"So..." said Rick offhandedly as the other combatants turned to leave, "any of you guys seen Morty anywhere? No? Then I still have a *urp* huge problem, and that means that you guys have a really huge problem."
Outside Grocery Store——> Outside Library
Alright, so the theme was a weird one on one grudge match with a specific person from their world. That explained Shadow Sae well enough, even if Makoto didn't actually want to kill her. It was a clone though, so this shouldn't affect the real Sae. And if Sae wasn't handled soon, then Makoto wouldn't "respawn" if she happened to die. She either had to hunt Sae down or cower in the Library until the day was done, and the latter wouldn't stop her sister's Shadow from hurting others. Marcus believed that he was effectively done with his challenge and went off to hopefully help clear out the rest of the enemies.
"Oh, um...good luck?" she said, watching Marcus go. Lewis brought up the possibility of duplicates, and she shook her head, not wanting to think about it. "I don't want to deal with any more "evil twin" situations for the rest of my life, thanks. How about we focus specifically on the people out for us?" Rex didn't seem to want to consider Van Kleiss as a candidate for this challenge, but wouldn't that be the easiest person to fight? She was pretty sure that Rex didn't like him anyway. Well, if he had problems, she'd just have to back him up. "Right, if we get to it..." She began to walk away, and to their luck, the familiar multistory building with revolving doors was around the next corner. There was a bald, elven man in expensive looking armor standing around by a window, but she didn't recognize him in the slightest. Before she completely left the grocery store behind, Rick asked about Morty.
"You lost Morty? Well...he has a phone, right? You could try calling him at the library, or maybe he'll be there. It's probably the safest place around here, as usual," Makoto said to Rick. "And what do you mean by a huge problem? What's after him today?"
THE SLORG!
"Not really, Cole" Miss Tairee said, cleaning up the unused plates and such with blurs after typing on her holographic screen. "This copy of him will always want to kill you- will always want to find some way to make you go outside so he can have the chance. Nothing you say or do would ever change that. So I don't think he would sit around and talk to you as if he were just like the normal Solas just because you're sitting in here where he can't hurt you; only if he thought he could do so as a way to trick you into trusting him" the librarian explained to Cole.
"And yes, every resident in the city has their own opponent. Which is why it's all the better to just stay in here where it's safe" Miss Tairee then added to answer Arcade.
"A mere minor greenskin is not worthy to be the opponent of an astartes" Brother Marcus said to Lewis, before leaving to go off his own way.
You are reading this.
Gon, running to hide
Gon ran away from the scene, heading to the direction of the library. Before he got closer and closer, he stopped in his tracks.
I can't just lead Chaoz to the library. I need to end him right here and now.
He went for the nearest alley and hid himself. The assassin shouldered the beam rifle and waited for Chaoz to show up.
"Where are you?!" Chaoz said in a polite tone. He looked around and saw some bystanders moving away from him.
"Where are you, man?!" The Chinese-American assassin shouted when he fired his carbine up in the air. "Don't make me do something stupid, Gon!"
I just want to help!
Cole continued to stare at Solas as the elf turned his head abruptly, as though distracted by something. After just a moment, Cole turned, half-scurrying his way back over to Miss Tairee and hugging her around the waist, just looking rather troubled. "I don't like that. It's...it's unnerving, to see him, but not him, seeming so...normal."
Outside, the elf that Makoto noticed turned his head as they approached, studying them with perhaps an unusual intensity for just a moment, before he looked back into the library, staring in silence. That done, he stepped back slightly, adjusting his grip on the staff carried at his side, to walk towards them, though his posture seemed entirely relaxed, as though he didn't have any sense of trouble present.
"Do pardon me," he said in a soft, but still oddly haughty and commanding voice. "This place is quite unfamiliar. I would have your assistance."
"Oh, wonderful," Arcade muttered when Tairee confirmed his worry. There was some clone of someone who wanted to kill him out there. Honestly, that was a shockingly big list, so he was quite concerned.
"Yeah, let's just try and avoid getting at all close to any of those things, alright?" he said to Cole.
I say that aloud too sometimes, just: "man, no life."
For the Horde!
As he was running through the City, XLR8 saw the person running scared out of the apartment building, being pursued dangerously by what looked like an evil gerbil with a bad fashion sense and his thug posse.
In hindsight, he looked a lot like Fastanook, but all of those orange furry beings looked really similar to Ben.
XLR8 stopped and scooped up the injured man, holding him in his arms. He then raised his visor, showing his face to the man.
"Don't try to walk, I got you, the City Knights are on the job. Let's get you back to the Library, Miss Tairee will be able to fix that right up," XLR8 assured him. He then looked at the Fastanook doppelganger.
"And what's the matter with you, fuzzball?" he asked. "Skip your rabies shots?" With that, he readied to start heading back towards the Library to drop the man off in safety. He looked around in case anyone tried to get the jump on him.
