Tower
Homura looked from Dante to the Shadow Lady as the banter commenced, her eyes moving towards the Indisposed Lady when she was mentioned and examining her from her spot for a few seconds before finally interrupting the Shadow’s rant: “If I may interrupt, our time is short.” Her focus moved on the Shadow. “And by your own admission, as might be yours as well. Your counterpart is in no apparent condition to fight. If you are also unable to fight, then…” She made a glance towards the infirm Lady, or rather the firearms she had on her. “...may I use them? They will be wasted otherwise.”
Whatever thoughts might be going on behind Kyubey’s unblinking eyes, he didn’t share with the group.
Sparda Estate
It took a few moments for Sayaka and Mami to rejoin the rest of the group as they were regathering, partly because Mami still wasn’t at a 100% comfort level with her situation (though she was getting close). It would take a few more for either of them to realize that the teams the little boy Maki was talking about were the same ones who helped them yesterday within the Heart Witch’s Labyrinth, their own hearts sinking a little bit upon hearing they were outright gone now (they hadn’t seen any of them at the initial group meeting right before all this started, but a small part had held out hope that perhaps they were tied up elsewhere). Nonetheless, when Maki finally got all that shit off his shoulders and his rant reached its conclusion, the two made their way towards him to try to forestall any further discord among their group. "That’s enough,” Mami started, placing her free hand on Maki’s shoulder. “We need to save what strength we can regather before we can finish this.” She made a motion with her face towards the failing facade of the sky beyond, indicating where Nyarthalotep presumably awaited them.
Meanwhile, Sayaka stepped around Maki to get in front of himi and look at V and Nero, a cutlass in her hand and pointed at the former though at a far enough distance not to be an immediate threat. “I’m gonna be blunt — you just casually admitting to killing people just to prove who’s stronger makes me sick. Part of me agrees with him and wants to see you pay for that. But…” she lowered her cutlass before continuing, “...I guess it’s not like killing you would bring them back anyway. So I want to ask: if we let you live, what are you going to do with it?”
Maybe there was some small hope that getting screwed over by their common enemy might convince him to change his ways, Sayaka figured. I mean, Kyoko had gotten better, right? Or at least less bad.
Eternal Princess
Stanbot listened intently as V made his claim. Despite the poor condition of the man, the little robot didn't seem to show any sympathy. It was a robot and emotions were such a human thing. It was only interested in the facts, and the facts weren't helping the dying man.
"So to summarize, the version of you that you are seeking to return to is, quote, not a good person, whose sole reason for not murdering innocent people is because they aren't worth the exp points. The counter point being made is that we have your word that you don't want to return to that path. The word of some one who is willing to sell out their brother, admitted to trying to betray the previous person they partnered up with, and whose last conquest failed because they overestimated what they were capable of...you realize you are supposed to be trying to convince us that letting you fuse back with the demon is a good thing right?"
The little robot shrugged and shook its head. There was simply no helping this case. All beauty, no brains.
Stanbot didn't seem to show much concern for the boy yelling at its creator's friend. If anything, it seemed to nod along. It even rose a fist in the air when the boy told the troublesome girl to stay quiet. Not that it held much hope that the girl would listen. If things were only that easy. Though it was perhaps a good thing that its face plate had no features as the boy's argument got progressively more emotionally. By the end, he might as well have been Akko with all that bad person, evil, and what real strength is talk.
While Maki snapped back at her, Akko's face shifted between confusion and concern. She wasn't expecting this response. She was still riding high from the victory a moment before, so this whole thing really felt like the rug was swept from under her. But as Maki concluded with "stay quiet, or stop talking like a little kid", her face settled into a single unamused look.
◊ Seemed he hit a nerve. It wasn't the first time someone said something like that to her face, but there was something about hearing that from an actual kid that was especially aggravating.
For awhile it seemed it worked. She was quiet. She simply stood there with that look on her face. Though those close by would hear her muttering under her breath something of a mantra.
"He is just a kid...he is just a kid...he is just a kid..."
With the unsaid second half being "so I can't just give him the flying guillotine kick". She had to be the adult in this situation. But as she repeated the phrase over and over again, it got faster and faster until her frustration boiled over and she exploded, just in time to cut off Mami. She pointed a stern finger at Maki.
"I'm not acting like a kid, you're acting like a kid!"
While Stanbot was usually happy to add a little quip, it could only stare on dumbfounded. Like it had system crash by how profoundly stupid that argument was.
Akko began marching toward the kid in a huff. While she had contained herself long enough to let the kid say his peace, she had a lot to say now. Starting with...
"Who the heck is Ruby Rose!? Yang Xiao!? Long Jaune!? Isn't that a donut!?"
Admittedly, Akko didn't know half the names of the people here. She suppose that's what she gets for showing up late to orientation. She did know Maki's shadow though. That snooty middle schooler. Then something clicked in her head.
"Wait, do you mean those people that middle schooler was bragging ditched you like trash!? Or...there was a second group, right? Didn't she say they also abandoned you!? What did they need saving from!? Did she say something happened to them? Wasn't it something like, they are not here? Why are you writing them off as dead then!? I bet you are the type that thinks the main character dies when they fall off a cliff half way through a movie!"
The little robot raised a finger, ready to object that this 'wasn't a movie. But then decided to quietly retract its statement. They were a multidimensional team of superheroes fighting a Lovecraftian villain on some strange dream scape dimension. Movie logic was actually more grounded then whatever the heck their reality was.
Akko was so frustrated right now! There was alot going on she didn't quite get, but that didn't make things any less frustrating. If anything, it just made it more frustrating! While she had been more or less verbally flailing about to this point, her focus narrowed as she got into her next tangent.
"Sacrifice? You are gosh darn right there are sacrifices, and we have the bruises and scars to prove we paid them! You don't get the things that you dream of, you get the things that you work for! So tell me genius, who did we have to sacrifice in the nightclub? Here? It isn't an accident we are all still standing! We made it happen! We are the ones who decide how the world works, not the other way around!"
I am sick and tired of hearing that same old argument! That's just the way things are. That doesn't mean its the way things have to be! Why is everyone always so ready to accept misery as inevitable rather then put in the effort to make things better!"
She could have gone on venting and fuming, but she had already gone on this long with out addressing the task at hand. Whether the boy in the emo boy band should be allowed to live or not.
"Clearly it was you who weren't listening in the night club! So I am going to tell you the same thing I told your shadow. Life is precious! So if its in our ability to save a life, we'll do every thing we can to save it! Even if..."
Realization seemed to suddenly hit the teenage girl. She turned looked at V with a wounded and betrayed look.
"You're a murderer...?"
She couldn't believe that such a villain could be mixed into their group of heroes! Well, there was that general guy who liked to be stepped on by middle schoolers, but he seemed pretty heroic otherwise. A shocked gasp later and she was already back into laying it on Maki.
"Even if he is a murderer, we aren't like him! We aren't going to let someone die because its convenient! We are going to save his life then turn him into the police the moment we get out of here!"
She gave Maki a stern look as if to say that was how things were. She was fully expecting the kid to snap back. She was admittedly more venting the actually helping the situation. It was just so frustrating! Things shouldn't be this way! It was good someone like Mami was there to keep things calm.
Still frustrated, Akko took one last moment to snap at Nero.
"And you! Don't yell at kids like that!"
Stanbot raised a finger again, only to once again lower it without a word. It just wasn't worth arguing with an idiot like Akko.
How do you kill that which has no life?
Anti-Gnosis Weapon
Sparda Estate
Minako palmed her face as Akko spit out the potion after imbibing the vast majority of it. As conversations moved on rapidly from there, she didn't answer the little witch's question about what the contents were, simply taking back the remainder of the vial silently with a flat look, and corking and stowing it. While Akko and Maki traded tirades, the SEES' Leader stepped over to V and got on her tip-toes to whisper in his ear: "I'll deal with this. Just hurry up and merge with him, already, or your brother is going to be really sad when you die. Got it?"
The redhead moved between Maki and V, standing next to Akko. In spite of the teen magic-user's earlier screw-up, she gave her a pat on the back, then looked toward the Contractor. "Akko is right," she said with a particular air of certainty, "If a life can be saved, we should do everything we can to save it, and even if he is a bad person, that doesn't mean we should let him die. No matter what he's done in the past, everyone deserves a second chance. After this, perhaps he'll go to prison if things work out that way, but the purpose of prison isn't solely to punish; it's also to rehabilitate, to be given the chance to reform. I'm sure all of us have done things we weren't proud of in the past, though some worse than others. If we denied him the chance to turn over a new leaf while living on ourselves, we would be the worst kind of hypocrites."
"Besides," she added, turning back to smile sunnily at the man in question, "Vergil and I made a deal that he would help me defeat Nyarly if I beat him in our duel the other day! I'm not going to let him escape his obligation by dying so easily!"
"I'll be honest," Spider-Man said, stepping beside Maki and placing his hand on the kid's other shoulder while looking toward V, "as a superhero, I obviously don't approve of you going around and killing people in search of power. I couldn't do what I do without power, couldn't save anyone the way I do or bring supervillains to justice, but with great power comes great responsibility, the responsibility to use that power wisely and in the service of others. If you really intend to walk a new path, then you need to live on and use all that power you've gathered to protect those who are weaker than you. Capiche?"
Tower Apex
"If you desire for us to trust you, then you must do something to prove it, instead of trying to shoot our comrade in the head," a disgruntled Aigis demanded, her eyes narrowed as she leveled her beam cannon at Lady's Shadow, "You will be given ten seconds to comply, Shadow. Ten..."
GM of AGOG S4: Frontiers RP; Sub-GM of TABA, SOTR, & UUA RPs
Temen-ni-gru (Link): The Return of the King Mr. Peetzuh
Link took the eye-to-eye praise about as well as any kid hearing kind words from their (super heroic and awesome) role model would. The little hero didn't quite know what "the atrical" was or where Mr. Belmont got it while fighting monstersnote , but hearing the vampire hunter call him cool was enough to blow Link straight onto his back again!
