeleton
with the same colours as the other mercenary. Meanwhile, he carried a M249 SAW.
The mercs looked at the portal for a few seconds, the exoskeleton merc looking at Kruglov.
"Professor, hopefully me and Shade's pay are tripled compared to the others, because if we are sent to a death trap-"
"Merc, I can promise you that your pay, along with your friend will be much better than the others. Just be together with us on this, okay?"
The Merc crossed his arms, before nodding to Kruglov and hoping the money pays off.
"Professor, shouldn't we move out now?" Stefan moved near Kruglov, and asked him. "Who knows if the portal might destabilize and disappear, making our efforts for nothing.
"I agree, Stefan. Considering the Major said some people entered the Zone from there, it might be safe. I hope. Gentlemen, let's move!"
The ecologists and the mercs moved out, sprinting past the guard and Utsuho, their interest in reaching the portal, and one by one they entered it.
Once the Scientist Expedition Crew entered the Common Room, they both reacted quite differently.
The mercs were looking at everything quite confusedly, white walls, many portals around the area, and many strange people who they didn't knew if they were hostiles, but their former SAS training kicked in, getting near the ecologists in a defensive position, wanting to protect their clients from any possible attackers, unaware of the Common Room rule of no harming.
The Ecologist, meanwhile, reacted with surprise, amazement, curiosity, bewilderment and interest. So many strange people, portals, a strange area...this place..what is this, exactly?
"Semenov, turn on the camera, now! Record every single thing you see!"
"Damnit, Kruglov, I was already on it!"
Ignoring Semenov's whining, he then moved to Stefan. " Stefan, you know what to do, take photos of every single thing in this place. Now."
"You got it."
And last but for least, he turned to Petro. "Petro, come over here. I will make a audio log."
Petro made his way to the professor, and put the microphone near Kruglov.
"Ahem. Log 1. Professor's Kruglov Expedition. It appears the portal was a sucess, as we were teleported to a sterile white room, with many portals surrounding the place, and with many curious people, one even seem to be hanging from what I think is a....web? Anyways, I feel like we are on the process of some kind of amazing scientific discovery. That's all for now. Kruglov out."
Meanwhile, Semenov was recording the Common Room with his camera, while Stefan took photos of the place and its inhabitants...
Then, Kruglov took notice of the Cure.
"...Gentlemen, stop what you are doing. This man seems like the main interest for some reason."
"...You can't be shitting me, Kruglov. Who's to tell if that mean big red guy will get us killed?" One of the mercs said, the other ecologists, still quite curious, were also scared.
"If he wanted to kill us, he would have so, the moment we entered this room. We can increase your pay even more if you don't want to go near it."
After a few seconds, the group went near the Cure. The scientist looked at him with curiosity before speaking to him.
"...Hello? Do you speak Ukrainian? If so, who are you?"
Edited by Darkomega245 on Oct 14th 2018 at 1:52:38 AM
-Spider Lizard Noises-
Eternal Princess
The lanky girl nodded upon hearing the man's request, shedding some of the social anxiety she was exhibiting upon approaching them. They seem pretty normal, nice even. She would hardly have known they were from a another universe unless explicitly told that at the assembly last night.
"Ah, of course. Just a moment."
She did a little jog past the gate, moving past her friends to reach her bag. She pulled out a little crystal ball. With a wave of the wand to turn the thing on and a little time to set it up, the thing began to glow faintly. The faces of her teachers showed in the middle and she began to talk.
"Excuse me, headmistress. There is some one at the gate to see you."
With an acknowledgement from the other side, she hung up and made her way back to the visitors.
"If you can please just be patient. She said she will be out in just a minute."
Her two friends remained behind the gate studying the trio of visitors from their safe distance. The Troll meanwhile seemed surprised to see the bodyguard had a gun. It was something he had only seen in movies. It just wasn't something that ever popped up out here in a school in the country side. How scary. He supposed at least it looked like it was made for attacking things much smaller then he, but he was seriously having second thoughts about playing guard. The Minotaur was still too busy giving the gun show to notice or care.
The lanky girl eyes shifted from the man to the young girl accompanying him. She was probably staring at her more obviously then she intended. They seemed to be around the same age and the lanky girl couldn't help but notice she was wearing a school uniform. Does that mean things were normal enough in other chunks that attending school regularly was still a possibility? The way Wangari described it, it sounded like they had all been entered into some interdimensional Battle Royale where they were going to fight to survive. But if she could just keep going to school as if nothing happened, she would like that very much. She gave the girl nervous little wave.
"Hi. I'm Rachel. What's your name?"
Upon hearing they were introducing themselves, the freckled red head decided to join them, almost instantly appearing beside the lanky girl. Despite being quite pale and similar to a certain fast food mascot, there was a certain Brazilian/Portuguese twang to her pronunciations.
"I'm Rita! Are you really from another universe? What do you guys do for fun there?"
The third girl trailed behind the other two, keeping her distance.
"Hey, what are you doing!? I haven't been able to decipher if they are really human or body snatchers in disguise yet! Don't cry to me if they start suddenly eating your brains!"
The outburst caused Rachel to silently apologies to the guests for any offense her friend may have caused. Meanwhile Rita tried to assure the mysterious other school girl that her friend meant nothing by it.
"Ignore her. That's just Abigail. She has monsters on the mind twenty four seven. I'm pretty sure she said the exact same thing about me and Rachel when we met."
Malkuth let out alittle sigh.
"What did I just say about holding questions until the end of the tour..."
Admittedly it wasn't too much of a problem, as she had time to kill as she waited for any interested in the tour. However as the manager of the control team, it did irk her slightly when people don't follow the structured guide lines she lays out. Any set back it seemed to cause, the brown haired girl was instantly back to her genki self and eager to assist the young ladies. She the addressed the red head first.
"While not the primary objective of the facility, the development of armaments for both offensive and defensive purposes has become integral to ensuring that the facility continues to run smoothly. Since most conventional weapons prove ineffective for the demands we require, we have been forced to develop equipment in house that will meet our criteria. I'll provide demonstrations during the tour and arrange a full catalog for viewing at the meeting."
It was said with the practiced tone of an official statement. Though she started to speak more freely as she seemed to go off script.
"In terms of quality though, our stuff is top notch! It allows humans to act on the same playing field as abnormalities. They are pretty cute too. I swear, Binah missed her calling by not becoming a fashionista. The suits she makes with the material she has to work with is amazing."
When the red head asked about why they asked only for what can be used to increase productivity in the facility as any form of payment, the woman in the suit seemed confused. Like she didn't understand the question, or perhaps merely never thought about such a thing. She remained quiet a for a moment, looking for an answer. When she answered, she spoke slower, quieter, as if she was still thinking even as the words left her mouth. She griped her clip board for comfort.
"The facility is self sufficient, so its not like we need anything else. I suppose if it didn't earn the wrath of the Cure, we could even choose to bunker down and wait out the storm. But that would require the facility to cease activity and halt production. That's something we can't do. I suppose its a very human thing to want acquire vast resources for them selves, use the excess to form the nest for their families. But for us Sefirot, the continued function of the facility is our raison d'etre. For it to cease operating would deny us of a reason for existing. Perhaps that's why the only thing we desire is what can then be used to improve efficiency."
A realization sprung in Malkuth mind. Her serious mood instantly dropped as she stuck out her tongue and hit her self in side of the head in a playful/embarrassed manner. Malkuth you idiot, you are always forgetting details like this.
"I'm a Sefirot, one of the AI's in charge of running the facility."
Perhaps that would clear up a few misunderstandings. With the reveal that she was artificial, she gave them a big wide smile, poking her cheeks with her fingers as she did so to show off how fleshy and soft they was.
"Pretty life like huh? I'm not sure why they built us like this, but that just means we got to work that much harder to maintain efficiency."
Finally getting to the blue haired girl, she tapped a pen to her chin in thought of how best to answer her.
"Each section of the facility is outfitted with the best equipment to ensure that our agents are in tip top condition both physically and mentally for the daily duties. But..."
Those weren't quite potions. Its not like they had an alchemy department in the facility. Ah! But they did have that.
"We do have sap extracted from a giant tree. It has miraculous healing properties. If you are interested, I will see if the team can start preping it for transportation and consumption out side the facility."
Malkuth smiled to her self at the arrangement. How perfect was that. They needed a larger test group for T-09-80 as it was. Despite exhaustive testing, they still haven't been able to narrow down what conditions cause some people to heal miraculously and others to explode in a spray of blood after drinking the sap. New test subjects will hopefully shed light with new data, especially ones that come from different dimension like these young ladies. These ladies get potions, they get new test data, everyone wins. Well except for the people who explode.
Erza and Wendy may notice that Malkuth kept her distance from the little cat accompanying them. She wasn't being overt about it, but it was definitely there. It was just a precaution. In Malkuth's experiences, the only reason for an Abnormality to be that ridiculously cute was because it was being used as a lure for something much more horrible.
How do you kill that which has no life?
No.
The refusal was blunt and direct.
I did not provide such a service to anyone else on this planet, thus, you do not warrant special treatment. Look around for yourself. I'm sure you'll work it out.
The Cure first turned to Tatl and Link. "Firstly, your group has not been on the planet long enough to qualify for a reward. Secondly, only the group representative gets to make a request. For you, that would be the skull faced child you are currently chasing. You yourselves do not qualify to make a request. Unless, of course, you slay him, at which point Link will become the new representative."
Then he turned to the scientists from The Zone. "Moving quickly today, I see. Yes, greetings, I am The Cure, creator of this world you now find yourselves on, The Battleworld."
Salute the freedom fairy! ._.7
Dresden, DMC office, to Lady. Shitpost is shit
After processing that particularly heavy piece of news and saying goodbye to Dante and wishing the kid well, I forced myself to face the music.
Walking myself over to her door felt like stepping on nails the whole way through. I couldn't say exactly why; my instincts were just screaming at me that none of this was going to go well. And I had learned to trust them.