Edited by AllHailThrall on Apr 14th 2019 at 8:52:03 AM
I can still hail the Horde even though the company has shamed us. Strength and Honor even if Blizzard has neither.
"Tried it. No answer. Think his phone must've gotten smashed at some point. Look... w-without going into too much detail about it I have reason to believe that to there's another Rick on the loose in the city. See, because of the-" Rick stopped and took a contemplative shot. "-have I ever told you about the Council?" He idly swished the contents of his flask around and slumped against a nearby pile of rubble. For a moment, he looked very, very old and grey.
"The Council is... well, look, if- if you take the entire sum total of the multiverse and slice it into a finite curve of probability odds are that-" He burped grimly and took another shot. "...look, the point is: there's an infinite, infinity number of Ricks across an infinite number of Earths at any given moment, and the weak ones band together. Like fish. They have a whole little... council... thing set up, try to impose taxes, rules, regulations, like herding cats, y'know?"
"And, y'know, they kind of hate me 'cause I'm kind of an interdimensional terrorist, fugitive, you know the drill. Closest thing I've got to an archnemesis, anyway. And if Morty found the wrong Rick..."
Edited by Locoman on Apr 14th 2019 at 7:09:31 AM
Dark Sun, what choices have I...?
"You don't know it won't." I complained, feeling condescended to. "Just seemed better to be wary..." I let Rick exposit on his equally terrible alternate timeline selves, and then exaggeratedly gestured at him as if to prove my point.
By coincidence the library happened to end up only a short walk away. I got up, wiping some more of the blood (weirdly, it seemed to be slowing down), before some smug-ass elf dude walked up asking for some kinda vague help. I cleared my throat and deadpanned, "What kind of assistance."
i guess you can watch me shitpost i guess
Outside Library
"Actually, I have no close what your world is like, but an entire council of you sounds terrifying, so I'll take your word that they're dangerous," Makoto said to Rick. How did one become an interdimensional terrorist? "And you think Morty might have ran into one of your copies. You should inform the Militia about that possibility, at least." She tossed him Phillip's radio, since she could get another one soon enough. "Um...I'll see if I can find Morty for you. If he's still alive, that is..." That sounded kind of dark, now that she said it out loud. "I-I'm sure he'll be alright though!" Probably. Lewis was using this as an example of his point, and she gave him a pointed look through her mask in return.
"Congrats, you're right. That just makes this a bigger mess to try and sort out." The elven man that was loitering by a window came over to speak with them, to her slight surprise. He had a staff, but considering she'd taken out a mage not too long ago with one slash of Anat's sword, she wasn't feeling overly threatened by it. He wasn't being hostile either.
"Oh, did you just arrive?" Makoto asked him. "If you need an explanation of what's going on here, you should probably go to the front desk in this building and pick up a pamphlet. you'll be safe from any attacks in the library too," she explained, relaxing her guard. The less people on the streets to get caught in the crossfire of all these fights, the better.
Edited by ScorpioRat on Apr 14th 2019 at 11:41:17 AM
THE SLORG!
"Yes, it's a rather troubling day theme, but it's alright, you can just stay in here today, Cole" Miss Tairee said, gently rubbing her hand in Cole's hair. "Don't you still want to read some Hank the Cowdog?" the librarian then suggested.
'Fastanook' made a quick little dash backward, holding his thwack hammer defensively, when XLR8 suddenly showed up. He made no move to stop the alien or respond, but Ben could hear a man inside the building ask, "what's taking so long?"
The man being rescued was mostly just confused and still a bit frightened. "What? Huh?" he stammered as the fast alien took him along.
You are reading this.
Herc then watched his friend get knocked out by the other Rick, he didn't have time to react cuz no sooner did the other Rick knock his friend out, Two in a rage then charged at the impostor but unfortunately for her she ended up being stunned by the militia falling unceremoniously onto the floor, allowing the other Rick to escape.
Two got frustrated that this happened and she was feeling really broken about Louie dying. She released his Pokemon and they start gathering around the dead body mourning at the loss of their trainer. Ben was then really annoyed with the Militia caught them out for letting the other Rick get away. Ben used the Omitrix to turn into XLR 8 not before telling the group as well as Hercules to head for the Library. "Ben wait!" Herc called after him but it was too late. XLR 8 was already gone, out of sight.
Herc then sighed to himself and then turned his attentions on Two and then went over to her to comfort her: "I'm so sorry you had to see that Two, I really am. Once we get back to the Library, we'll formulate a plan to find Louie's nemesis and maybe find some way of bringing him back." He then said to her calmly reassuring her what the best thing to do was.