...well, figuratively at least. No need to call for Sell S again.
Though after a moment of wide-eyed shock, the little hero's face flushed as he scratched the back of his head, tittering as if to say "it wasn't that impressive." He'd had a lot of practice saving people, that's all! Far as fancy individuals go, he'd saved six Sages of the Sacred Realm, five Great Fairies, four Giants, four Princesses, a Chieftain, a Witch, a Magical Girl, and...well, a Lady! All in a day's work when you're a hero!
BANG!
"WAH!"
Link's bashful behavior was cut short by the sudden gunshot, the sound of which made him jump. Wasn't the fighting over already?! Even if one of the Ladies was mean-looking, they weren't here to fight her. That'd make the whole journey to save her totally pointless!
It was only in scanning the scene that Link came across a certain white-haired figure he could've sworn wasn't around for most of the fight. It was tough to be sure—after that point-blank screech at the start of the fight, he hadn't been able to make much sense of his surroundings for a while—but Link could've sworn that Mr. Peetzuh hadn't been on the tower after they first tried tying the Demon Lady down. Which meant he either fell off at some point, or he spent the lion's share of the battle hiding behind cov—
The white-haired man spat something out, and Link recognized it as one of those magic pebbles some of the fighters here liked to use.
He...
He cau...
He CAUGHT IT?!?!
The little hero's eyes shot wide, his jaw dropped, and the thought of someone like this hiding from a fight was forever exercised from his brain. The sole obstacle that saved Dante from an encore of Link's run-on (and misspelled) sentence of praises was the fact the Son of Sparda was in the scary Lady's firing range. He'd been hit by those magic pebbles before, and they were tough enough to bruise through even a Goron's hide; there was no way he was going to try to get in between that!
Temen-ni-gru (Tatl): This Scene in Meme Form
◊
Meanwhile, Tatl's quiet study of potential injuries was interrupted by the same gunshot, though (having glanced at the real Lady's injuries) she found herself a lot closer to the action than she would've liked.
"Okay, can we maybe lighten up on the language a bit here cuz there's kids present okay thanks." Even if she could trust her wings and her senses to save her from a "stray bullet" aimed her way, that didn't mean she was eager to invite it. This Shadow gave off Ozen levels of "Bother me—just try it!" energy.
Fortunately for the little lightbulb with wings, Sypha and that friend of Mami's were more comfortable getting up in Shadow Lady's face...and that girl with the Beamos arms was REALLY comfortable with getting up in Shadow Lady's face!!!
"Hey, wait a minute! Waitwaitwaitwaitwait!"
Despite her better judgement, the fairy found herself swooping to the side of Shadow and Persona User, not daring to step in the line of fire but also refusing to just let this happen.
"There's no reason to start fighting again! We're on the same side for cryin' out loud! Shadows can't fight Nyar-what's-his-face, so she can loan us those tiny cannon-things and we can be off on—why are you still counting?!?!"
Sparda Estate: Checkmate
"I'm fine." Maki replied sharply to the Magical Girl, though he didn't bother looking at her when he spoke. He also failed to follow Mami's gaze to the shattered sky; wasn't like he needed any reminders about where they were. He was the focused one here, and as the hope of gaining another ally sunk with Sayaka's saber, Maki felt compelled to remind her that bringing back the dead wasn't the point: the point was preventing the Son of Sparda from killing more people.
It's not like it'd be murder. his inner-Contractor concluded. They weren't KILLING him. He'd just be succumbing to a condition he brought on himself. A man who slaughtered just to gain power dies weak and powerless—sounds almost poetic.
Maki had just opened his mouth to say so when a certain witch decided to throw the Comeback of the Century at him. While it was dumbfounding enough to snap the boy out of his spiral of cold-blooded thoughts, Akko's approach only stoked his anger. He brushed Mami's hand aside and took the last few steps to meet his opponent head on, arms crossed and bearing a furious glare in his mismatched eyes.
The fact Akko began her rebuttal with jumbled facts didn't help her case, but she hit a point that Maki himself hadn't really put into words: why did he think that his Shadow's words meant his friends were gone? It seemed obvious up to this point, but...no, she hadn't said they disappeared, had she? Just that they weren't in this dimension.
Without looking around to make a head-countnote , Maki mentally tallied the allies present here. It was over a dozen, just like he'd said earlier, but back in Memento Mori his Shadow had said there were only two gatekeepers past that first area. And since there were people who weren't at the nightclub who had shown up here, it seemed safe to assume that there had been at least one other group going through this dimension while he, his Shadow, Akko, and the Son of Sparda were going through Momento Mori.
"There are over fifty of us..."
The words of Amber's favorite came to mind; if that were the case, then the numbers simply didn't add up. Unless the other groups were utterly flooded with people, it seemed impossible that none of the Huntsmen or Huntresses would've shown up here. But not just them...what about the other twenty or thirty people who should've been in this nightmare realm, but weren't? What the hell happened to them?
The Contractor in his head told him to stop thinking about it. If you have time to worry about the others, you have time to worry about what comes next. Maybe they're safe, maybe they're not, but YOU aren't completely safe so long as you're stuck in this place, so stay focused.
In the end, Maki answered Akko's patronizing "sucker for cliff-hangers" comment with a quieter (yet still adversative) tone. He just turned his head to look at nothing and said she wouldn't understand even if he did explain it, so he wouldn't waste his breath.
Just because he was a Contractor didn't mean he couldn't stoop to debate tactics suiting his age.
Alas, the fight didn't end on such an amusing note: Akko had managed to bring up one of the few points capable of reviving the boy's rage to its full force. With his arms uncrossed and fists clenched, Akko might just be able to see a thought pass by the Contractor's eyes; something like a sudden (but thankfully suppressed) urge to punch the witch or push her down.
"My Shadow sacrificed herself, you GIANT JERK! She betrayed the thing in charge here so we'd know what to expect! She told us to run from the Heartless Angel. She told us how to escape the nightclub. And she told us what was waiting for us right here along with wherever the others are! It's not an accident we're still standing because someone's already paid the price for it! And before all your half-listening leads you to say 'even without a body, she's alive as long as I am,' you should know—GENIUS—that if she's my Shadow then she must've had my power! We could've had two Contractors in this fight instead of just one, but somebody who had answers instead of wishful thinking decided we were better off knowing how to move forward—even if that meant leaving her behind!"
He spent time in Akko's retort to catch his breath, but the witch's realization of just who she was defending was just too delicious to ignore. A smirk creeped up the boy's face; a look that suited a Maki from a week before, when he believed himself on a winning side without the slightest idea of how his side was winning. But the smirk faded with Akko's insistence to die on this hill—perhaps literally, someday.
"And what if he doesn't go to prison, Akko? What if he decides he'll be a 'good person' outside a jail? If he's a fraction as tough as that thing we brought down, I can't think of anywhere he can be forced to stay. Are you going to babysit him? Are you going to make sure he doesn't go back to the way he was? Or are you going to trust a guy you just met—who told you he's killed people just for selfish reasons—to not go back to the way he was?"
Out of the blue, the saboteur stretched out an arm and pointed to the shattering sky. "I saw what you did, Akko. That staff of yours shot straight through that monster; you could use it to do a lot of good, and help a lot of people! But if you're sticking to helping someone like him, with nothing to go on but a dying man's promise, then more people are going to get hurt. And then what're you going to do? Shoot him again? Decide that now he needs to die because you're sure he's nothing but trouble? Or are you going to just repeat the cycle a third time?
"I'm not just talking about letting one person die; I'm talking about saving all the people he'd kill one way or another if you just stand here and do nothing. And you can do something, Akko. You just won't."
It was then, like a scarlet-helmed cavalry, that Minako tagged in. For most of her talk, Maki stayed as unflinchingly annoyed as he could, not just because he refused to budge from his stance, but also because the lion's share of her argument just echoed Akko's. "Life is precious, so we should try to save it so that life we saved can go and take the lives of many others." "Bad guys should be thrown in jail unless they can muscle their way out of confinement, in which case the world's their playground!" But the fact Minako followed along the same lines as the witch didn't mean she was starved of new ideas...and these fresh points turned out to be so effective even the most oblivious observer could tell they had left Maki shaken.
The first point was just three words long: "a second chance." From a certain perspective, it was what this entire fight was about, but until those words were said aloud Maki hadn't even stopped to think of it as something so...no, "simple" wasn't the right word. There was nothing "simple" about starting over.
"And where will you go?"
Amber had asked that question about three days ago; not to Maki, but to someone else. A blonde-haired human with frankly inhuman strength—someone strong enough to beat a hulk like Amagiri in a fair fight. He and a few others made a truce with the EPR while they all waited for Amber to return from Genosha; the man had turned down Amber's offer to escape Tokyo for Genosha, claiming he wasn't safe around anyone anyway, so he might as well go back to beating up punks like Maki's new friend Hibachi. The man must've had one foot out the door when Amber asked him that question...
"Whatever world you're from, it's gone now; replaced with this cluster of nations called Battleworld. Even if you have somewhere to call home, it's not like you can go back to your normal life. Nothing will ever be the same; nothing can ever be the same.
"But that's not a bad thing. It's a chance to redefine yourself: who you are, where you belong, what you believe in. 'What you deserve,' as you call it. There's a whole new world to explore, one that knows nothing of your past: why waste this chance to start over?"
Perhaps the word Maki was looking for was "obvious." The Son of Sparda might be hoping for a second chance, but Maki had focused too much on the man's confession and misdirectnote to even notice. Maki's eyes started wavering from Minako's...though they shot right back at her when she made a comment almost certainly off the cuff:
"I'm sure all of us have done things we weren't proud of in the past, though some worse than others."
"...though some worse than others."