Pinching my forehead, I knocked my fist against her closed door a few times. "Lady", I forced out, hoping she would be too busy to notice my voice or maybe tell me to come back later, "I've got a payment to drop off."
"Your Sig is now charmingly out of date" — Vox, 7/6/2016
I have a plan.
Far Harbor
Captain Avery watched quietly as Strelok made his way into the town proper, then quietly seemed to be following him, until she took a sharp left into one of the ruined buildings.
Far Harbor could barely even be called a village. There were only a few buildings on the pier that the community was based around, and almost all of the structures had serious damage, or were simple kiosks with no doors. Some of the Harbormen were still busy at work, continuing to keep the boardwalk clean, or doing what they could to fix up the battered walls. Some of the other men and women weren't working at all, sitting and smoking in chairs, or leaning up against the guardrails, looking out at the misty sea. The entire space was cluttered with objects and cramped with people, and Strelok would be unable to avoid progressing through the area without getting uncomfortably close to the people who were eyeing him suspiciously earlier.
Near the center of town (which wasn't very far away from the entrance), there was a large boiler
◊, with a giant crustacean being boiled alive in a tank. A bespectacled woman
◊ clad in working clothes was busy fidgeting with the various valves connected to the boiler, while an old man
◊ was sitting in one of the chairs, drinking a bottle of whiskey. The old man took a quick glance at Strelok, then immediately returned to his liquor.
The woman spoke while she worked. "It's six in the morning, Longfellow. I know we don't get much coffee around these parts, but it wouldn't hurt to start the morning with something besides alcohol."
"Bah. I've been drinkin' at wakin' hours for as long as I can remember. Never done me any harm, and I don't intend on breaking my routine."
"@[=g3,8d]&fbb=-q]/hk%fg"
Lady nodded as Sypha explained what was going on. "I see. I'll make sure the message gets passed along, and that everyone is ready to act if needed, don't worry about that. I wish you luck, and-"
Then a knock came on the door, and a voice Lady had never expected to hear again. Her eyes went wide with confusion.
"What?" She said quietly. "But he's dead, his people vanished along with his room. How is-"
Then her eyes shifted as she suddenly came to the most sensible conclusion.
"Oh god." She whispered, a look of sudden, immediate fear that caused even Nero to take notice and take off his headphones. "It's him. He's using Dresden's form to sneak in and take us out."
She suddenly grabbed Sypha's arm.
"Act natural, and when we make our move, run, and get everyone."
Then she raised her voice.
"Come in." She said in an annoyed tone.
Lady's own office was a far cry from Dante's ramshackle display. Everything was neat, organized, the desks and chairs were made out of fresh, crisp, polished wood, the file cabinets were clean, the floor was swept, and in general the display was much more what you'd expect out of a professional in any kind of field. The only thing that made Lady's office different from your standard one was a number of guns hanging on the wall, all of which were real and loaded. A black, metal door stood out from the wood wall, and was marked ARMORY in large letters. The woman herself sat, arms crossed, and glaring at Dresden as hard as she could. Over in the corner, Nero was back to staring at his phone.
"Well well. Look what's crawled in from the grave. You look pretty good for a dead man." Her eyes shifted to the bag in his hand. "Glad to see you've remembered you still owe me money. Now. In one sentence, explain where the hell you've been for the last day.
She would pause, allowing him to speak. Whatever he said, she did not look particularly impressed.
"I'm not happy, Dresden. You've missed a lot. It's going to take some time to fill you in."
She lifted her finger, snapping it at Nero without taking her eyes off Dresden.
"Nero. Give him a hand with his coat, would you?"
"Sure, sure, whatever." He said as he got up, and put his cell phone in his pocket. Then, suddenly, he swung his arm in front of him, and a large ghost hand
◊ sprang out of it, rapidly flying at Dresden and attempting to grab him and pin him to the wall. Lady, meanwhile, kicked off of her chair and rolled to the side, somehow grabbing a light machine gun
◊ off of her wall mid roll, and came to a halt on one knee, gun leveled and pointed directly at Dresden's head.
"GO!" She yelled to Sypha before returning her attention to Dresden. "Disgusting fucking monster, you dare try to trick us again? You really think I'm going to buy that you just magicly came back from the dead and happened to reappear at the exact moment that I'm recruiting a team to hunt down your minions and kill them?"
Lady reached up, and flicked the safety of the weapon off. Behind her, Nero was using his other hand to draw his sword, slamming it into the ground before turning the grip like some sort of motorcycle handle, and indeed, it made a sound not unlike a motorcycle motor as his sword started glowing red.
"I don't care if you can't die, I'm sending you back where you came from in shreds!"
Edited by Meanken on Oct 13th 2018 at 7:46:30 AM
Salute the freedom fairy! ._.7
Molly, common room, to spiderman, amber, and the Hope's peak crew
I felt my arm mechanically move up and down in Peter's. I felt it squeeze way too damn hard. Felt, not 'commanded'. Because apparently I don't command my own body when Spider man rolls into town.
"Y-yeah. Right on the money." I pulled back on one of my bangs. "Is the accent that obvious?" I was saved from spontaneously screaming like the little girl I definitely am inside by the business-like atmosphere returning in full when he started to address the groups around us he ACTUALLY cared about. My cheeks coloured a little when I realized how much I probably didn't really belong there at that moment, but I stuck around anyway. And no it wasn't just because of the spider butt, I swear. It was also because, even though it wasn't my manhatten, I still felt responsible for it. I crossed my arms and peered at the other two groups, letting my face settle into dispassion.
One of the two was the alternate Tokyo group. I didn't spare them more than a glance or two — I knew the names of some of them such as the one that looked like a small girl, Amber, and not much else. But I knew enough to know that they hadn't attacked anyone yet, and I hadn't heard of any outright hostile intentions on their part since coming here. A relative unknown, but I didn't really feel worried.
The other group, on the other hand, was new and a total mystery. My eyes flickered over them, and despite myself I felt my expression softening. They couldn't have been out of school yet, the four before me. They were all roughly the same age, old enough to be confident fighters but young enough to potentially not realize the sheer danger they were now in.
The one immediately to my right was a tall girl in what looked like a cross between a student uniform and a maid garment. She was holding herself in a pose that was both politely formal and calm, despite the situation she was in. After her was a...boy, I think, his white uniform overcoat clean but weirdly frumpled and torn at the bottom. He looked like he was the youngest of the four, his purple hair (I had stopped questioning that kind of thing) wild with abandon around his feminine face that might have made him look younger than he actually was, but like the maid I couldn't get any real sense of anxiety from his expression or his emotions.
Then there was a redheaded girl who looked much more plain in comparison to her more colorful cohorts, wearing just a small green dress over a standard student's uniform who was giving Spiderman an optimistic smile. In terms of features, the only thing that really stood out about her besides being fairly short was the camera that was hanging off her shoulder. Boy, I thought idly, if she ever got back she would sure be winning the reward for photographer of the century, with all the bizarre things she was probably going to snap at this crazy place.
I adamantly refused to think up any goofs involving certain actors screaming about needing pictures of spider man, by the way. As appropriate as it would have been.
Then finally, the last of their group around our table was another young girl, who was giving me nothing but distant stoicism. Her uniform was more stylish than it was plain, wearing a purple overcoat over the same uniform and skirt combo with large black boots, and long white hair. Her expression fit the reading I was getting off of her, calm and focused and purposeful.
They explained themselves and gave us their names. Kirumi, Kokichi, Mahuri, and Kyoko. And just as I thought, they were students. "High schoolers", I breathed with terrible, sudden anxiety as they outright confirmed it for me. The cure had gone to the low of actually pulling a standard high school in?
If I hadn't already distanced myself from my emotions, I would have probably felt the wave of fury hit me like a tsunami. Instead, it was a distant storm in the background, a vague notion in the back of my mind. I had to work to keep it that way. You learn to suppress things real quick when you're an empath; if I hadn't already turned the valve off, I would have been completely lost in the torrent of high emotions that was running through that room right then. "I'm sorry", I found myself saying quietly with a shake of my head.
Amber leaned in to talk more quietly with Spider Man. I arched an eyebrow, but shrugged and looked back at the teens. "Excuse me", I brought their attention to myself. For the most part everyone was ignoring me, which was pretty sensible seeing as how I had no chunk attached to my name and all. I hadn't even introduced myself after all. "My name is Molly." I rested my hands on my hips and smiled in friendly greeting; I doubt a high school chunk was going to be invading Manhattan anytime soon. "I'm a wizard of the fellowship of magic". My eye twitched; I was almost to the point of being able to say that out loud without any irony. Almost. "I'm sorry you all wound up here", my smile turned into a grimace, "it sucks some particularly sweltering donkey balls that Crabapple over there keeps bringing kids into the fray." I scratched at my temple and couldn't help but let just a bit of vain hope leak into my voice as I asked, "are you all fighters at least, what with the whole 'students of talent' thing? Either way, has anyone given you any trouble yet?"
I was briefly distracted by a sudden swamp of anxiety that rose out of Peter like a flash flood. I glanced with a frown over at them, my eyes narrowing slightly at Amber. "Everything alright, Spider-man?"
"Your Sig is now charmingly out of date" — Vox, 7/6/2016
"That's the spirit, kid!" Dante laughed as he got out of his chair.
"Hey." Trish said, stopping him. "Before you leave, we need to talk." She motioned toward Lady's office. "She's got a lot of visitors today. Well armed ones. You realize what she's planning to-"
"Yep."
"And you know what she's going to do when-"
"Sure."
"And you're ok with-"
"I'm not exactly throwing a party over it, but I get it."
"Then why not ask her-"
"If she wanted me invloved, she'd ask. Done it enough times."
"But the only reason she's not is-"
"I get that. She's a big girl, she knows what she's doing and what she's dealing with. Why do you think she's calling all these people?"