"Well, you know - you break few laws, traffic a few drugs, maybe, y'know, maybe try to undermine an intergalactic government that controls 60 percent of the known galaxy..." Rick shrugged. "When you realize that everyone who makes the law is a little man who thinks they can swing a big dick around, you make enemies and fast. Half of these Ricks - they didn't even invent interdimensional travel by themselves, y'know? A Spokesrick just shows up, gives the poor dumbass a limited supply of portal juice if they sign over their exclusive rights..."
Rick trailed off as the shady elf-like character approached them, slowly going for his gun. "Mmmm-hmmmm. Y-you are aware that you've been dropped into a place where we're all fighting our worst enemies, and thus you have a 50% chance of going apeshit and trying to kill us, or trying to trick us into killing someone we know?"
Rick explained his experiences back home meant his nemesis could very well be a copy of him that Morty could easily be fooled by. That was interesting, to say the least. Rex was thankful he wouldn't have to fight himself even if the Writer tried to bring in something too dangerous from his world.
"Well, he wouldn't know who any of us are so it should be easy to tell. I'm sure Morty is doing fine, though. There are too many heroes to worry about it. But yeah, telling the Militia is smart"
Unsurprisingly, that idea came from Makoto. Speaking of, with the library close they could finally relax for a second or two, actually eat, and who knew? Maybe even continue where they had left off in the morning...
And help another lost person, too, because a hero's work is never done. The guy looked very plain aside from his pointy ears, and was carried around an innocent looking staff. Something was off, though. He had the kind of face you could tell belonged to someone smug. But Rex wasn't one to judge, maybe the guy had lost the genetic lottery in that regard. No one could be perfect. Rick didn't trust him, probably because of that—plus a little bit of math—but that seemed a little unfair given the kind of crazies they were dealing with.
"Come on, the guys we just fought didn't even try being subtle. We have no reason to assume any of them would think of hiding" the idea that he could be a threat was not exactly laughable but... Rex wasn't buying it. "Besides—no offense meant, of course—but he looks like a twig"
I just want to help!
Cole watched for a moment at the window, as Solas seemed to see something, then turned to walk away for a moment. "...where is he going?" he asked softly, though he kept clutching at Miss Tairee. "...I don't like this. I...I feel like I should try to stop him, but...even before, I...I don't think I could have..."
"Ah. A...50% chance of violence? That seems...roughly accurate, I suppose," the elf said, drawing his staff back up, placing a hand to the gem at the top of it, causing it to light with a slight blue sheen...one that matched the faint glow that appeared in his eyes for only a moment. "Fortunately...that is the assistance I require of you."
Far more quickly than it should have seemed possible, the elf thrust the staff towards them, and a wave of...something swept over anyone remaining directly in front of him, which would disrupt any active magic they had active at the moment. In the same movement, he swept the staff to plant it on the ground in front of him, and a shimmering blue essence seemed to cover him, swirls of clear magic, starting out bright, but obviously enough fading out if one watched for long enough.
"It seems only polite. I am the Dread Wolf, Fen'Harel...most would know me as Solas. If it takes destroying you to lure out Cole, then so it shall be."
Outside Library
Rick concluded that the elf could just as easily be a murderous clone than an innocent bystander, which she agreed with, but saying that to the man's face didn't sit well with her though. Rex didn't want to assume he was an enemy either, though he didn't think the elf was physically strong enough to do much damage anyway.
"That was a little uncalled for..." Makoto said to Rex, though the elven man didn't look offended in the slightest. His staff's head glowed, and Makoto instinctively watched it, already expecting something to happen. Unfortunately, she had no real chance of reacting to and dodging the unfamiliar wave of magic until it struck her. The effect was like being yanked out of the Metaverse without warning. Her eyes went blank and she nearly blacked out for a second as Solas's spell interrupted her Persona, and then her Phantom Thief outfit burned away in a flash of blue, leaving her in normal clothing.
"H-how did I...?" Makoto was too disoriented to do much beyond staying upright. Anat was still reeling, but as the Persona recovered from being suppressed, Makoto processed what the "Dread Wolf" had said. "We aren't going to let you hurt Cole, no matter what!" She fell into a martial arts stance for the moment, hoping her magic would return fast enough for her to fight back.
Little did Ben know that he was unfortunately in the same area as Hades and the Trickster. “Hey he’s strong yes, a pushover not really a guarantee.” Hades said to the Trickster once the latter said that Hercules would be easy pickings whilst they were here in the city. Hades was just about to start moving away from the area when he got distracted by something coming up. “Whoa, whoa, whoa hold up, hold up.” He told the Trickster getting him to stop in mid walk: “What is that?”
Sure enough he could see bluish-black streak racing across where they were, Hades grinned to himself darkly and then grinned at the Trickster: “Why don’t we have some fun?” Hades then teleported away from the Trickster and teleported in front of XLR 8 and held out a hand to stop him in his tracks.