"...some worse than others."
Did...did she know?
That can't be an accident. warned his inner-Contractor, She KNOWS something; maybe she knows Amber, or that masked Contractor, or maybe she knows about the Tokyo bombings. But that's not something people say without a reason...
Judging by his tensed shoulders, incessant eye contact, and a small subconscious step backwards, Maki looked like Minako had just accused him of something; judging by the paleness of his face and the quivering of his lower lip, it looked like Minako was right. Still, the Contractor made no confession—one way or another this girl had gleaned the truth, but he wasn't about to throw himself onto the tracks to reward her. The boy just asked what a "hypocrite" was, and waited for the Persona User to drop the dirt she had on him.
...only she didn't. She made a noteworthy point about striking a deal with Vergilnote after beating him, and stood there with a big dumb smile on her face...ugh, how was that somehow worse?! Rather than pointing the finger back at Maki, she chose to fire a warning shot and get him thinking about the past, only to let him wallow here and think about what he'd done. That cold feeling in his gut started to fester again; the feeling Nora had given him a name for:
"It's guilt. You know what you did is wrong now. I'm sorry, but it won't ever go away. But that's okay. Everyone has that pain. Everyone feels guilty over something. Hurting other people, people who don't deserve it, gives you that pain. It's nowhere near the amount of pain that you caused those people and the people that loved them, but it's enough.
"I wish you didn't have to live with this pain, because you didn't know what you were doing. You didn't know it was wrong. But if you can't feel guilt, if you didn't feel guilt over what you did...you wouldn't be a good person. You'd be a broken, dangerous person. The type of person who'd deserve to be hurt."
He had known what he was doing, of course; he just didn't care. That's something Nora was too kind to see.
Maki dipped his gaze towards the ground. "Just because it's the right thing to do doesn't make it a good idea. You know that, right?"
As if to drive home the obvious, a literal superhero put a hand on his shoulder. It took a mental effort for Maki to suppress a groan. Though as he tuned out the web-slinger's overused motto to treat that cold "guilt" in his gut, something the Son of Sparda had said came to mind:
"I understand you have doubts. I will not blame you for fearing of what I could do. So, should you wish for me to fade away, I will accept your decision."
He...had given up.
At first Maki had brushed that submission off as a lie; something the Son of Sparda could use as a defense against more criticism. But if he had really meant it—if he was really looking for a second chance, but was willing to die in order to guarantee no one would die by his hand again—then that must mean the Son of Sparda had a cold feeling in his gut, too.
"A pain that only good people bear," he figured Nora would say.
...
Dammit.
"I'm sorry." Maki said to the ground, and to everyone. "I couldn't do much in this last fight, so I spent most of it in hiding...but I saw how everyone else got hurt. Guess I'm scared of what'll happen if that monster's power is brought back...and that fear's made me believe that letting one man die is worth getting rid of a risk I can't measure."
Turning towards the man in question, Maki took a few steps forward and spoke to V with downcast eyes.
"I'm...sorry for what I said. I lost my temper. If you want to combine with that...your other side, I won't get in your way. Please forgive me."
Whether V gave his forgiveness or not, the boy would flip his courtesy switch to "off" a few moments later as he addressed some of the others:
"...but if I somehow turn out to be right about all this, then I'm blaming you!" He pointed to Nero.
"And you!" he pointed to Spider-Man.
"And most of all: you!" he said with a declarative point at Minako. "And you better be ready to beat him a third time, or I'll make you regret everything you just said to me! Got it?"
Assuming the promise was made, Maki would let out a deep sigh and prepare Rupture Truss for whatever awaited them next. By sheer chance, the boy's back would be turned to Minako as a blue glow appeared and faded away.
Edited by TheodoreHastings on Mar 31st 2021 at 8:37:18 AM
Anti-Gnosis Weapon
Mitakihara, City Hall
"Fascinating..." came Osborn's voice over the line, "You must be thanking your lucky stars this Akemi woman is willing to work with you, eh? I'd hate to have someone who can magically change the state of a city overnight as an enemy!" He chuckled. "Spider-Man may be a competent crimefighter, but I doubt he has anything like that up his sleeve! If he did, I might be a bit... concerned about a power imbalance in my relationship with him. That aside, you mentioned there was a group of these Witch-hunters of yours. What do they call themselves? Is Akemi their sole spokesperson to the world at large? And from your use of her name, I take it she's gone public with her identity - or should I keep that little detail just between us?"
GM of AGOG S4: Frontiers RP; Sub-GM of TABA, SOTR, & UUA RPs
Mitakihara City Hall
An unseen scowl briefly passed over Kurogane's face. A misstep — he had assumed Osborne knew more about how BattleWorld worked than he apparently did, principly the whole "your rep's name is listed above the associated chunk in the common area" aspect. Being newly arrived and with a rep that wasn't in Osborne's immediate control, it was more likely that they wouldn't have yet gotten cameras in there like everyone else who were more established.
What's done is done — make a bad move in a game, don't let your opponent know it and do your best to work around it. "True, she could have made things far worse for us. I wonder sometimes, though, just how much one is told about how things work in this world. At any rate, your other questions. Miss Akemi is not the only one who's contacted us, actually — a Mami Tomoe has also made herself known to us. She seems to be their main liaison when she revealed herself to our soldiers guarding our portal to the Common Room. From what she has told us, they refer to themselves as Magical Girls — I don't know if popular culture in your America is the same as ours, but until last week most of us knew that term as only a class of fictional characters from the pages of paperback comics or the screens of monitors. As for publicity, well, her name being plastered in the extra-dimensional room that all locations on this world have access to rather makes trying to conceal that from the most knowledgeable Sisiphyean at best. At least among our people, though, Miss Tomoe’s name is more prominent — Miss Akemi’s name is really only known to a few of us at the top here.”
What Kurogane was trying to dance around was that not only did that latter group consist of just himself and Police Chief Owara thanks to Nishijima from several days ago, they weren’t even sure it was her name in the first place — all their efforts to search for that name in the city’s files in the days since then had turned up nothing.
That brought him back to a question he had earlier. “Just for clarification, is ‘Spider-Man’ a nickname for your representative?”
Anti-Gnosis Weapon
Mitakihara, Mayor's Office
"He has quite a number of nicknames, but Spider-Man is the name he officially goes by — though it's not his real name, of course. If I remember correctly, it was the press who initially named him Spider-Man. As you might imagine, he has superhuman abilities associated with spiders. Able to stick to walls and ceilings, great strength and nimbleness disproportionate to his size, and so on. He also has the ability to shoot balls or lines of what he calls 'webbing' from his wrists, but closer examination over the years has revealed it to be an artificial substance released from wrist-mounted devices, only superficially similar to a spider's web. We presume he has the secret backing of a scientist or two, since its precise properties don't match up with any known polymers or textiles. However, even after all this time, we've been unable to study it in spite of how much of the damn stuff he throws around, because it decays too quickly! If we could just get ahold of the formula and make a few adjustments, the applications would be nearly endless! The tensile strength alone is- Ah."
Norman paused, and gave a bit of an embarrassed laugh. "Listen to me, rambling on! I suppose it's the scientist in me rearing its head again! In addition to performing the duties of Mayor, I head up a large biotech company, Oscorp — which I built from the ground up with my own inventions, I'm proud to say — and we've been researching ways to reproduce that so-called 'webbing' for years now to no avail. In any case, the point is he's a man with the human-scaled abilities of a spider. I'm afraid I'm not at all familiar with most forms of Eastern media or with 'Magical Girls', however, so it would seem you have me at a disadvantage there."
Edited by darksidevoid on Mar 28th 2021 at 3:01:22 PM
GM of AGOG S4: Frontiers RP; Sub-GM of TABA, SOTR, & UUA RPs
Mitakihara City Hall
"Ah, I see. I know only a little bit about it, but to summarize, one particular subset of stories in Japanese popular culture revolve around magically-empowered young females, often in intricately drawn outfits. I believe the closest Western equivalent might be what you call 'superhero' comics, if the superhero was a preteen girl whose costume was very frilly and feminine."
If you had told him last week that he would be explaining what the Magical Girl genre of manga was to a corporate owner mayor of a city from another dimension, Kurogane would have looked at you with great concern for your sanity.
Edited by megarockman on Mar 28th 2021 at 10:46:01 AM
A growing tension wound through Delfi slowly as the conversation progressed, her eyes flickering about as they read as much from this woman as she could. Catching every little minute detail she could, and trying to predict where it might be going. Which gave her enough forewarning to know that her attempts to minimize the amount of information she was sharing had failed, as she got straight to the point.
A brief ghost of the irritation the young woman felt flickered across her face as Misaki spoke, and her annoyance at being outed by something so simple rose. Joined by further annoyance as the older woman tried to be friendly, as if she was on her side and she should just openly trust that. She was either ignorant or foolish.
"It's not the full truth as you'd likely call it, no." Delfi stated coolly, acting as if she was unphased by the revelation. Her hands rested on her lap as she met the other woman's gaze unflinchingly. "I came alone, brought here by others with no choice in the matter. "I am not, and never have been, part of their group. I spoke truthfully when you asked."
She fell quiet for a moment, anger and annoyance running through her as the woman tried to seemingly extend a hand of support and care to her. Maybe she did want to genuinely help, but even so that didn't stop outside forces from taking advantage of any openness the young woman might extend, if not from Misaki herself. Open trust was a foolish concept, especially in a place such as this. Finally, when she spoke up her voice was flat and a touch cool. "They call themselves Magonia. Is that good enough?"
Eternal Princess
Luckily the creepy guy in the mask came to help with the kids hanging over the edge. It was about time he did something, he slept for half the fight! He even went and got the guy so she only had to carry the waif little girl. A little girl with an Adam's apple...? Eh? While Reisen carried Mono, he may feel the bunny girl get uncomfortably close and give him a scrutinizing look.