"Nero's been in her office a while now, he probably-"
"Figured he would. That's his family business, I'm not going to interfere there."
She threw up her hands. "Fine, whatever. Just making sure you're paying attention."
"Sure, sure. Come on kid, time to go."
Dante motioned for Nagi to follow him out.
Those in the Common Room would see Dante and Nagi walking through the Common Room in the direction of the Hope's Peak portal, Nagi still holding the big, sleek, black briefcase.
"Alright, I might have to stop by sometime and see what the place is like. Unless you'd prefer not?" Tatsu nodded and smiled, tipping his head slightly. "I'm glad this didn't end in a fight. It's nice to make it a day here without having a fight break out so far. Since I'm sure there will be some eventually."
The young captain then turned his attention towards the rest of the group standing there, still looking and feeling a little uncertain in how to interact with Toriel. He might have seen a lot in his short life so far, but this was pretty out there even for him. "It was nice meeting you all. Would you know another way out of here? We had to drop down a hole in the mountain to get here, and the climb back out would be annoying."
Once given an answer, Tatsu and Alfred would say their polite goodbyes, collect Larsa and head on their way; Ready to return to Archades to return the boy and collect their reward.
Time passed and as the day came to an end, the crew of the Red Sprite found their ways back to their ship. Meeting up, they went over their experiences during it and anything they had learned about the other people and chunks that made up Battleworld. Through what was relayed by both Tatsu and Alfred, and by Mono from his time jumping from place to place, a grim picture was quickly forming. The Cure hadn't been lying when it had said it had created this place for conflict. Slavery, militaristic expansion, violent rejection of others over something as simple as their gender. The entire place was rife with conflict just waiting to happen.
But still despite that, there were others that were trust-worthy. Yuugi it seemed had kept her word as strongly as she could, Mono relaying just what she went to to manage it. And also just how powerful the horned woman was. He also talked about his time in Chaldea, a surprising but welcome thing for Tatsu to learn, realizing he had made the right choice trusting Astolfo. It also seemed they could find an ally in the chunk, and a powerful one at that.
With plans and ideas drawn, the day came to a close. The Red Sprite turning and finally, moving its way outwards over Battleworld, towards the coast. Nothing but a cloud formation to those who might have looked up as it went by.
Out from the portal labelled Magonia, stepped a small group of people. At the head of the group, armed as usual and now dressed in his full captain outfit, was Tatsu. The young teen came to a halt a short distance from the portal, taking the moment to take in the strange white room and its current going ons. As he did, several more people stopped short around him. Alfred, clad in his Nalbion uniform and with his rifles wrapped securely to his back, shrouding their true nature from any quick glances. Mono, now also dressed in his full uniform, complete with cap and jacket. But there was a new addition alongside the three friends, one who had not yet set foot in the Common Room himself.
Professor James Randolph, renowned Edenian intellect and current prisoner of war, looked about the room with wide eyes; Full of awe and fear. The fear grew as his gaze fell over inhuman and alien shapes and figures, things he couldn't believe could exist. Particularly when it fell upon the giant figure perched atop its throne in the center of the room. Spotting The Cure, the man shrunk back and kept himself behind the others; For a moment even looking like he would turn around and flee back through the portal.
"What's wrong, Professor?" Asked Tatsu as he glanced back over his shoulder at the man. "Don't tell me you're thinking of leaving already. You're the one who pretty much demanded to come along and see for yourself. Well? Here it is."
"I know what I said." The man replied, trying to hide a faint quiver in his voice as his eyes stayed locked on the red being on the throne. "And I do want to see it, and see just what these other places are like. But... are you sure it's safe?"
Without saying a word, the young captain turned and threw a fist at the James' face. He yelped and scrunched his eyes shut as he moved to back up, far too slowly to avoid it. So when no pain came moments later, he opened his eyes slowly in confusion. He was shocked to find Tatsu's fist bare centimeters from his face, stuck in the air even as the teen strained to make the two connect; A grin on his face. "See? You can't even be hit a little bit."
"Fascinating." The older man breathed out, his fear slowly giving way to his more inquisitive and scientifically-minded side.
"Anyway, let's go do this." Tatsu turned back around and quickly began to move towards The Cure with a bit more haste than was usual for the teen, his mind running through a gamut of emotions and thoughts. He spotted a few familiar faces, such as Yuugi, and gave them a brief nod in greeting but didn't slow down. The area around the being was largely clear, and he was talking to a new group of people that the young captain hadn't seen yet. Likely a new arrival.
Meanwhile, as Mono followed along, feeling conflicted over what was going to happen next, he spotted not only Yuugi but also Mash. The androgyne waved lightly to both, the moment helping distract him.
Coming to a stop not far from The Cure, Tatsu looked up at it. Idly touching the bangle around his wrist, he used its ability on the being, curious to see what might happen. "Alright, so we've got a wish we can use for something now, right?"
Edited by Alleydodger on Oct 14th 2018 at 11:45:45 PM
Mushroom Kingdom, Rogueport Sewers
Maps. The most useless commodity in all of the Mushroom Kingdom. As a collector of useless crap, the hobo’s eyes lit up like terrifying supernovas at Jai’s offer.
“You have yourself a deal, sir!” he said, handing over the crown. “Besides, wearing that thing makes ya feel a bit… funny. Just a fair warnin’ to ya.”
He didn’t elaborate on what exactly he meant by that.
Mushroom Kingdom, Airspace
The Mushroom Kingdom. A land of fun, whimsy, and danger. A world where tyrannical koopas could turn into sexy ladies. A world where men with pornstar mustaches were heroes instead of put on some sort of list. And a world which was now in a state of permanent night due to being under the rule of the Shadow Queen. There were some strange winged turtles flying below the witches, but for now the three girls were unnoticed. Should they simply decide to pass through, they wouldn’t be met with any real response from the locals.
Mushroom Kingdom, Groundspace
Tutoritoad was alarmed by the appearance of a floof woman that looked straight out of one of those H-games he played when nobody else was looking.
The H stands for Hydrangea, his favorite kind of flower. Question this and he'll bust your non-fungal based ass up real good.
"Oh, hello miss!" He greeted the vulpine. "Welcome to the Mushroom Kingdom! It's the happiest place on Earth, and if I don't say that part Lord Miyamoto will kill me!"
Dave, Common Room
With Ikekeburo now gone, Dave was unceremoniously flung into the Common Room.
"The hell?" he looked around, confused until he looked at the now different looking map. "So that's how it is... what could've happened to all those people?"
Edited by HilarityEnsues on Oct 14th 2018 at 4:43:17 AM
Archades, Safe House: Soooo Did You Inherit the Smart Gene Your Brother Lacks?
Havoc didn't need any more evidence—she was roomies with a pretentious freak.
Rummaging through the kitchen, the Contractor grabbed one of the simplest forms of "breakfast" one could ask for: a scrap of bread, a few slices of the Archadian equivalent of deli meat, and a flask of water.
She returned to the living area with a new angle of the avid reader. It was hardly any of her business who the prick looked like or not, but...well, the resemblance could mean a relation. And that could be a problem for her.
Havoc didn't bother to sit down, or even to look at Vergil as she spoke; the room's furnishings seemed to be more interesting than the white-haired stump with his nose in a book.
"You look a lot like someone I met recently. Coat's a different color though."
Half-curious to see if the bookworm would muster a response (and half-expecting that he wouldn't), Havoc turned her jade eyes towards Vergil.
"He and I are not friends. That going to be a problem?"
Luna Nova, Front Gates: Twenty Questions With A Former Moratorium
The man in the suit smiled politely, and nodded. "Of course."
His teenage companion had indeed picked up on Rachel's staring, and judging by the embers in her eyes, she wasn't fond of it. The man in the suit cleared his throat, and the girl took the hint and quietly averted her eyes until Rachel approached her.
At first glance, it seemed "The Teenager From Another Universe" was as shy as a mouse. She avoided eye contact, and didn't answer Rachel's introduction right away. The sudden doubling of her questioners didn't help the girl look comfortable, and the suspicion from the third witch seemed to pale her cheeks.
Could they have picked up on something? So quickly?
"This is my niece, Tsuchi." the man answered on the schoolgirl's behalf. "Her parents were outside our city's borders when we were abducted, five days ago. I have been looking after her, in their absence."
"Tscuchi" blinked, and nodded in confirmation. This was her first undercover assignment, and she couldn't count on her benefactor to correct every mistake she'd make from now on.
Still...these questions weren't exactly the easiest to answer. She could remember her human life well enough—hanging out with friends after school, sleep overs, spending as little amount of time with her ghost of a father as physically possible—but how many details could she safely disclose? If she lied, would those falsehoods come back to haunt her later? Was her calculated Contractor rationality trumping her ability to have a normal conversation?
She took a breath, smiled, and gave a short bow. "Yes, my name's Tsuchi Nishijima, and yes, I suppose I am from another universe." She paused, and tittered. "Sorry, it's just a little strange to say that out loud!"
Easing into the "new kid at school" trope bit by bit, Agent Aoede smiled, and gave the entertainment question a little thought. "Hmmm...well, I usually just hang out with my friends after school. We go to shopping malls, eat fast food, have sleep overs, things like that are pretty normal where I'm from. What do people here do for fun?"
It was the man in the suit who addressed Abigail's concerns. "This skin was my own, last time I checked." he mused, not without a shade of humor. He did not, however, vouch for his companions.
Common Room (Tatl and Link): Time for Some Comfort Food!
The enthroned monster's words were incredibly hard to swallow. For starters, they weren't even worthy of gaining any favors yet. Next, the only one who'd be making wishes was their sworn enemy. Third—and this was just pouring salt into the wound for Tatl—the person next in line to make wishes was the careless and easily-distracted mute child!
"Hmmm?!?"
Even Link was surprised to hear he was the runner-up. Given how she was the strategist and planner of the duo, it seemed like Tatl would've made a better choice for making wishes. Y'know...that, and she actually spoke.