"Are you a guy or a girl...? You wouldn't happen to be a firefly would you?"
The last comment may not have made a lot of sense to the Thundercore since he wasn't familiar with a certain bug yokai that caused a similar confusion back at Gensokyo. Whatever the case, Reisen didn't really care. She would put the boy down just in time for the monster to start with the screaming and light show. A pain in the ass to those with sensitives ears all the way to the end.
Despite her growing migraine not being helped by the extra sensory stimulation, Reisen couldn't help but smile. Looked liked they did it. Sypha and the others managed to save their friend from the clutches of a god. It may have been that very trait of not knowing their place and taking on impossible challenges which led to the war between the humans and the Moon in the first place. But at least in this moment, it seemed like an admirable trait. She imagined how her own reunion with the Eientei will go.
Of course that was for the whole second before she actually saw what it was they saved. It looked like the exhaustion of all 24 hours plus of no sleep showed up on her face all at once.
"Please don't tell me all our efforts was for this idiot..."
This wasn't a tear jerking reunion in the slightest! It was just some jerk! She knew shadows differed from the original, but they were still part of the original! Also, what is with her being put in the party with humans harboring racist genocidal thoughts toward Yokai and their elk!? The Cure and Nyarlathotep had to be laughing it up in whatever corner they were hiding.
She rubbed her temples to ease her growing migraine from the situation. What the heck was this!? She shot the shadow a look before calling out to her.
"Hey idiot! It was cute when the witch's shadow did it, but aren't you a little too old to be this stupid? If you hadn't noticed, you are surrounded, out numbered, and out gunned by the people who just took out your demon form. People who have been doing nothing but taking out you shadows one after the other. People who can kill you fifteen times over before you can even fire off the first sho..."
BANG
"..."
The rabbit turned her head to look at the newly returned to life man in the red coat, before slowly turning her head to look at the rest of the group. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? What the hell is everyone doing standing around like slack jawed morons while a shadow just does as she pleases!? If she had any respect for anyone in the group, she had probably lost it that last couple seconds.
"..."
Even if she was going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they caught on to whatever bizarre mating ritual the two were doing, WHY WOULD THEY...its just so...she couldn't even with how stupid...she was 500% done with everything.
"...I hate all of you."
She turned away from the group and just started walking away. She really couldn't care whether humanity or Nyarlathotep won at this point, and she certainly didn't care how whatever this was ended either. She wandered off, talking to her self.
"...I need a drink...some booze had to have survive from the house at the bottom right...?"
How do you kill that which has no life?
Castlevania, Castle Keep: MINE!
Majora scratched the husk's chin in recollection. Come to think of it, the little goody-goody had been completely prepared to summon the Four Giants at the perfect moment, and the mask didn't quite remember when Odolwa, Goht, Gyorg, and Twinmold died. More like the strings of a puppet being cut, Majora just knew its toys had been broken—even if the influence of their dark magic hadn't left the kingdom quite yet.
The power to turn back time as much as one pleases...maybe it was a good idea for the big red guy to take that magic away, but Majora couldn't help but feel a teeny bit disappointed. It was a fun challenge, and it'd be even more fun now that the brat's ace in the hole was revealed. Oh well. Guess they'd have to call it even; it's not like Majora could drag the moon into the planet anymore.
"Hehehehehe, trust me, Mister: if I had lips, I'd be sewing 'em shut right about now. There's something about you that tells me I shouldn't get on your bad side. Something that makes me feel..."
The mask paused to fish for the right word. Then, with a poof of purple smoke, the body of the child disappeared. Only a floating mask remained, and even then it seemed questionable if it would even cover the Count's face.
"Small! Ehehehehehe!"
The news that there was a creature stronger than either powerhouses in this room was enough to poof the husk right back into existence; a floating mask alone simply wasn't enough to express Majora's shock.
"But...how?! Even at his strongest, the brat who chased me here could only land a scratch on me! How's a kid like that supposed to beat something bigger than the two of us put together?! You sure you know what you're talking about, Mister? Sounds like this scary Nyababolothropip guy's getting rid of those annoying thorns in our backsides. He's doing us a favor we didn't need to ask for!"
The mask straightened its back as soon as it finished speaking. An idea had struck it like a shot through the skull.
"Unless...you think that thing would get bored once all the goody-goodies are dead, and set his sight on us. Oooh, oooooohooo hoooooooooooooo. So that's why you want to start this little club. You're really smart, Mister!"
Now intoxicated with learning about this master plan, Majora took a more respectful stance in the Count's presence: no more floating around like a half-listening genie, the masked "child" now had both feet planted on the ground, hands in parade rest, with just the pitter patter of bare toes advertising Majora's excitement.
"So you wanna get rid of this Out World guy? Can I help?! I'm really good at killing people, Mister. Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally good at it! I don't need to say I'm doing it for you, either! I don't really care about any of these dumb mortals, so I can just pop up, have my fun, then leave without nobody knowing I'm part of your super secret club! Please tell me I can play too? Please please please please pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?"
At the reference to Majora's "allies," the mask's bubbling enthusiasm crashed to a halt.
"You think they're my 'allies?' That's another word for 'friends,' isn't it?"
The husk's arms crossed in an aggravated huff. "Do you think I'd be friends with puppets like them? They're my toys, Mister. I made Goht a long time ago to do whatever I wanted it to, and Koishi Komeiji's a stupid kid who'll listen to me—but they belong to me, understand? They're mine, and I'll play with them till they bore me, and then I'll throw them in the trash. I don't share my toys, so you can't play with them!"
Majora stamped a foot on the castle floor, as if to exclaim "And that's final!"
Meeting Room: Misaki and Delfi Ain't Doing Trust Falls Anytime Soon...
A hair-splitting defense, and nothing more than a name. Delfi could tell that her refusal to budge even an inch was starting to get on Misaki's nerves. Even if the Section Chief was committed to sticking to her offer to help.
"You still don't trust me." she sighed. "Well, can't say I blame you. If even a third of what you've told me is true, I'd probably be looking over my shoulder too."
Misaki turned to her phone and began typing something into it.
"My associates crossed paths with Magonia before, but I'm going to double check our Common Room feed to make sure they don't have ties with the people I'm thinking of. Hard to say for certain that they wouldn't know each other, but that's the best I can offer right here and now. In the meantime, I want to ask you something, and I want you to think about your answer before you tell me the truth. 'The full truth,' this time:"
The Section Chief stopped looking at her phone to stare Delfi straight in the eye.
"Doubt my motives if you want, but do you believe that I'm sitting here because I want to trick you, exploit you, or cause you any harm?"
Perhaps Misaki had played her card already; the way her eyelids had flickered at the name "Magonia," the subtle strain of the words "crossed paths" when referring to the encounter, the fact she was double-checking to ensure there were no further dots to connect...Misaki Kirihara knew the crew of the Red Sprite, maybe just indirectly. And while the microexpressions betrayed mixed signals about how she felt about Magonia, she definitely did not like them.
Strelok sighed at Lucy's reaction to him and Shadow. It appears this is going to be a long day now, due to this whole issue that came up. Hopefully the military won't wipe up this whole camp because of this mistakes.
"Maybe Sidorovich can give them an ever fatter bribe to let this whole issue go. But considering they seem out for blood now....it may not work at all." Strelok said, glancing over at the bunker away from the village. "Let us hope this won't end in even more blood."
"I guess we have nothing to lose by giving you a gun anyway in case they're truly attacking us." The stalker that found Lucy and Grant nearby would say to Shadow, glancing him over for a bit, as if checking his equipment. "You prefer shooting people up close or far away?" He asked, as if wanting to know what weapon he'll bring to him.
"Our experiments are still delving into a reason why such a effect seems to create a growth spurth into the enviroment of the Zone itself." Kruglov started to explain as he and his team moved with Dr. Vectrof deeper into the Meteor Shard Lab. "Whenever our detectors and readings in our laboratories keep measures and trackings of whatever is causing these chain reactions and expansions of the Zone of Alienation itself, our trackings always point out to the same area. The center of the Zone itself, the Power Plant, and where all of this started."
He cleared his throat slightly, continuing on his talk. "Unfortunately, our attempts to grab data and discover why it is coming from the Power Plant itself often ends up in disaster. Sadly, a group that is hostile to every single group or stalkers in the Zone, who hold deep control of the road to the center itself don't seem to want any potential target to get to that place."
"That, and the large amounts of mutants and anomalies surrounding the center would make it dangerous unless one is prepared and geared up for such task." Semenov chimed in on the discussion of it.
"Indeed. Perhaps this new world could eventually be of aid to discover the deepest secrets of the Zone. But so far, the most we got is that these landscaping and psy-energy readings appear to come from the Power Plant itself. And it's not like they're chaotic, wild ones at that. It seems focused, with precision. Loud at one minute, before vanishing like nothing happened. As if something is overseeing, guiding and making sure that the progress of these anomalies is done in controllable, but noticeable bursts."
Anti-Gnosis Weapon
Mitakihara, City Hall
"Preteen girls... in frilly dresses..." Norman trailed off for a moment, then sighed, "Well, I suppose it's not that much stranger than a man running around in a spider costume, heh. I tell you what, Kurogane— Ah, hold on a minute." It was evident Osborn was putting his hand over the receiver and talking to someone else in the room, though apparently he wasn't doing a good job of covering it, since his side of the conversation was clearly audible, if a bit muffled.
"What is it?! This is an important call!"
"....."
"They did what?!"
"....."
A long string of explicative-laden venom followed, capped by, "—and your useless men can't even fucking secure a goddamn bridge! What the hell am I paying you for?!"
"....."
"I don't want excuses! I want you down at the embassy fixing this mistake, yesterday!"
"....."
"See that you do!"
A few seconds later, the Mayor came back on the line properly, sounding as warm and cheerful as he ever had before that point, "Sorry about that! Listen, something urgent has come up that needs my full attention, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut our conversation short. I'll be sure to send Greene along as soon as he's gathered up all the materials he needs. Sound good?"
Hell's Gate Tokyo, American Embassy, Some Time Later
Wearing a stern frown, a middle-aged woman decked out in all white and silver, even her hair and eyes, strode with purpose through the doors of the American Embassy in Tokyo and immediately walked over to reception. Atypical of her, at her waist was not a belt holstering a pair of guns, but a simple white messenger bag.
"I am here to speak with the Ambassador," she demanded, voice thickly slavic and curt, "Do not waste my time by telling me he is busy or that I need an appointment."
Mitakihara-Manhattan Border, Some Time Later
Sometime over the past 24 hours, Sable International had taken the initiative to set up a checkpoint along the far end of the Brooklyn Bridge, which conveniently happened to be connected to a forest road in northern Mitakihara, using a series of half-jersey barrier, half-hardlight screen of the type also featured in Times Square. Off to the side was a tent station with transparent plastic walls to keep out the rain, containing enough space for a grey-haired woman of Asian descent - a city employee - and a small second table where a couple of Sable troopers lucky enough to not have to stand in the rain sat playing cards, albeit with a pair of extra seats. Naturally, this being the Mitakihara border, there were at least a couple representatives from the nearby military base present somewhere in the mix.
It was such a scene that a grey BMW rolled up into, the driver-side window rolling down slightly so the square-jawed occupant could shout out over the rain in a steady Midwestern baritone, "Hey there! We got any folks from the U.S. Armed Forces here? On my way to City Hall, but I got a message for our fine men and women in uniform, too!"
Edited by darksidevoid on Apr 20th 2021 at 4:27:42 AM
GM of AGOG S4: Frontiers RP; Sub-GM of TABA, SOTR, & UUA RPs
Mitakihara City Hall
In the privacy of his own office, Kurogane allowed himself to raise an eyebrow at Osborne losing his composure behind what the latter apparently thought was a secure mic. Admittedly, their own position as of last week was similar if not worse, so the frustration was certainly understandable. Still, the question about just well his Manhattan counterpart had control over his own city was raised. A single instance on a first meeting was not something actionable on its own, but it was something to file away to explore later if events allowed.
"Of course, Mr. Mayor. We will await Mr. Greene and receive him here with due care and consideration."
Border Checkpoint — northern Mitakihara
The couple of USFJ personnel who were there stood up and waved down the gray BMW as it approached to stop it. "Corporal Benson. Could you identify yourself first, please, before we let you through?"
Shadow Lady slowly rolls her eyes and sighs as she lowers the gun and shoves it back into its holster
"Goddamnit, you people make me sick. But fine, whatever. Be best buds with the demon if you want. As I was saying, while you all do what I want to do but can't, I'll take care of your Lady. You don't have the manpower to spare trying to keep her safe through all of this, so I'm going to exploit a loophole involving the use of the portals in this realm that you can't access, but I, as a shadow, can, and use it to dump her back wherever you came from."
At that moment, a bright light appeared on the tower, forming into the shape of a opening that was roughly door sized. Shadow Lady motions at it as she leans down to pick up the real Lady
"That's your opening. Don't spend too long waiting to go in, I don't know how long it'll stay open. Good luck and all that."
She starts walking toward the steps, pausing next to Dante for a brief moment.
"And you."
She pokes him in the chest with her free hand
"You haven't been forgiven for what you did to her. I hope that thing strangles you with your own guts"
"Love you too, Lady! See you soon!"
She scowls at him, and spits at his feet before walking out. Dante just laughs and shakes his head.
"Well, let's get this show on the road, people."
V remains silent as the argument continues, until the boy gives in. He shakes his head.
"There is no need to say sorry. I understand your hesitation."
Then Nero chimes in "And don't worry, I'll straighten him out myself if he gets any stupid ideas."
V slowly climbs up his downed demonic half and comes to a halt on its chest. Slowly, with a shaking hand, he lifts his cane up into the sky, and then impales it into the demon's chest eye. Instantly a bright pillar of light shoots up that's likely to force anyone unprepared to look away, as if they'd just decided to look into the sun. After a moment, the pillar vanishes, and you see that both V and Urizen have vanished, replaced by Vergil, who's facing away from you. In front of him, suddenly, a bright, door shaped opening appears, identical to the one that appeared on the tower. Vergil looks over his shoulder at the group.
"We've lost enough time. Let's get to this demon before my brother and his cohorts steal all the glory."
He walks through the portal, and Nero shakes his head.
"Wow. Dante was right. He is an asshole."
After the two groups step through their respective doors, all they see around them, is, well.......
Nothing.
At least at first. Then your respective teammates start appearing, one after another, as both of the groups merge back into the group they'd started as. But outside of your teammates, you can't see anything. It's apparent you're standing on something, as evidenced by the fact that you're not falling, but what that something is, you can't tell, no matter how bright of a light you shine around. You'll all have at least a few seconds to take this in and say a few words to your fellow teammates, before, slowly, you see a door
rise up, several hundred feet in front of you. Rather plain, by all respects, but you might imagine that Nyarly diden't exactly plan for people to actually see this door.
Then, slowly, a puddle of liquid darkness appeared before you, slowly shifting into the shape of a man. But, unlike the other times he'd chosen to appear, this time, he had no features. No face, no skin, no clothing, he was, effectively, a black, man shaped blob, only truly visible from the light coming from the door that stopped at his body
An amusing game, this has been. I admit, you gave me some minor entertainment as I watched you all wander my realm like lost puppies. But the games end here. This will be the place you die, as I-
A gunshot suddenly cuts him off as a bullet flies directly into his head. Turning in the direction of the gunshot, you all see Joker, holding a smoking pistol. Nyarly, for his part, doesn't even recoil as the bullet flies through him, momentarily disrupting his body and creating a hole directly in the center of his head that vanishes just as quickly.
Come now, boy, you diden't actually expect that to work, did you?
Joker, for his part, just glares at Nyarly through his mask as Nyarly shakes his head.
Plainly I need to lay it out for you all. You all died the moment you came here, whenever or not you knew it. This is my world. My realm. My dimension. Here, I am Master and Creator, Lord and Savior, God and Devil. Everything here bends to my will. This place is, for all purposes, me. Did you truly think that you could come to the place of my own power and destroy me? Do you think this is one of your little fairy storybooks, where the gods bestow a miracle on you at the last minute and grant you the power to vanquish the darkness?
He lifts a finger and wags it at them
Even the gods dare not tread here. There is only me, and I assure you, there is no escape. Beg, and I may choose to make your death quick.
Meanwhile, A portal suddenly opened within the Velvet Room, in whichever room its attendants happened to be waiting in, and out came Lady, unceremoniously dumped on the floor, as the Shadow was unable to actually exit, both due to the fact that she coulden't exist outside of Nyarly's realm, and the room's own properties. Lady, for her own part, was woken up by said dumping, and groaned in pain as her bleary eyes slowly opened
"Am.....am I dead?"
The portal itself remained open for the moment
Edited by Meanken on Apr 26th 2021 at 1:45:39 AM
Anti-Gnosis Weapon
Border Checkpoint, Northern Mitakihara
"Robert Green, from the New York City Mayor's Office," the driver answered with an easy grin, a closer approach revealing an aging man in a French blue button-down and khakis with olive eyes and short, salt-pepper hair, "Mr. Kurogane should've passed along that he's expecting me, I think."
"My boss gave me a letter to get to the commander of the local U.S. forces, since I don't know if I'll be meeting him along with the Acting Mayor," he continued, offering an envelope through the window, in a plastic bag to keep it safe from the rain. "And if you'll do me a favor, Corporal, spread the word with the ladies and gentlemen back at the base that they're all welcome to visit Manhattan any time! I'm sure it'd be nice for you all to be able to set foot back on American soil every once in a while, and I think I speak for the whole island when I say we'd all be happy to have you!"
"Just make sure you bring your ID with you!" he concluded, raising his voice so the troopers in white could hear him over the rain, "Those Sable folks get kinda anal about that sorta thing!"
"Fuck you, too, Green!" the nearest one shouted back, flipping him the bird half-heartedly.
GM of AGOG S4: Frontiers RP; Sub-GM of TABA, SOTR, & UUA RPs
PANDORA, Building 3: Dr. Vectrof Right Now
◊
Hostiles isolated in the heart of the Zone? Sounded like cultish activity. How annoying.
"Sounds like your work is quite the uphill battle, gentlemen—perhaps a literal one, at times. You have my sympathies."
As the group turned a corner, Dr. Vectrof gestured for the Ecologists to enter the doorway to their left, and asked them to wait in the small empty room within. The PANDORA physicist passed through a door on the far edge of this room, one which the visitors might hear lock firmly behind him.
No doubt there were more security measures beyond this area—perhaps many that were more complicated than a few bolts in a door.
Thankfully, the Ecologists didn't need to wait for long. Dr. Vectrof returned to his guests with a smile, and a peculiar item held gingerly along its edges.
To even the learned eye, the Meteor Shard
looked like little more than a large lens or a petri dish. It was thin, appeared to be made of glass, and gave off faint hints of color when held up to the light, as if it had been dipped in some kind of oil. Yet despite the item's mundane appearance, Dr. Vectrof carried it with the caution and care one might take with a living thing. Perhaps not a baby, but certainly a mouse or a bird.
"Here you are, gentlemen." the physicist said as he handed the Meteor Shard to Kruglov—but not before he was 100% certain the Ecologist could carry it in a way it would be both secure, and hidden.
"Now, then: while I have found our discussion absolutely enlightening, I must now insist that we return to this sector's entrance, and that you all leave PANDORA and the city as soon as possible."