"Great! Tatl huffed. So the thing that can drag the moon into the planet can now get rewarded for tearing this world apart! And here I thought our job was just about to get easier!"
The fairy might have made the dangerous mistake of taking her frustrations out on the Cure, were it not for the sudden presence of the Scientist Expedition Crew. She sensed that passionate curiosity she hated, since (as she'd experienced three times in just a few hours yesterday) it almost inevitably turned towards her, as if she were an exotic brand of bug or something.
She took initiative, and dashed under her partner's hat for protection.
"When we destroy the mask, and you get these wishes," she murmured into Link's ear, "you better wish to bring Tael here. Because if you don't, I'll...I'll be really really mad!"
The little hero nodded with a determined look on his face; an expression that his partner couldn't register, due to her hiding place.
He didn't mind helping Tatl before helping himself; he'd promised to reunite the fairy siblings, after all. And if that meant putting his search on hold a little longer, well, that's just what good heroes do: they put others before themselves!
Speaking of which, the dark-haired girl who had her wish denied was really quiet. She didn't look too upset at the moment, but Link could understand how much that news had to hurt. There were some things not even turning back the clock could fix, and the loss of a friend was one of them.
Link reached into his belt for a bottle. Inside was the rest of the chocolate chip cookie he'd taken from the Velvet Room. He quickly uncorked the container, fished out the pastry, and offered it to the Hunter. She'd be able to tell that the thing at least didn't have any bite marks on it, and if she looked at the boy presenting it, she'd see a sad, consoling smile.
Common Room (Amber): Silly Peter! What Would Mr. Stark Think if He Heard You Saying That?
Amber gave Spider-Man a quick wink, zipped her lips, and stepped back. "Even though we're all from different dimensions, you'll find that there's a little overlapping here and there. For instance, the place called Paradise Island on the map is also found on the homeworld of another friend of mine, complete with the same heroins! We can talk about it all in a little more detail if you want, but I'd rather not do it here."
"Despite its enforced neutrality," Amagiri explained, "there's eyes and ears everywhere in this room. Including surveillance from Hell's Gate Tokyo."
"So blabbing about stuff willy-nilly's a really bad idea." Luca chimed in, mimicking her leader's gesture.
RWBY RWMS, Living Area: Underestimating the Kid Who Just Primed Explosives in Your Dorm...Smart Move, Nora
Maki ate his breakfast as Nora spoke, shooting her a few tiny glares when she stressed the gap in their abilities. Still, he was trying to be polite, and waited for her to finish talking before giving her a response; thankfully, not with his mouth full of sugary cereal!
"I'm the best Contractor on this planet." he stated, with the firm asserted voice of someone who believes what they're saying...but also with the high pitched voice of a child, which often leads listeners to think otherwise. "Or have you not noticed that I just planted my hand prints all over this room? Combine that with everything else I've touched, and I could turn your whole home into rubble. Any time I want to. And there's nothing you, or your gun, or your friends, or your aura can do to stop that!"
He took another spoonful of cereal and chewed with a look of self-righteous annoyance. "Just because you've seen me fight once," he added, "doesn't mean you know everything I can do. So stop pretending."
It was rather twisted logic, assuming one looked at it from Nora's point view. But when you had been using your destructive powers since kindergarten, its uses became a litmus test for your own usefulness. In the hopes of finding a simple and honest "no," Maki had received an answer that suggested he wouldn't be useful even if he wanted to be, and that hurt a lot more than he expected it ever would. So he contradicted his own point, and made threats against the person he wanted—at least on some points—to believe.
Besides...
"You don't need to be treated like a weapon to be used by someone." Maki stated as he finished the rest of the bowl. Then, as if the two were entirely unrelated, he asked: "Where are your friends going to talk to Amber? When did you learn where she was?"
City Hall
Kurogane had expected that word of Mitakihara’s miraculous recovery would spread to neighboring regions - it would be rather hard to miss for anyone that had been around long enough to notice the damage suddenly fixed out of the blue. And really to his credit, he only needed a moment to digest the fact that the other party knew their city's chosen representative - that would be a pretty basic thing to learn, after all. He hadn't, however, been expecting a discussion about Akemi’s ability to make large-scale rebuilding efforts in a snap. She had only made kind of an oblique reference to it last night when they met at the Mirai and was rather evasive about whether she would — or could — do it again.
“She may well, Mr. Kobayashi.” Kurogane settled on that as his initial reply, a practiced politician’s peddling of ambiguous answers. Especially to an unknown audience with the hallmarks of a shady secret agenda (well, OK, not that secret — Nishijima had admitted as much about what they had wanted to do on this BattleWorld that meeting several days ago), something he knew pretty well himself. He may not have been planning for an omnipotent god of war to abduct their city without their normal mayor, but he didn't end up near the top of the list by pure chance either. “I should hope that things had turned out as fortunate on your end?”
Homura’s Room
The place had been quiet for several minutes after she turned off the TV and the reminder of how capricious the public could be. Homura was never pleased that she had to talk with anyone besides the other Magical Girls about the magic of Mitakihara, but to have to bring in full-fledged adults, even - no, especially public officials…all to negotiate access once again to the Common Room portal, and by necessity exposing their identities to the Americans as well. At least once she came up with something to wish for she could delay the inevitable for one more…
Homura looked up and over at the full-length mirror next to her closet. The Cure had made it clear he would not tolerate her old Time Stop, but much of her use of that had been to simply bypass obstacles: locked doors, guards’ eyes, camera lenses, sheer distance when time was unacceptably short. Could she retain that for the Common Room, at least, so that the Americans (or anyone else at the existing portal in the industrial area) would never pose as a wall for her again?
It would be worth a shot. Homura closed her eyes and summoned her one-time direct portal to the Common Room from her own, to see if she could have more of her own.
Common Room
Once she stepped through, she would look around first at yet more newcomers and altered world maps (Homura wasn't sure whether to find it comforting or worrisome that The Cure seemed to revise their world more frequently than Mami changed her recipes for cake). Although wasn't Manhattan in a different spot yesterday? With today’s batch there was again a group receiving their orientation, which let Homura’s eyes look around more at something that made her sigh inward: she had nearly forgotten about the myriad cameras from all the chunks to observe, secure in the fact that violence was not an option. It had been a point that the Mayor had brought up and she had (at least attempted to have) been evasive about. Although having some eyes inside here would be helpful as well to her, now that she thought of it - video camera feeds would work well enough to not require burning a wish on that, but would have to be positioned so that her own prospective wish could remain concealed from others.
And to figure that out, she'd have to first know what The Cure was willing to grant her. And for that to happen, the newbies would have to clear out first. So Homura remained as much out of the way as she could, biding her time by using her own eyes to catch up on the wider world first.
Common Room - Yomi and Ceri
"I am sorry that I could not assist you, little one," Yomi smiled sadly at Ruby. Ceri looked even sadder than her, like she was about to cry and wanted to give the girl a hug. "Though perhaps one day, were we to return to our worlds, there may still be hope for you yet. Life and death are not as final as most humans believe, after all. Until that day arrives, I wish you the best."She twirled her umbrella gently and looked at Kawakaze.
"Now then, I think I'd like to learn more about such a curious island that's appeared near my borders," she said. "Would you permit me to accompany you? And Ceri as well, of course."
Common Room - Erza, Wendy, and Carla
"You'll find that it's rather difficult to convince people to go on your tour if you refuse to answer basic questions about it," Carla snarked, muttering something about 'holding questions' under her breath."Some sort of Machias... I see," Erza stated, her left eye looking carefully at Malkuth as she demonstrated how lifelike she was.
"Wow, a healing sap?" Wendy asked in awe. It seemed like the sort of magic Warrod worked on back in Fiore. She lifted up her hand and tugged on Erza's wrist. "We can't go to Porlyusica while we're here, we could really use something like that for when someone gets hurt, Erza. Can we go with you and look at this tree?"
Erza bit her lip and looked over at Mirajane, who seemed to be listening in on some of the other conversations going on. With Juvia and Lucy (and Happy) already gone, and Cana looking like she was trying to strike up a camaraderie with her fellow drunkards, that meant the responsibility of keeping an eye on Wendy was down to the two of them. Either S-Class Mage would be sufficient for the job, and this 'tour' place seemed more like a diplomatic mission than anything dangerous, so that would leave Mira free to sink her teeth into some monsters while the three of them looked into securing new resources.
"Very well," Erza nodded at Wendy.
"As for these 'abnormalities', what can you tell us about them?" Erza asked Malkuth. "And just how cute are these armors and weapons?"
The Zone - Vehicle Station - Lucy and Happy
"Huh, must be another guild," Happy commented after glancing"Alright Virgo, let's do it!" Lucy commanded her maid spirit, who nodded.
Virgo waved her fingers and took two steps in-place in little dance, then activated her magic to start descending down into the dirt. She shot both of her hands so that the chains extended, wrapping around Lucy, Happy, Crow, and Dominic and pulling them in tightly against herself.
"Hold on tight, princess," Virgo advised as she continued diving into the dirt with her passengers in tow. She quickly dug down and over so that she'd pop out just behind the house.
"Howdy!" Sagittarius said to Pietro while they were stuck waiting.
Mushroom Kingdom - Legitimate Business
"Oh, a talking mushroom, that's a new one," Chika the Fox who definitely wasn't a thief remarked upon being spoken to by the lil' Tutorial Toad."Oh yes, hello," she snapped to attention. "Why yes, I'm a very wealthy visitor from an exotic land, and I'm looking for places where other very wealthy women tend to visit. Do you about a place like that?"
Vampire Hunter
Morrigan, Common Room
"Sorry about that," Morrigan seemed to be apologetic to Yang and Blake as if she didn't want to be right. "But you gotta keep moving forward, right?"