Expecting some slight alarm at having their host push them towards the door, Dr. Vectrof glanced into the halls to ensure no one was within earshot, then spoke to the Ecologists in hushed tones:
"It may be a remote possibility, but there is a chance that someone may target you for that object you now possess. It's impossible to know for certain, but I'm confident that Dr. Hillman was not the only spy to infiltrate this facility—he's just the only one who got away with the theft, and he killed good men and women to do so. PANDORA keeps its findings top secret of simple necessity, but ever since we arrived on this planet there seems to be a growing impatience with our confidentiality. A division is forming between those of us within these walls and those outside...and where there is division, there are enemies eager to seize an opportunity.
"I trust that you will guard that shard well, gentlemen. Remember: that thing is a nation-destroying weapon, if it falls into the wrong hands."
HGT, American Embassy: Bad Luck All Around
The receptionist who had the horrible luck of minding his own business when a silver-haired viper stormed in to demand an audience with the ambassador was...more than a bit startled.
"What? Oh, but...I'm s—I don't mean to, to waste your time uhh, Miss. But—"
"Sorry to disappoint you Miss, but Ambassador Roos was outside the city when we had our little abduction. He's not here."
As if to contrast the stuttering squeaks of the receptionist, the speaker approaching from the visitor's right had a smooth, calm, and almost amused tone; where the former was a mouse scurrying for cover, the latter was a mongoose playing with his venomous dinner.
"I'll take it from here, Mr. Takahashi. Thanks."
Relieved to find this burden lifted from him, the receptionist thanked "Simon-san" with a smile that might've been a little too appreciative.
Maybe he was a temp?
Should the visitor turn to the man, she'd note more than a few things about him that were...off. The first detail she didn't even need to see to bring some questions to mind: Mr. Simon spoke with an English accent. Looking at him even at a glance, however, and the visitor would find only more questions—he was a young man, no older than 35 at most, with short blonde hair that waved wherever it wished. He was dressed in an off-white three-piece suit with a blue shirt and a magenta necktie...though with an outfit that loud one might wonder why he didn't choose a quirky bow tie instead. Shielding his eyes from view were a pair of sunglasses with an ice blue reflective tint, despite the fact they were both indoors. With his hands in parade rest behind him and a stiff back to promote his height, the visitor might find Mr. Simon's smile most puzzling of all: it was a small, quiet, and knowing curl of the lips, that seemed to hum "I knew you'd be coming" without uttering a word.
"Jack Simon, I'm an MP for the U.K. Was on vacation here when the city decided to stretch its legs, so to speak. Been serving as a local diplomat ever since."
The MP gestured for his visitor to follow him to an elevator, no doubt to lead her somewhere they might speak in private.
"So, Miss..." he waited for the visitor to introduce herself. "How may I help you?"
HGT, Shinjuku: Midway
"And after lunch it all became insufferably dull, to be honest. The place is crawling with all sorts of figures visible and not, but from the way they all avoided us we might as well have been the fucking ghosts! Misaki and Mr. Sunshine might be able to stomach a day's worth of snail's pace chatter, but that's the last time I spend nine hours in a foreign land without even a chance to look around."
April channeled her frustration into a long sip of her wine glass: a pinot noir she'd paid way too much for just so she could keep the bottle by her side. She'd already decided to cover it on the CIS card—after that torturous experience in Chaldea, she deserved these drinks.
Her audience of one, however, seemed a lot less eager to join her for Happy Hour. Soon after leaving Chaldea, April had announced that she'd be effectively retiring for the evening, and had invited the soft-spoken amnesiac from yesterday to join her at a little bar she knew. Never even bothered to ask if the young lady was even old enough to legally drink, and if she had some way to prove it if that were so.
The Midway Bar was a tiny place tucked in a Shinjuku alleyway. It was known for little more than its tolerable stench and grateful lack of grown women in child-sized maid outfits, but April appreciated its relative isolation. Since becoming the apparent spokesperson for an entire subspecies of suppressed people, she found that she enjoyed these silent spaces more than she had a week ago. Still a bit boring, but it was a welcomed model of boring.
"So how was your day, Terra? Can I call you Terra?" The Contractor didn't wait for permission. "You learn anything new about yourself today? Can't say I know how this amnesia mess is supposed to work, not outside of stories at least. But that doesn't mean you can't figure something out about yourself, memories or not."
April rested her chin on her hand, inviting Terra to share something she "learned" during her first full day as a free-thinking woman.
HGT, Outside Hatsudai Government Building: Need A Lift?
The negotiations between PANDORA and the Azur Lane stretched till the tea cups were well past empty, though were either Tosa or Nishijima to be asked if they had much more than promises, they might be hard pressed to answer. It was true that Tokyo and Azur Lane would benefit from naval patrols, but Tosa's allies didn't need permission to start protecting their island. It was also true that Tokyo and Azur Lane would benefit from more intelligence-gathering on their neighbors, but Nishijima had other matters to attend to and couldn't promise intel on isolationist kingdoms right away. In the end, both Tosa and Nishijima could leave the meeting room with optimism—perhaps even confidence—that some promising seeds had been planted. Now, both sides had to work to make those seeds bear fruit.
The Research Director had another errand in the building, so Tosa was left to leave Tokyo's Police HQ by herself. However, upon stepping back out into the rain, the visitor would find a black SUV waiting for her out front.
The rear door opened and a large figure stepped out, holding the door for Tosa to enter.
"You are a visitor to our city, are you not?" the man asked with a strangely-embedded frown. "Shall I offer you a ride back to the portal?"
Even though the man was undisturbed by the rain, perhaps Tosa would be bothered by it if she had to trek back to that warzone of a portal herself. Just judging by the trip here, she could guess that it wasn't exactly close.
Edited by TheodoreHastings on Apr 29th 2021 at 6:43:57 AM
Anti-Gnosis Weapon
Hell's Gate Tokyo, American Embassy
The sharp-eyed woman followed her new guide with not a glance back at the receptionist, frown reconfigured into something thoughtful rather than furious. Now that he could see her in motion, the perceptive man might pick up on a few particular details: that she moved in a perfectly straight line, was insistently walking side-by-side rather than behind him, and had an exceptionally proud bearing.
"Silver Sablinova. That depends on who exactly you represent, Mr. Simon," she replied with much more patience than she had shown the poor fool at the desk, though she elegantly dodged his question.
Edited by darksidevoid on Apr 29th 2021 at 10:18:06 AM
GM of AGOG S4: Frontiers RP; Sub-GM of TABA, SOTR, & UUA RPs
Minato, American Embassy: A Man of the People
The MP's smile inched wider at the introduction. "A pleasure, Miss Sablinova. As to who I represent, can you not guess that by my title? I represent the United Kingdom, of course! Got plenty of British affairs to take care of here on this crazy Battleworld. I have a little red telephone on my desk that has a multiverse-crossing line to the Prime Minister. Sometimes the Her Majesty listens in on our chats, and we all share gossip over tea and biscuits."
Sable didn't need to be a genius to spot the sarcasm. Still, Mr. Simon waited until both he and his guest were inside the elevator and on the move before he answered her question seriously:
"The truth is that I represent a faction of this city prominent enough to be helmed by our Cure-appointed delegate—Section Chief Misaki Kirihara. Seeing as how our respective nations are out of the picture, it seemed clear that my role as a diplomat needed to change with the times. Think of me as a delegate for the city of Tokyo, but not a delegate for the research facility tucked inside Hell's Gate. In fact, Miss Sablinova, I'd bet that those eggheads at PANDORA are the reason you're here now."
Upon exiting the elevator and walking down a hallway for half a minute, Mr. Simon would gesture to an open room before entering it himself. Judging by the size and furniture, it looked more like a meeting room than an ambassador's office. A large wooden table hogged up much of the floor, and the leather swivel chairs took up even more space. The walls were a neutral beige that offered some uninspiring compliment to the dirt brown carpet and the plastered white ceiling. LED lights showered the area in The place didn't even have any windows.
Sitting in one of the chairs was a child, probably no older than ten or eleven. He wore a newsie outfit complete with suspenders and a red bow tie—and it made him appear so cartoonishly English that Silver might be forgiven for mistaking the clothes as some sort of costume; after all, Halloween was just a few days ago far as she was concerned. Standing in front of him on the table was a half-full (or half-empty) glass of water, coastered to prevent a ring on the wood. The boy did nothing to greet either newcomer—his steel grey eyes never left the book held in his hands: The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Short Stories, by Leo Tolstoy.
"You must've seen that eyesore of a wall on your trip here; you might even be able to see it from Manhattan, if you can spot the difference between it and the sky. That thing is Hell's Gate, and it's the unfortunate namesake for this flavor of Japan's Capital—least here on this planet, anyways. There's no actual connection to the Christian afterlife on the other side, mind you. No demons come out of it, but it does has its fair share of devils...just not the sort with horns and hooves."
The MP took a seat at one end of the table, inviting his guest to sit at the other. "Judging by your actions in the foyer, Miss Sablinova, I take it that you are a very busy woman. Permit me to cut to the chase: are you here regarding the armed androids that have pushed themselves onto your bridge?"
Eternal Princess
"Ahhh...I see."
Abigail didn't really. But as far as she can tell, she wasn't being hit on by the dashing Italian, and not being hit on was something she was familiar with. It was something she could handle. With that all sorted out, she turned back to fawning over the the monster souvenir. The bubbling excitement started up again until Felica reminded her that Abigail's part of the bargain was simply to not do that. A sheepish smiled formed on her face as she held her hands up in a submissive expression, as if saying "See I am calm."
Rita let out an exasperated sigh. She supposed to be a cool fire witch, or at least that was how she liked to imagine her self. So why did it seem like the excitement she got was keeping her friend's stupidity in check.