"Even as a robot, she'd still have a soul as long as she could think and feel, and I don't think all of you would go through this much trouble merely for an unthinking, unfeeling automation," Morrigan noted to Yang and Blake. "You'd do it for a friend, robot or not."
"And it would be something I would do for my sister," Morrigan looked over at Lilith who looked to be concerned about Ruby. "She may not be a robot, but Lilith is an artificially created being as well."
—-
B.B. Hood, Common Room
The bored B.B. Hood was glancing towards the direction of the portal to the Underground debating on if she should enter there and have some of her own brand of fun. She envisioned hunting down that utterly digusting goat boy away from the annoying goodie-goods of Team JNPR. Batman's room was gone so she couldn't have fun with Robin, and he probably wouldn't like the fun she had planned for the Undergro—.
It was then she saw it... A white-haired pretty boy carrying a big, sleek, black briefcase beside someone who... looked to be her age! Her business instinct told her that that briefcase was likely full of money, and only rich people ever have briefcases full of money. Quickly, she ran to intercept the two before they entered the portal to Hope's Peak.
"You're my age!" B.B. Hood said to Nagi in the most innocent and voice she could muster. "Where are you going? What's in the briefcase? Can I see what's in the briefcase?"
"Oh right, I'm B.B. Hood!" Hood acted as if she just remembered that she needed to introduce herself to Nagi and Dante. "Who are you?"
Sypha, Grant, & Shanoa, Lady's Office to DMC Room and back
As Lady gave her theory of why Harry Dresden was back among the living, Sypha's eyes widened as well, but she felt something was wrong with the idea. Why would a shapeshifter who can read thoughts take the form of someone who they already know is dead? Heck, Lady was expecting Ruby Rose to show up so why wouldn't Nyarlathotep just show up in the form of Ruby, someone they were expecting to show up? And Nyarlathotep summoned an infinite army of shadows just yesterday in City 17 that her assembled group only escaped through luck, so he didn't have to show up here as a dead man if he wanted to kill Lady and Nero.
"But what—" Sypha muttered but Lady was set on her path and Dresden was already in. Once Lady gave the signal, Sypha bolted out of the room.
"We have a situation here!" Sypha yelled to those in the DMC Office. It looked like Dante and Nagi were already gone.
"Confodere," Shanoa moved as she summoned her ethereal crimson-colored rapier, pointing it at Harry. Meanwhile, Grant climbed onto the wall next to Harry and began attempting to position himself above him, dagger in hand.
"Lady, Nero, everyone, hold your fire!" Sypha told the group there before pointing her staff right at Harry's head, ready to fire her own magic spell if need be. "The demon can only use magic native to his world, but Harry Dresden is a wizard of another world... Show us your magic and prove to us who you really are!"
Sypha remember what Yang told her about how even when assuming the form of someone from her world, the demon could not use the unique magic of that world. She glanced over at Lady and Nero, hoping the two would trust her on this.
Carmilla, Archades, Safe House
"Definitely not going to be a problem," Carmilla
◊ said as she walked in from her bedroom of the safehouse.
She had been... washing up and getting dressed after her trip last night. She found some idiot human walking in a very dark corner of the city as far away from the safehouse as she could and... had take-out as it were. Once she was done with her meal, she made sure the human was dead and dropped it in the middle of Battleworld's ocean. After all, she needed to keep a low-profile in this city.
"His dear brother was not happy that he found a... better master to follow, the same one as yours and mine," Carmilla walked over to Havoc, teasing the woman. The way Carmilla looked with her pale skin and sharp fangs would remind Havoc of only one other being on Battleworld... Count Dracula.
Edited by GameGuruGG on Oct 14th 2018 at 7:28:51 AM
Wizard Needs Food Badly
Glory to Arachnos
Common Room- Kruglov's Scientist Expedition Crew
Stefan cursed under his breath as Tatl hid under Link's hat before he could take a photo of her with his tablet. Though that was the least of his worries, as then the Cure spoke up, getting both the Ecologists and the Mercenaries attention. The Mercs looking quite warily at the Cure, their hands gripped tightly at their guns, while the ecologists listened to the Cure like he was saying a fairy tale.
"Alright, Stefan, take notes of what this "Cure" says," The Professor started giving orders to his scientists. "Semenov, Record him. Petro, save a audio log of him with your PDA."
"Got it!"
"Fine..."
"Yes, Professor!"
Afterwards, Semenov pointed his camera at the Cure, starting to take a video of the large red being, while Stefan took a quick photo of the Cure, before starting to take notes of whatever The Cure might say, and Petro took out his PDA to save a audio log of whatever the Cure might say of their "Interview", poinring the microphone near the Cure.
Kruglov got close to thr Cure, though still somewhat nervous, spoke to him
"Well, yes. Ever since the Zone first manifested in the year of 2006, we were the first ones to act and study the phenomenon, and we are not ones to be lazy. Anyways, if I may ask you, what is Battleworld and why did you created it?"
Strelok-Far Harbor
Strelok wondered to himself just kind of part of the world this was, exactly. Not exactly Ukraine or Russia, considering they didn't spoke with neither of those accents, but why did this place look like shit?
After some minutes of walking, Strelok found himself near some boiler that was boiling...something weird. Well might as well.
Strelok approached the old man, and spoke to him.
"Excuse me, I am new to this place, and I am looking for some work. I don't suppose you know someone who has some...or you have any?"
Zone- Vehicle station
"Wait what the heeeeeeeeeelll!" Dominic and Crow yelled out as the two found themselves in the dirt, screaming as then they found themselves near the ruined house in the vehicle station which the stalkers were held hostage.
Getting their bearings, the stalkers calmed themselves and motioted to the others to move quietly to house, the bandits still haven't noticed the intruders in their base.
As the rescue group would get closer, they would notice that there 4 people insise the house. 3 were the hostage loners in leather jackets who were bloodied up and beated and on their knees, with makeshift cuffs on their hands, and 1 bandit with a pistol who was keeping eye on them.
"Uh...hey" Petro said to Sagittarius, keeping watch along with him with his binoculars.
Boy was he uncomfortable.
Edited by Darkomega245 on Oct 14th 2018 at 5:42:33 AM
-Spider Lizard Noises-
Salute the freedom fairy! ._.7
Carlos, common room, to Trevor and at least looking at everyone else in the damn room. I COUNTED
My pen made its last scratch as I finished the sketch. I held the notepad up to the world map, looking it over carefully to make sure I had gotten the details right.
"Any you recognize?" Murphy asked next to me with a frown.
"A few", I answered with a frown of my own. "The underground is a fairly peaceful place. Everyone there seems to be a race of monsters, but I've never heard or seen their ambassadors being anything but nice. Seems to be fairly withdrawn too, not really doing much on an international scale."
"Monsters?" Murphy's inquired flatly.
I shrugged. "None like what we would recognize. Just a motley crew of humanoid-ish creatures, from the couple I've actually seen."
She seemed to mull that over for a few seconds before shrugging at me to continue.
"Zi-Jin Cheng I know next to nothing about, besides having seen a couple of their members in a tournament a couple days ago and hearsay on their activities during the war day. Pretty sure they aren't magical though." My finger drew a trace on the notepad sketch, tapping each one as I pointed them out. "City 17 is a hotbed of trouble; I know there was a big scandal there yesterday involving the nasty thing Harry is after, but as far as I know they have yet to present themselves as an international threat as a nation. Their internal politics is probably screwed up after all the nasty business yesterday though, we might want to keep an eye on things in case it devolves. Outworld — "
"I am more than familiar with them by now, thank you very much", Murphy intoned dryly. I glanced down at her and smirked, not missing the way she subtly rubbed at her wrists. "Fair enough, skipping. Castlevania is lead a chunk lead by Dracula — yep, that one — and unlike the underground the monsters there AREN'T on our side. There's a few good eggs that got brought along with them though, I'll introduce you to them later if they're still around."
My finger slowly trailed its way towards the last chunk I was still familiar with. I felt my brow knit together as I looked down at it.
"Hell's gate Toyko?" Murphy looked over my shoulder (well, over the crook of my arm) at it, a look of concern coming over her dainty features. "Please tell me that's not being literal in any way."
I snorted. "Probably not, but in this place I wouldn't be surprised. I just hope it didn't give Crabapple any ideas."
She glanced up at me. I'm guessing my expression wasn't its usual cheeky self, one of her eyebrows raised up. "Are they particularly bad or something?"
I blinked as I realized that, sure enough, I had been grimacing. "Maybe. I feel the same about it as I do zi-jin cheng; suspicious but it's done nothing to overtly earn my personal black mark either. I've just had", I paused and tried to figure out how to word this one. "Some...interesting experiences with a few people from it."
She pressed her lips together, giving me the kind of look only vet cops can seem to put on. "Interesting?"
"Interesting!" I grinned happily and stowed away my notebook. "This leaves us in the uncomfortable position of only knowing a third of all of the hotbeds of activity in this loco land. And a third of THOSE are hostile, and another third I don't really know enough about to trust. Not to mention all the new vagabond groups around here. The things you miss in a day, I swear."
"It's all new to me", she sighed and peered up at the map. Then, she turned away from me and folded her arms, looking at the group that Molly was in. "That leaves us with a lot of holes to fill. Let's start off getting to know more about how the world changed while you were all out of action."
"Sounds about right. I'd like to know who here is going to be getting coals for christmas this year." I rubbed at my chin and settled myself next to her, adopting a similar pose. "Particularly any who stand out as supernatural. That's our territory, here."
I took a good look around, letting my eyes settle on everyone I could see around here. There were a good number of people mulling around, though the room was big enough to easily fit in the thirty-some members of battleworld's chosen elite. Some of them had congregated into groups, others were simply standing around talking or gawking.
Those kids that called themselves team RWBY had just finished making a pretty sad scene with the Cure. I didn't know what they had asked for, but none of them looked like what I would call a ball of sunshine. Particularly little miss red riding hood. I rubbed at the back of my neck, pausing to consider them. Being my valiant self, my instincts wanted nothing more than to stomp over there and demand that the cure give in to whatever they wanted and to wipe the look off of her face. But more realistically, I knew I could do jack all to assist. And I didn't really know them anyway, I doubt they'd welcome the help in their state. So after verifying to my satisfaction that they were at least all alive and not injured, I forced myself to check out the others nearby.
There was a redheaded girl about their age nearby I didn't recognize, though they seemed to know. Her outfit reminded me of a gladiator's uniform, putting her fairly at odds with the rest of their more modern wear. Maybe they made a friend from somewhere else or something? Either way, the fact that she was trying to comfort red riding hood along with the others told me both that they were pretty tight, and that I probably didn't have much to worry about from her. For her? No idea, but that was kind of the running theme when you're one man with a million places to go and look after. I figured I should really make contact one of these days, in case anything were to happen to them.
There was also another girl nearby who I similarly had a hard time actually placing, a brunette who might have been a bit older than them. She stood a bit off compared to the Ruby teammates, but she was casting sympathetic glances at them to the point of being legitimately and visibly upset. Her outfit was more revealing than most of the people in here, but not to the point of being crazy, blatant cleavage window aside. RWBY had been busy recruiting. She didn't have any obvious weapons and wasn't triggering my supernatural senses either, so I put her down as likely not hiding overtly hostile intentions.
Finally, there was a small boy dressed pretty much entirely in green — big green pointed hat, green tunic, green shorts, I was almost disappointed that his boots were brown — stood nearby, offering a small bottle to riding hood with a warm smile on his face. He was actually armed — with a small sword and shield stretched across his back, and his utility belt's pouches looked pretty bulging. Doesn't matter how young you are — if you're here, odds are you're going to be capable of putting the hurt on someone. I was grateful that he, at least, made it pretty obvious what his methods were going to be, unless it was a weird misdirection. Still, he seemed friendly enough. I was about to turn away from him when my eyes caught a flicker of light near his head. I frowned and looked closer, and when I saw what it was I whistled softly under my breath. Kid was a friend of the little folk, it seems. Wonder what he owed it? Or maybe it was vice versa.
Most of those people I could potentially see being members of RWBY. There were another three nearby that were DEFINIT Ely not members of their crew, unless they had recently opened up their ranks to strippers in a diverity push. One was an extremely beautiful woman with long green hair, and a tightly fitting dress with the kind of cleavage that ruined the attention spans of all men under the age of seventy. I knew she must be from some other group because for one thing she was definitely not a teenager, but more importantly the fact she had bat wings kind of gave her away as being from the more loco parts of the world. Another smaller woman nearby had pretty much the same look going for her, except she favored a shorter hairstyle and was cutely petite rather than ravishing. The last one didn't have wings, but she also seemed to have just walked off the set of a softcore flick, a lovely and vaguely japanese redhead who at some point had been told that kimino tops were supposed to be worn loosely around your arms instead of on your shoulders. And had combined that with hot pants and thigh high stockings. The Fox ears and tail were just the cherry on top; either she was a particularly good cosplayer for something I hadn't seen, or she was a kitsune with an extreme amount of body confidence that she was perfectly warranted.
Most men would probably have been distracted by the sight of three supernaturally gifted girls, with the glamours to match. But that's the great thing about being Carlos Ramirez; there were no men like me in the world, baby. That, and also at this point I've come to associate overt sex appeal with attempts on my life — life was just depressing sometimes. I scanned them over a few times for signs of weapons or threat, but despite my instincts yelling to be wary, they both seemed to be trying to be friendly and comfort the teens over whatever had transpired. I kept my face an eager smirk in case anyone was looking, rubbed my chin, and after a bit decided to put them under my 'talk to later' folder, instead of my 'shoot later' folder. Surprisingly little people were in the latter, by the way, and WAY too damn much in the former.
Farther away from the circle, there was another woman with fox ears, though unlike the other she actually knew how to wear her kamino. She stood without paying too much attention to the sad scene nearby, her pose all graceful business. Probably a leader, definitely a potential threat if only because I had no clue who she was. I'd need to find out more about that one.
Spreading out into the room farther, things generally devolved down into three or four groups plus a handful of lonely-looking strays roaming about. First, the odd ball strays who didn't want to socialize (and yes we counted in that group, can't be stealing the scene all the time). There were a couple of schoolgirls running around who weren't associated with any groups I had seen, their mouths open in big old goofy grins as they took everything in. Not armed, probably magical or some kind of superhuman. God forbid they turn out to actually just be normal schoolkids.
A pretty woman with white hair tied back into a ponytail literally carried around another girl who was currently doing her best struggling catapillar impression, all bundled up and sealed in a bunch of blankets. They didn't look particularly threatening, but all it took was one brush of my magical senses to see that they were practically bleeding magical energy. I raised an eyebrow at them and observed for a few seconds, mentally adding them fairly high on my priority list. Another pair of young women stood off towards my far right — well, one stood, the other was on her head while she was carried piggyback, her neck-length hair spilling out onto her poor partner's head while she dozed. The pink haired girl she rode didn't seem to notice, and her eyes were quiet sharp as she slowly swept them around the room. Doing the same thing I was doing then — I made sure our eyes didn't connect, otherwise I'd inevitably just get her to focus on me instead.
I shifted my feet uncomfortably, eager to finish the small fry off so I could take a look at the larger gatherings, and glanced to my left this time. Once again I felt my eyebrows raise, which was getting to be a fairly rare reaction. At a table nearby laden with food, one of the most striking women I had ever seen was gobbling down plate after plate like the food goddess of destruction herself. By striking, I don't mean pretty or anything like that — I meant the fact that she was about seven freaking feet tall. Even besides that, my instincts immediately told me that there was something off about her beyond just the height. Maybe it was the way her white and grey hair folded itself seemingly naturally into almost the shape of a winged helmet around her head, or a rather vicious looking bonnet. Maybe it was the way all the grey and white sectioned themselves off into perfectly neat little sections, though I suppose that could have been dye. Or maybe it was the unnatural paleness of her skin, the cloak she was wearing that obscured everything within, probably to hide weapons or the like. Which was my thing, damnit. I closed my eyes and extended my senses towards her, but to my surprise there wasn't a hint of magic around her. I opened them and smirked, suddenly feeling curious. Another for the 'total mystery I totally have to find out about' pile.
That was about it for the strays. Finally, I turned and settled my attention on one of the three big groups in the room, besides the one Molly was in. Standing a decent distance away from the crowd at the certain of the room was a group of people — I won't even bother saying 'odd looking', just assume that's the default from now on — who seemed perturbed by the whole ordeal, waiting their turn to sit on big daddy red's lap. Totalling five people, they must have all been from the same chunk or group; even with the wildly diverging dress styles the fact they weren't the slightest bit curious about each other marked them as a team of some sort. Standing near the front was a sleazy looking man in a long business coat and tophat, his thumbs stuck into his pockets and a casual leer to his eyes. Next to him was what I could only describe as the world's most imposing showman; a blonde man of medium height and build, white suit pants and a purple suit top and boots, with a purple mantel and cape thrown about his shoulders, topped off with a gold plated eyemask. On his own he looked interesting enough — like a magician ready for the curtains to pull — but the 'imposing' part came from the extremely large...thing that hovered over his shoulder. I couldn't quite tell you what it was, it was definitely modeled after a human, if someone shaved about half of the torso's mass off and put it into height instead, with lanky and extremely long limbs, her arms ending at massive metal claws larger than my head. Her form was pink, vaguely like maybe a nurse's uniform, with a large cap covering her head upon which was attached a mechanism as massive as she was, like two giant pink metal claws that curled behind her down to the floor. Her face and blonde hair was the only thing that really gave an indication of the human it might have been modeled after, her sharply blue eyes scrunched and menacing and her mouth set into a firm line. Her face was vaguely feminine and a metal plate on the area where she might have had a chest gave the impression of possibly small breasts underneath, but for all I know that was just sculpted on for effect. I settled my hand easily on the part of my coat that hid my desert eagle, a purely instinctive reaction. That was one dangerous ass looking automaton mr showman was packing.
Compared to that, the last three women were fairly quaint; one was blonde and seemed to have a thing for blue sashes, seeing as how she had one on each shoulder and two more sticking out of her blue and gold boots, complimented by an equally blue overcoat with red underlinings and black tights. She was short of stature and had very wirey limbs, holding a long sheathed sword, and despite her twig limbs the gleam in her eyes was sharp and ready for business. Second to last was a gunslinger about the same height and color scheme, except instead of an overcoat she had on a thin backless dress that was blue down the sides with a large white stripe making up the front, with the skirt hem short enough to not inhibit movement and then some, and wore black thigh-high stockings instead of black tights. She still inhereted the sash idea, though she just went with tying two long red ones to handles of her giant pistols. Excuse me, that wasn't the right word, to the handles of her freaking assualt rifles that wanted to identify as pistols. Pretty and eye catching, especially with the cute blue cap, but just as obviously dangerous even without the hand cannons. Last was a redhead who completely broke the scheme the other two had been going for, dressed in what partially resembled a long lightly tanned overcoat if it was designed to cling tightly to you instead of flowing ended at two strips of it falling off to your sides at your hips rather than continuing down in one continuous piece. It was held to her at her waist by...I didn't actually know what those large bands that went across your torso were called. A corsett piece? A bracer? One of those, colored brown and gold as were her fancy boots and gauntlets. She wore a cape over her shoulders that stopped at the small of her back but continued and got longer to her sides like an inverted V. She wore a big lightly tanned cap on her head that looked somewhat like a mailman's hat if a mailman was required to bolt wings onto the top, and strapped to one shoulder of her getup was some kind of odd contraption that was like a large, thick wedge with a disc bearing a half-closed robotic eye stuck onto its vertex. Like the others, she was visibly armed, a large pointed bronze-colored spear hanging from her hip.