Over behind the gate, Elfriede was pulled out her daydream when Littorio spoke of love and her. Her gaze followed Littorio's pointed finger out to a confused pair of French girls. Sarah and Chloe looked to one another while pointing to themselves, each not sure who was meant to be the target. With the absence of a definitive answer, the taller girl saw fit to nominate her self. A mischievous smile formed on her face as she began walking over toward her shorter friend. She decided to take a note from Elfriede's acting lessons as she made exaggerated swooning motions.
"Elfriede, she saw right through us! We can hide it no longer! Kiss me you fool!"
Sarah puckered up her lips as she made a kissy face, complete with sound effects. For her part, Elfriede, annoyed, pushed her larger friend off her.
"Get off me you giant idiot."
Successfully fighting off her abhorrent admirer, Elfriede turned toward the Italian war ship. While the short comment seemed to go over her head, she waved her hand and let out a laugh at the accusation of of wooing her coven mates.
"You misunderstand, you see..."
Elfriede's cheeks blushed as she took on a starry eyed look. It was a look Littorio was probably familiar with. A school girl in love. Elfriede tried to gather her courage. Was she really going to say it out loud!? Even if it was to a stranger, professing her love for him out loud somehow made it feel all that more real.
"...you see...I'm already in a relationship."
Elfriede cheeks seemed to get even redder as she tried to hide her embarrassed face in her hands. In stark contrast, Sarah's face seemed to flush of its playfulness and took on a almost disgusted tone.
"Eww. Are you talking about your imaginary werewolf boyfriend from that book you read again?"
Elfriede snapped backed at her friend
"His name is Alfred! And you don't understand our love!"
The two glared at each other. It was easy to get the feeling this wasn't the first time they had this argument. Then Sarah's face twisted into the same mischievous smile as she began to again mess with her friend. Sarah's tone once again took on that of an amateur Shakespearean actor.
"You're wrong, you see...I too love him!"
"No you don't!"
"I do. And to prove that I love him more, I challenge you to a race."
"What does racing have anything to do with..."
Before Elfriede could finish, Sarah took off like a bolt. A look of panic flashed across the shorter girls face. She wasn't sure why they were racing, all she knew was she falling behind and her love was on the line! Elfriede took off after the other girl, leaving the blonde Chloe all alone to entertain the guests.
The prim and proper French girl looked as the silhouettes of her coven mates got further and further away. A clearly unamused look was plastered on her face, though also of one who seemed resigned to her fate. As if this was not the first time something like this happened, her two friends taking to goofing off as she is left with the work. She cleared her throat and straighten her self out, taking on the posture expected of a noble woman.
"Come this way."
She motioned for Felecia and Littorio to follow. Despite the posture and stride expected of a lady in her walk, she seemed to pick up the pace as she tried to catch up to the other two. Turning the tour closer to a power walk session.
In Luna Nova's hall ways.
Sarah was the type to do track and field for fun. Elfriede was the type to sit on her lazy butt and read those stupid Night Fall books. Even if they were in the same league athletically, the height difference gave Sarah's that much more stride that this was not a fair contest. And Sarah knew that. She had fun tormenting her friend. Slowing down just enough to make Elfriede think she stood a chance before speeding back up just to see the distraught look on the shorter girl's face. Unfortunately looking at her friends reaction meant that she didn't see the Japanese girl exit the class room.
Unable to stop her self, Sarah collided comically with the transfer student, sending them both to the floor. Without missing a step, Elfriede ran past the two down for the count, her arms raised victoriously in the air as she called out.
"Love triumphs!"
Chloe, and Felicia and Littorio should they choose to follow, would be able to see the crash from down the hall. Chloe would make her way over and offer a hand to the floored transfer student, Tsuchi, only for her to recoil that same helping hand when she realized who she was dealing with. While the French Blonde kept a straight face, it was hard to miss that condescending look she was giving Tsuchi. It was the same look Gaelle seemed to give her.
For her part, Sarah was still groaning on the floor. Meanwhile, a little further down the hall, Elfriede seemed to have been stopped by the staff and was in the middle of being admonished for running in the halls.
How do you kill that which has no life?
Anti-Gnosis Weapon
Darkness
Once all of her teammates had come into view, Minako quickly pressed her Evoker to her skull and commanded a "Salvation!" spell to heal the injuries they'd sustained during their fights thus far, then let her Persona fade back into the ether. At Joker's shooting the abomination in the head, she smirked slightly, but her countenance quickly turned to a scowl as Nyarly monologued about how their struggle was futile and they should beg if they wanted a quick death.
"We don't need to ask any gods for miracles, you cheating bastard!" she retorted hotly, holding her summoning implement at the ready, "We're going to make our own! And we're going to use it to take you down! If this entire place is you, we'll just tear the whole thing apart, piece by piece!"
"Hey, Nyarly, man," Spider-Man injected, cracking his knuckles, "You ever think of redecorating a little? Maybe adding a window and some houseplants? The inside of your soul is kinda boring!"
Velvet Room
The grievously injured Lady emerged into the main chamber of the Velvet Room right next to Yukari, who shrieked and threw herself backwards, tumbling to the ground and knocking her drink off a nearby glass table, which likewise thumped as it hit the floor and splattered its contents everywhere.
The ladies' drinks having just been delivered, Mitsuru hurriedly set down her water and rose to her feet - but Margaret was faster. "Diarahan!" she called, the tome she was holding flipping through pages on its own as a soothing healing light enveloped Lady's form. Reaching down and gently repositioning the gunslinger until she was on her back, she slipped her arms under the wounded woman's legs and shoulders and carefully lifted her up. "Healing magic alone won't be enough. Theodore, bring the medical supplies and meet me upstairs in the new room," the longer-haired sibling commanded, heading for the stairs.
"Yes, Sister!" her brother replied, immediately ducking down below the counter and coming up with a large box, then swiftly following her up.
Hell's Gate Tokyo, American Embassy
Throughout their journey to the conference room, Silver made no exhibition of emotion beyond her frown, though her lips quirked slightly at the man's sarcasm. She glanced at the young boy and his reading material for a few seconds after entering - though whether she was impressed by his reading a masterpiece of existential fiction at his age wasn't clear - then returned her gaze to the diplomat.
"Correct," the frowning woman answered upon Jack's guess, sitting and setting her bag on the table, "From what you have said so far, your faction, which includes the city's elected government and Kirihara, lack control over the robots, which are commanded by the PANDORA people you mentioned, yes?"
Assuming he confirmed, she would continue, eyes hardening, "I have come to demand their removal. Even if you do not control those machines, I am sure you can deliver this ultimatum to their masters for me: 'The George Washington Bridge is American soil, and belongs to Manhattan. We will be taking back the remainder of the bridge at dawn and establishing a border checkpoint on the Tokyo end, whether your robots are present or not, and sooner if there is any further buildup on the Tokyo side.' I trust that will be clear enough for those you call 'eggheads'?"
Common Room
In the seat designated for Manhattan and Spider-Man, across the great central table from the bleach-blond boxer from SEES, sat a black man in classic office professional wear, complete with white button-down and dark blue tie, his head adorned with short, graying hair. On the floor beside him was a simple brown messenger bag, and on the table in front of him was a medium-sized black laptop upon which he typed, pausing every now and then to hum in thought.
Edited by darksidevoid on May 2nd 2021 at 1:53:13 PM
GM of AGOG S4: Frontiers RP; Sub-GM of TABA, SOTR, & UUA RPs
Link's House: The New Wild
"Link..."
"..."
"Open your eyes..."
This again?
...no, not quite. There was high-pitched bell this time. No shining light in the dark. No nascent sense of self as bit by bit his conscious brain crawled back from the dead. Or nearly dead, as he'd found out later. He was here, she was here, he knew her voice and exactly what she wanted...
"Wake up, Link."
He just wanted five more minutes.
A pair of paws pressed down on his stomach, along with half the weight of a large (and evidently impatient) canine. Link coughed and swatted weakly at the wolf, who elected to release his grip on the sleeping Champion now that his mission was complete.
"Link...something strange is happening."
Propping himself up to a sitting position, the silent knight turned to his princess with an eyebrow raised. Strange? How so? Nothing strange about taking a nap; he was awfully fond of naps. Though judging by the fact the sky was dark, it seems he might've overslept just a bit. Nice patch of grass to snooze in, too. With lots of flowers that reminded him of—
"Look at where we are." the princess gestured around them. "Don't you find it all a bit strange?"
Link obeyed and looked to his left, but found nothing out of the ordinary. There was his house
◊, all cozy and refurbished. He could see the moonlit shadow cast by the big tree above him. He could hear the scraping hooves of his steed Epona, and the princess' steed beside her. No wonder the flowers seemed so familiar; he had them planted here to help make the place so welcoming!
"Last thing I remember were heading to Zora's Domain. Even if we made camp and I fail to recall it—even though the possibility that I would fail to recall making camp is quite slim—we were nowhere near your house last time I checked the map. We were approaching the Dueling Peaks Tower from the west; that'd put us at least a day and a half's journey to Hateno. And yet we somehow woke up here...are you finding none of this unsettling?"
Link shrugged. Truth be told he hadn't put much thought into exactly where they were on their journey, and a detour home would've been a good idea anyways; get a chance to cook with his own pots, and give her highness a more comfortable bed than what was offered at stable inns. It would've added some backtracking time, sure, but the Great Calamity was gone now, and he would've wanted to go with a chance to offer the princess this small luxury—after everything she'd been through she was beyond overdue for a break, so it all made sense to him.
But it seemed her highness was less convinced. Her lips creased as she stared at her silent knight with irritated, half-shut emerald eyes. "Alright. If you're so confident that nothing is wrong..." she pointed to the Champion's right, "Explain that."
Once again Link obeyed, but rather than brush off the familiar scenery, his eyes jolted wide in alarm:
There was no Hateno anymore. Across the fissure that divided his land from the rest of the village was nothing but hills and fields. No Bolson Construction housing projects. No Sheikah research lab at the village's peak. Even the foreboding shadow of Mount Lanaryu seemed...off. As if the world outside of Link's little patch of land had been molded into a convincing shape, but never added with detail. Never added with even life, aside from the grass and trees.
And standing between them and this empty world—between a comforting home and a half-rendered wilderness—was a white door on the edge of Link's bridge.
"I woke up with this in my hand."
The princess offered Link a note, one which he had to rise to his feet and walk to his front door's lantern to read:
Greetings.
"Your weapons are inside, in a trunk by the mounts." the princess informed him. "I suggest you take some, but I pray they won't be needed."
Common Room: Third Verse, Same as the First
"'Zelda and the Champion of Hyrule.'" the princess read the words etched into the other side of the door. Though upon noticing a small detail in the chosen title, her heart sank to the floor.
"It's...strange to see it written like this. With a singular Champion."
Link said nothing (as he often did), but bowed his head. The kingdom had sacrificed nearly everything it had to stop the Great Calamity—land, armies, their secret weapons, the lives of Zelda's father and four of their closest friends, and nearly Link's life along with it—and the most it had bought them was a delay. A century-long stalemate to give Link enough time to restore his mortally-wounded body, regain his strength, retrieve the sword that seals the darkness, liberate the four Divine Beasts, and rescue Zelda from Ganon's clutches so they may seal the monster away for another era. Sometimes it was a bit hard to believe that all of it actually worked in the end, but that picture
in Link's home stood as a reminder of what victory had cost.
"Well. There's no point in worrying about that right now. We need some answers."
With her knight and Champion behind her—and a sapphire-eyed wolf walking behind him—Princess Zelda walked into the Common Room with her head held high and the note gingerly held in her hands.
"Excuse me: my apologies for bothering you all, but could anyone explain..."
Zelda's request fell flat on her tongue—partly because she locked eyes on the technological marvel in the center of this immaculate room, and partly because she realized what it was displaying. Suddenly the words "MY world" in the note were given the full weight of their meaning.
She gulped, found her voice, and continued: "C-can anyone explain what world we're on?"
Luna Nova, Halls: The 2 Flavors of Students
Lost in her own head, Tsuchi was no match for the steamrolling race for Elfriede's one true love. Falling flat on her backnote , the transfer student partly raised herself from the floor and shot Sarah a fiery leer.
"Watch where you're—"
She stopped herself. Yes, she wanted to get mad (furious even) at a girl who treated the halls like her own personal playground. Wasn't like the transfer student didn't have enough on her mind; now she had to watch out for carefree nitwits who weren't named Akko Kagari! But no. Raising her voice, losing her temper, making this into "a big deal," all of it would go against her best interest.
She didn't need eyes on her; at least not anymore eyes than she already expected there were. So as the blonde student offered, then rejected said offer to help her to her feet, Tsuchi turned her fiery eyes to the floor and sighed her anger away.
"Nevermind."
Helping herself from the floor, Tsuchi considered walking away then and there. Evidently there were only two kinds of girls attending this school: there were your Dianas and your Gaelles and your blondes who come from prim and proper breeding and need you to know it—and then there were your Akkos and your Mariannes and your hallway relay-racers who just wanted to amuse themselves no matter how obstructive their shenanigans are. If Mr. Nishijima had any investment in this school, it sure wasn't for the sake of the children. She wanted nothing to do with them, at any rate.
...but Tsuchi helped Sarah to her feet anyway. It would've been more conspicuous if she left the girl on the floor.
"You alright?"
Despite her attempts at being polite and friendly the day before, her question sounded almost disinterested. Evidently she was still mad about being knocked to the ground, even if she wasn't about to make a fuss about it.
Anti-Gnosis Weapon
Common Room
"Ah!" The dark-skinned man raised his head from the business on his laptop and looked across the table at the pair of newcomers with a wide, welcoming smile. "Hi there! I guess you must be..." he paused a moment to glance over the labels on the opposite side of the table, "Zelda, am I right? Come have a seat over here, and I'll try to explain things as best I can. I know these chairs have labels, but they don't really matter. Barely anyone uses the dang things, anyway!" He patted the next seat to his side with a chuckle.
"Now, apparently this whole explanation would usually be done by the... being that brought us all here, but evidently he has better things to do right now. He calls himself 'The Cure'. The cure to what I don't know, but whenever he shows up, it's in that big ol' throne over there," he continued once they'd taken a seat, and gestured to the intimidating piece of iron at the head of the table, "This 'Cure' fellow happens to have some kind of crazy, godlike power, the limits of which we don't know and he's clearly not going to tell us. Unfortunately, he's definitely not the sort of person you'd want to have godlike power, because he's brought all of us here to this planet he's smushed together out of pieces of different worlds and places and times, all so he can be entertained by watching us fight one another. As you can see from that hologram of the planet up there, he calls it 'Battleworld'. He's not exactly the creative type, from what I understand."
"Now, there are two broad categories of people The Cure has brought to this Battleworld of his. The first is territories located on the planet itself, which you can see on the map there. Those are commonly called 'Chunks'. Not the most elegant of terms, but that's what's come into general use. Second, we have so-called 'Chunkless' groups, who have rooms off of that hallway you all came down. Needless to say, you all qualify as a Chunkless group. Chunks and Chunkless both have particular people designated to represent their faction to The Cure, which is either the person listed below the Chunk's name on the map or the person whose name appears first on the Chunkless room's door, and sometimes he rewards them if he's pleased with them. For example, the representative for my hometown of Manhattan is a hero who goes by the alias Spider-Man, and from what I gather, you would be the representative for yourself and your friends here, Zelda."
Although the blonde was probably liable to start asking an avalanche of questions, the expositing man suddenly started, then shook his head, laughing. "Wow, I got so caught up in explaining I plain forgot to introduce myself! I'm sorry!" He proffered a hand for a shake to Zelda and either of her companions (even the wolf), if they were still nearby. "Robbie Robertson, at your service! I'm the editor in chief of The Daily Bugle, a local newspaper back in Manhattan, here so I can keep an ear to the ground for any scoops we might have show up," he finished with a wink.
Edited by darksidevoid on May 5th 2021 at 4:09:06 AM
GM of AGOG S4: Frontiers RP; Sub-GM of TABA, SOTR, & UUA RPs
Vampire Hunter
Trevor & Sypha, Temen-ni-gru
After a bit of discussion with Trevor, Sypha walked over to stop Aigis from firing at Shadow Lady. "I feel like we have no other option but to trust the Shadow to take the original's body to safety."
She did say that Shadow Lady should get out of their way if she couldn't help, but she did decide to help in the only way she could... by making sure Lady was safe somewhere else.
Meanwhile, Trevor was just shaking his head and smiling at the interacting between Shadow Lady and Dante. It reminded him of how he met Alucard.
Trevor and Sypha would eventually step through the door.
Morrigan, Sparta Estate Mirage
"He's a demon," Morrigan said as she walked through the portal as well.
Trevor, Sypha & Morrigan, Darkness
"If there's one thing I know about Dark Lords, it's that they love to hear themselves talk," Trevor said dismissively of Nyarly. "But if vanquishing the darkness is what I have to do to kill you, then I'll just quote my ancestor Leon... 'I'll kill you and the night!'"
At this point, Trevor has his Vampire Killer out, ready to fight. Sypha is already preparing her magic spells to fight. Morrigan is just excited to be here.
Jon Talbain, Common Room
Jon Talbain, who was back in his human form,
◊ walked over to the newly kidnapped duo and their wolf. He seemed to be more interested in the wolf than the duo, but eventually addressed them after having petted the wolf.
"He is correct," Talbain said to Zelda before talking sarcastically. "Welcome to Battleworld. Enjoy your stay."
"You're stuck here the same as the rest of us, Miss Zelda." Talbain simply concluded to the two. "Name's Jon Talbain."
Edited by GameGuruGG on May 5th 2021 at 5:06:58 AM
Wizard Needs Food Badly
Trevor & Sypha, Temen-ni-gru
Trevor was acutely aware that he was dealing with a child... Thinking a moment, he bent down to be at Link's eye level. He glanced over at the two Ladies as well as Dante and Sypha who was still near the real Lady's body.
"Cool..." Trevor scoffed at the term. "I just get theatrical while fighting monsters."
"With that Ocarina of yours, you helped us save Lady from suffering the continued fate of demonhood," He noted to the Hyrulian boy. "She was saved and it was because of you."
"That..." Trevor smiled as he concluded. "...is what I would call 'cool.'"
Meanwhile, Sypha looked over at Shadow Lady and Dante and frowned, "Pathetic little shit?"
"If anything is pathetic, it's you, or at least, that way of thinking of yours," She shook her head. "I should know... I've thought the same way."
"Dante and everyone else here is here to save you... or well, her," Sypha pointed over at the unconscious Lady. "And to take on Nyarly."
"The difference between you and her..." she pointed to Shadow Lady and then to the unconscious Lady. "...is that she has people who are willing to help her, Dante especially."
"If you can't fight Nyarly because you are a Shadow, then stand aside and let us fight him for you and for her."
Dracula, Castlevania
"I suppose a time loop fits with what Death has told me," Dracula shrugged as Majora made his own conclusions. "If he seemed awfully precognitive during the three days you knew him, that could very well have been the reason, though I do not believe the Cure, the being who brought us to this planet in the first place, will let him keep that sort of power."
"Yes, although we will have to be careful to keep this alliance a secret from the heroes," Dracula noted to Majora when he talked about allying. "Right now, the heroes of this planet are fighting a demon known as Nyarlathotep, a demon far stronger than either you or I, and I expect the heroes to win that fight."
"I've already allied myself with one of the rulers of this planet, and the other villain I know on this planet, Shao Khan of Outworld, is not the type to form an alliance, so he will need to be eliminated," Dracula looked over towards the door that Death and Majora's allies had gone through. "It seems like you've been gaining allies yourself."
Wizard Needs Food Badly