In other words, they were all armed and dangerous besides the skeevy looking man at the front who was probably just hiding his, visibly so unlike most of the people here. Not that it mattered in a pinch because it probably took them all a minimum of six hours to get all their clothes on in the morning. That was a magic all on its own. I couldn't feel any actual magic from them, speaking of which, but you'd be crazy to think they weren't fighters even without it. Regardless of how dangerous they looked, right now they just kind of looked uncomfortable with all the waiting and the weirdness going on. I smirked sympathetically in their direction, not caring if they noticed me checking them out; man, did I ever know that feeling.
Second of the larger gatherings was centered around two fellows whose skin were both so pale there was no way they could possibly be healthy human beings, unless they had both gotten albinoism at the same time. Both dressed sensibly and professionally in brown and black body suits, one was standing to attention and yelling out to the crowd loudly enough for me to hear it from here, not a hint of self consciousness in her voice as she confidently brought people in like a world class marketing agent. The second one — her boss, maybe, or an assistant — stood relaxed some feet behind her, her infinitely calm features only mildly perturbed by a slight scrunching near her eyes, the only sign of focus I could see on her. She wore a lab coat over her own dress suit, with long light blue hair — the same color as molly's was — fell over her shoulders to the small of her back. Compared to her loud-voiced companion, she was doing fair little to draw attention to herself. And she would have probably succeeded at blending in and letting the other one steal the show if it wasn't for the fact that she was so freaking buxom that her standing upright must have violated at least a handful of the laws of physics. They were ethereally pretty enough to where the two of them would probalby have drawn in onlookers even without calling attention to themselves, and a small crowd had gathered around them by this point. I couldn't quite hear what they were talking about when conversation started between the speaker and the people who had come to personally talk to her, but I thought I heard the word 'AI' thrown around, which pretty much explained the way they looked.
The people around them looked to be a part of the same group, which would make sense. Two adults, one girl, and one...flying, dress-wearing cat with wings and a head that was way too damn large. If that wasn't a signal that these guys were magic even without extending my senses, I don't know what would be. The girl and the woman standing near her were both wearing basic if nice dresses, the kid eagerly questioning the sharply dressed robot, her long purple pigtails bouncing as she excitedly talked to it. The older woman, meanwhile, seemed content to listen to some of the conversations nearby with a passive smile on her face. She was stunningly attractive, I noted idly, with a face and figure that put most swimsuit models to shame. Probably a spook, then. The apparent leader of their party, meanwhile, had on body armor of large plated steel, and to be honest the fact that she was the first one I'd seen here today who wore stuff like that was beyond surprising. She was frowning and glancing between the other two, her long red hair somehow staying out of her face as she bit her lip before turning back around to talk to their tour guide some more. None of them were visibly armed — the cat didn't look like she even had anywhere to hide weapons. Then again, I was betting pretty heavily on them having magic of some kind. I could definitely feel it from them, once I extended my senses out. They looked human at least. Sure, a lot of monsters could look the part, but maybe they were actually other magic users like me?
That thought in itself made me instantly want to march over to them and see what was up, but frankly the day I walk headfirst into a suspicious tour from a brand new and completley unverified group as the first ginuea pig is the day I incinerate my wizard license and go home. Hopefully they'd be able to take care of themselves in the odd chance that things did go sour — if it didn't turn out to be a trap, I could always check out their facilities later.
Oh, and last but not least, Bond himself was questioning soem shady looking weirdos off in a corner. A bond, at least. Maybe not my bond, but a bond. I pondered going over there and asking him myself, and if it was a new guy maybe get things off on a better foot than last time. But in the off chance that he had just put a disguise on or something I get the feeling that he might not be too happy to see me, as happy as I sure was to see that he was still alive. He was still suspcious of me last time we saw each other, and boy did he have a right to be. So no matter how much I wanted to walk right up to him and and proudly announce that I was still around and kicking, I refrained. This time.
Oh, and at the other end of this very table were a couple more schoolkids, arguing freely about something. Schoolkids, schoolkids, schoolkids, Dios. Did someone open up a high school nearby and declare it summer vacation? I glanced at them, sizing them up quickly before finishing up my sweep.
A whole load of monsters. A whole load of friendly monsters, even. And an even bigger boatload of mysteries to solve, people to talk to, magical creatures and users to address, car salesmen beauties and fighters. All topped off by schoolkids.
"Sure is a tableau for the ages", I muttered dryly to Murphy. "You bring a camera?"
She snorted next to me, but her eyes were narrowed in contemplation. "I can't tell what I should think of most of them", she sighed and admitted after a minute. "Most of this is just so..."
"Bizarre? Loco? Weirdos and clown costume circuses?"
She smiled a little, and I put a hand on her shoulder. "Trust me, I'm almost as lost over here. And I've been here for a few days."
Suppose that went for everyone here. We were all tied together by bounds of appreciating the surrealness of our new bedfellows.
Speaking of bedfellows, a familiar face approached us.
"Hey hey, Trevor." I beamed as the vampire slayer walked up to us. He smiled faintly, looking fairly bemused. "Guess who?"
"I see you are among the living, Carlos." Trevor said after a second, a frown colouring his features.
My grin turned cheeky, and I rolled a hand. "Mysterious ways, man. We're good at it."
He got straight to business in response. "We have problems..." I raised an eyebrow. "Don't we always? Which is it this time?"
"...murderous redhead problems for one thing."
And the grin was gone. A phantom sensation of my sword at my back touched against me, even though I knew it was gone, a pain where the blaster had taken me. It still smarted. "Just the kind of problem", I said more neutrally, "I like to solve. Tell me everything I missed, man."
Murphy coughed next to me. I blinked and glanced down at her. "Oh! Sorry." I motioned between the two of them and introduced, "Trevor, this is Murphy. She's the newest member of our group, an old friend of Harry's and all-around ass kicker. Don't let her — "
She raised an eyebrow up at me.
"Lack of magic, I was going to say lack of magic. Don't let her lack of magic fool you. Murphy this is Trevor, an ally of ours."
She smiled, all business like, and nodded up at the taller man (which to her was most, not that I would say that). "It's a pleasure. So what's this about a problem?"
Edited by tvtropesnoob on Oct 15th 2018 at 5:53:35 AM
"Your Sig is now charmingly out of date" — Vox, 7/6/2016
The Zone - Vehicle Station - Lucy and Happy
"We're here, Princess. Is that all?" Virgo asked when they popped out of the hole they had tunneled in with. Once they were all out of it, she released the chains and the hole filled itself up as if it had never been there."That's good for now. Thanks, Virgo," Lucy thanked the Celestial Spirit, and Virgo vanished in a puff.
She and Happy followed the two STALKERs into the house, and peeked around the corner to take a look at the bandit and his prisoners.
"I have an idea, we heard their captain yelling earlier so I think I can pull this off," Lucy said, pulling another key out of her pouch and holding it up to her chest. "Open the Gate of the Twins. Gemini." she whispered, causing her clothes to turn into a jester outfit of some sort.
◊ "I'll get him to come down this way, just get ready to take care of this guy and see if you can make it quiet."
Her body changed in a flash, transforming her so that she looked just like the bandit captain in his exosuit.
Not wasting any time, she started to walk towards the lone pistol-packing bandit, stomping towards him and starting to bark an order.
"I need to talk to the captives. Alone," Lucy - or rather, the bandit captain - ordered the bandit. 'He' pointed down the hallway where the STALKERs were with a thumb. "Wait over there and don't listen in."
"And give me that thing," the 'captain' added as an afterthought, pointing at the bandit's pistol and holding 'his' palm out expectantly. "Could come in handy for getting them to talk."
"How's it hay-nging," the horse-man said for some smalltalk with Pietro, while keeping his bow and arrows ready.
Hiriko - Chaldea
"I'm baaaaaack," Hiriko declared in a sing-song voice, stepping out of the portal into Chaldea.Unlike the previous day, she had a decently-sized box tucked under her arm, done up with a bow on top, tied together from the four corners of the oversize handkerchief it was wrapped in.
Common Room - Mirajane
"Oh, now what's this?" Mirajane whimsically mused, slinking on over towards where Trevor and Link's pizza pow-wow had been going on, sneaking a glance at one of the slices."It looks like a pie... but flat, eheh."
Vampire Hunter
Trevor, Common Room
Trevor looked over at the woman named Murphy as if sizing the woman up, before nodding. "Ah, another skilled warrior in those gun things, then."
"Havoc ambushed me and... took something that I really don't want to elaborate on here," Trevor frowned as he explained to the two, before offering one of his pizza slices to Mirajane and turning to her. "This is something others have called pizza... It is shockingly popular among some of the more futuristic here."
"I'm Trevor Belmont," Trevor introduced herself to Mirajane, waving his hand slightly at her. "Who might you be?"
Edited by GameGuruGG on Oct 15th 2018 at 8:16:59 AM
Wizard Needs Food Badly
Anti-Gnosis Weapon
Velvet Room, with Makoto, Yusuke, and Morganna
At first, Akihiko was taken aback by Queen's glare. The sheer sense of pressure he felt from it was almost akin to one of Mitsuru's looks. He shuddered slightly. One Mitsuru was bad enough when angry. If she had a multiversal clone in this "Makoto Nijima", there would be... problems. But then, the boxer's eyes narrowed as he realized something: this wasn't one of Mitsuru's glares; it was only like Mitsuru's glares. Mitsuru's looks were only scary because of the person behind them. Makoto was an unknown, but there was no way she could actually be as terrifying as Mitsuru when mad... right?
Not privy to her oldest friend's train of thought, but able to guess well enough, the Kirijou heiress took a long drag out of her teacup, and waited expectantly.
Junpei and Yukari, meanwhile, shrank back into their seats. Even if Makoto's look wasn't directed at them, they could feel the heat coming down by proxy.
Minako glanced back and forth between Queen and her senpai, a frown touching her lips. "Say, maybe—"
Suddenly, Aigis stood up and paced guilelessly past Makoto and toward the door. "I would like to proceed with the plan we discussed earlier this morning, Minako-san," she intoned to her Leader in her typical robo-speak.
Minako blinked in surprise. "Weeell... sure. Better to get started early, I guess. Okay, Aigis. You be careful, though, alright?"
"Understood." The gynoid opened the door and began to step through, then on second thought, turned again to address the Phantom Thieves. "It was nice to meet all of you. I hope everyone has a good day." And with that, she passed through the doorway, and closed the door to the Velvet Room softly behind her.
There was a somewhat deafening silence. Then, Akihiko stood, and rolled his shoulders. "Normally, I wouldn't hit a girl," he began, then pounded his fist into a palm, "but since you're asking for it, sure! Bring it on! It's not going to be an even match if you're wearing armor, though — or do you need the handicap?"
The Fool sighed and palmed her face, then paced over to sit with Mitsuru. "Soooo," she whispered to Fox and Mona, cupping a hand over her mouth, "who do you think is gonna win? I don't know how good your teammate is, but Akihiko-senpai is a championship boxer."
Velvet Room?, with Joker
The stairs led Joker down into a dimly-lit but oddly familiar space. Stone walls with what seemed to be large prison cells set into them curved around and away on the left and right. Ahead, however, he would be able to make out a circular room and the side of a large desk along with its occupant, neither of which he had ever seen from that angle before.
"My, my," Igor's rasping, wizened voice echoed down the hallway, "and who might you two be?"
"Who might we be?!"
"Master, have you... have you hit your head or something?"
"No, I am afraid not. I have never seen your likenesses before, though you do resemble some whom I know... yes..."
"Of course you would know what we look like, Master! You created us!"
"Master... do you... do you really not remember us?"
"No, I do not. I am certain I would remember creating charming young ladies such as yourselves. What are your names?"
"I'm Justine, and this is Caroline, Master."
Igor slowly, silently shook his head.
"Don't act so calm, Justine! What are we supposed to do if the Master has forgotten us?!"
"I... I don't know, Caroline."
"How can this be happening?!"
Caroline stalked by the side of Igor's desk, clutching fistfulls of her hair and shaking her head back and forth. And then... she spotted him.
"YOU!" She raised her baton threateningly. "I knew this had to be your doing, somehow! What are you even doing out of your cell, Inmate?!"
"The Inmate has escaped...?" Justine poked her head around the corner, then gasped loudly upon catching sight of him. "But how?"
"Nevermind how!" her twin growled, "You're going back where you belong until we get some answers out of you, Inmate!" Nightstick aloft, she charged him at the pace of a small, very angry child! "Yaaaaaaarrrrrrgh!"
Common Room, Aigis
Emerging from the chunkless hallway, Aigis slowly surveyed the room for points of interest. There were several interesting things, to be sure, but the thing that seemed to be closest in nature to her actual objective appeared to be the small grouping of people near a new portal labelled "Facility X-394". If they were near the portal, that probably meant they were planning to go in soon, and if they were new, then that meant that at least some of the people in that group were natives of the new chunk.
Deduction complete, the robo-girl clanged her way over to the circle of wizards and — though she didn't know it — other gynoids. "Good Morning," she began without preamble, "My name is Aigis. I would like to visit Facility X-394 on behalf of my landless group, known as SEES."
GM of AGOG S4: Frontiers RP; Sub-GM of TABA, SOTR, & UUA RPs
I have a plan.
Far Harbor—Longfellow and The Mariner
Longfellow took another big sip of whiskey, without so much as a twitch on his face. "Not a lot of work here for a mainlander like yourself. I sugge-"
The woman, overhearing Strelok, turned around and stepped away from the valves on the boiler, interrupting Longfellow. "As a matter of fact, I could use an extra pair of hands around here."
Longfellow took a look into his quickly emptying bottle, while the woman approached Strelok.
"They call me the Mariner," she explained. "I'm the one who gets things done around here, well, me and Captain Avery. I saw you come out of that portal over there. If we're gonna get visitors on a regular basis, I need to get this town fixed up and proper, and get the hull repaired. Trouble is, I don't have the tools for it."
The Mariner sighed, noticing her hands were caked with grime from fiddling with the boiler. She used a dirty rag to wash her hands clean before continuing. "I've been told there's some pre-war power tools in working condition up at the Eagle's Cove Tannery. Nobody around these parts has had the guts to go up there and get 'em for me, but if you can get those tools for me, mainlander, you'll get something out of it."
Longfellow put a cork in his bottle of whiskey and stuffed the stiff drink into his coat, then suddenly got up from his seat. "If the mainlander's leaving town, he's gonna need a guide. It'd be murder to send him out on the Island all on his lonesome."
"Of course. You two stay safe out there."
Longfellow approached Strelok, while the Mariner immediately went back to work. "Name's Longfellow. How 'bout I watch your back while we go up to Eagle's Cove, keep you safe while we're out of town? You ain't gonna find a better guide than me."
"@[=g3,8d]&fbb=-q]/hk%fg"
Salute the freedom fairy! ._.7
Carlos, common room, to trevor with mirajane around
Trevor paused to size Murphy up, glancing her up and down in a way that might have come off as sleazy if it wasn't for the fact that it was Trevor of all people who was doing it. Murphy, for her part, simply stood there perfectly poised. Poor girl was trying to make herself taller in spirit.
"Ah", he nodded matter-of-factly after he was done, "another skilled warrior in those gun things, then."
Murphy blinked and then glanced up at me with a slight cock of her head.
"Castlevania is technically challenged", I offered with a wave. "All skulls and bones and whips and monster flicks."
"Ah." Murphy nodded and looked back at trevor, thrusting her chin out slightly with a confident expression. "And in many other things, too. I'm pretty experienced at fighting vampires myself, by now. And a whole city's worth of other monsters."
"Anyway", I waved my hand for Trevor to go on before they could get sidetracked. "You were saying?"
His gaze shifted back to me, his brow furrowing seriously. "Havoc ambushed me and..." He paused, giving me just enough time to lean forward and chew on my lip in growing concern. I swear Havoc, you better not have hurt my allies too — you're high up enough on this list as is.
"...Took something that I really don't want to elaborate on here", he finished hesitantly. "Dios, Trevor", I nearly fell over as all that concern backlashed horribly. I blinked blearily at him a couple of times. That's it? That's all I get? "Mmmhmmm. Geez, I'm sorry for your loss of your purity, Trevor", I replied in a completely straight tone. "We'll make it through this together buddy, one day at a time."
We both paused about that time as the white haired home wrecker of a woman came over to grab some pizza nearby, a whimsical expression on her face.
Trevor turned to greet her, being the polite good boy that he was. "I'm Trevor Belmont," Trevor introduced himself warmly. "Who might you be?"
I shot her the trademark Ramirez grin in greeting — wouldn't due to be outright rude to someone who looked like that, not when they also were leaking magical power — but quickly turned my attention back to Trevor. I snapped my fingers in front of me a couple of times. "Whoa there cowboy. I completely understand being distracted by a beautiful woman, but at least finish telling me about this gorgeous redhead of yours before leaving me behind!"
I can be terrible with phrasing too.
Edited by tvtropesnoob on Oct 15th 2018 at 6:28:04 AM
"Your Sig is now charmingly out of date" — Vox, 7/6/2016
Mushroom Kingdom, Rogueport
“A place with lots of rich people?” Tutoritoad asked. “Why, that’d be Poshley Heights! Head west, then a bit north, and you’ll end up at our train station. That’ll take you right to it!”]
He didn’t question why she wanted to know this information. He figured she probably wanted to talk about exploiting the proletariat with other rich people, because that was probably a thing they did.
Common Room, Luigi joins the Facility Expedition by doing absolutely nothing
Oliver Sudden ™, Luigi slides through the Common Room like a goddamn cheetah. A ‘AWOWOWO’ can be heard as the man in green struggles to deal with comically weird traction that causes him to slip across the ground. Why is this happening? Because it’s MOTHERFUCKING HALLOWEEN and this shit is scary.
Anyways, he ends up bumping into the group gathered around the Facility X-394.
“Oh, my bad,” Luigi (stop caling him Green Mario, that is hurtful bullying) said to the others. “So uh, what’s-a goin’ on here? Where does this portal go?”
Sypha, Lady's Office
"Truthfully, I am going to Luna Nova to help the witches there build up a defense against Castlevania," Sypha simply nodded and put her hand on Lady's shoulder as she explained what she was planning "Apparently, Havok stole the Vampire Killer and gave it to Dracula as a trophy, so Trevor and Shanoa are going to try to recruit help to take the weapon back."
"Given that Luna Nova is a school, it might not be able to defend itself if Dracula's army does decide to attack in mass," Sypha continued, holding up a finger to Lady. "Before you decide to drop your hunt for Vergil to help me, we consider Vergil a worse threat than Dracula at the moment."
"Trevor is going to make periodic calls to me and if things go horribly wrong with Dracula, I want to have you and the rest of Devil May Cry to be able to serve as backup since he knows who you and Dante are and will note your absence from our group given how allied we have been," Sypha stated to Lady, hoping she understood what their plan was. "Alucard and Grant are also going to serve as backup, though Alucard... is also making sure an innocent person does not get hurt."
Lisa, Escaping Castlevania
"Well..." Lisa frowned slightly as she thought about how where she lived was. "Have you ever had pot roast?"
"You will not find better pot roasts outside Wallachia," Lisa explained to Papyrus. "As for architecture, Castlevania is... well, a castle."
"Are your heads screwed on tight?" Lisa asked Papyrus and Sans a question which might seem utterly random. "There is this one skeleton the castle has named Yorick
who cannot keep his head on his neck."
Edited by GameGuruGG on Oct 11th 2018 at 7:21:18 AM
Wizard Needs Food Badly