“Hey, hey, hey, what’s the rush, speedy? Geez I haven’t seen someone move that fast since Hermes was late for a meeting with the gods.” Hades said to the blue alien speedster chuckling at his little joke he continued: “Got a minute? Hades, Lord of the Dead, hey, how are ya doin’?"
Edited by TheStarscream759 on Apr 16th 2019 at 2:34:09 PM
Tairee tried her best to distract Cole from the Solas clone, but it wasn’t exactly working. With a soft sigh, Arcade shook his head.
“It’s not your responsibility just because it’s based off of someone you know,” he said, “this is awful, I know, but there’s not much you can do other than stay here.”
I say that aloud too sometimes, just: "man, no life."
For the Horde!
XLR8 started to zip off, but he stopped suddenly as someone appeared in front of him. A blue dude with sharp teeth and fire for hair. Even he could tell this guy was bad news. Nonetheless, he narrowed his eyes at Hades, still holding onto the man.
As soon as he introduced himself as Hades, though, XLR8 immediately got into a battle stance. Or as best of one as he could while holding a civilian in his hands. He put the civilian down nearby another building's front door, and stood dangerously between Hades and the civilian glaring up at the god of death.
"Hades?!" XLR8 shouted. "You're that creep that Hercules told me about! You lay one of those creepy fingers on anyone and I'll put out that candle you have for a head, got it?!"
I can still hail the Horde even though the company has shamed us. Strength and Honor even if Blizzard has neither.
Trickster || Streets
Lacking Hades's power of teleportation, the Trickster walked up to Ben, his hooves clopping against the street. "Unwise of you to yap, little pup," he remarked — and without warning launched a glob of sticky web from his hand, aiming directly at Ben and trying to pin him in place.
Snowy
"...Nnn..." Rean groaned, finally regaining consciousness. He sat up, rubbing his jaw. Well, that was a dumb idea, wasn't it? And the portal was nowhere to be found, so it was easy to assume Rick got away. Damn it... He thought, punching the ground. He then looked up, and spotted Two staring blankly at Louie's corpse. The Trainer's Pokemon were all gathered around, quietly guarding it. Rean sighed, eyes downcast. Louie's Pokemon shouldn't have had to see their Trainer like this. And Two liked to take care of children, so seeing this must have hurt her a lot.
"I-" Rean started to say, but then he winced, grabbing his jaw again. Ok, no, it hurt to talk properly. He needed to fix that first.
He fumbled around for his ARCUS, managing to force out a "Teara" and healing himself. HE slowly got to his feet and put a reassuring hand on Two's shoulder.
"I'm sorry..."Rean said, to both Louie's Pokemon and to Two. "And Herc's right. We'll figure out a way way to get him back." There was a good chance that the Writer wouldn't just permanently shut off the auto revive, right?
Rean looked around, realizing they were missing someone.
"...Where's Ben?"
Edited by stargirl93 on Apr 16th 2019 at 11:33:57 AM
Stop Killing My Titles
Two, ... (also Zero), Outside Library
Two sat there, unresponsive to Hercules and Rean's attempts at cheering her up, merely staring blankly at the mangled corpse before her. It wasn't until the outside of the library became more crowded that she stirred back to life, slowly turning her head to look at the two. "...we will?" She asked weakly, looking between the two. There was some commotion happening nearby... more villains? She had to go and help...
Slowly, she pulled herself up to her feet, still feeling like the world was spinning around her. She did actually stumble - but someone's hand caught her. "Looks like you've been having a rough time, little sis." That voice certainly shook any stupor off Two as she stared up at her elder sister holding her up, smiling like it was any other day.
"...Zero...?"
"Hey. Sorry we can't catch up properly, but there's some messed-up stuff going on. Apparently everybody has a crazy clone of their enemy gunning after them?" Here the original Intoner looked over to Rean and Herc. "Hello there, boys. Hope you've been taking a good care of that musclehead here."
"I-I'm not-"
"So, which one of these assholes are you guys planning to curb?" Here she gestured towards the crowd around Solas with her blade before it went on her shoulder. She let go of Two in the meantime, idly examining the dead kid and the crowd of weird critters around it. "Not sure who I'm supposed to hit."
Edited by FergardStratoavis on Apr 17th 2019 at 9:35:43 PM
grah
Happy Box Hater
Outside Library
At some point during all the chaos occurring around the library, Caboose managed to find a moment to retrieve Freckles from off the ground. After introducing the gun to their new friend, Captain America's frisbee shield, he basically stood around in a daze for a bit. This was normal for him, and it wasn't unknown for him to completely lose touch with his surroundings in the middle of a warzone.
Still, he eventually noticed Hercules and Rean talking to a very upset looking Two. How had he missed that? With his damaged gun holstered and his shiny new shield held firmly, the red soldier ran over just as a strange looking flowery eyed woman started talking. "Hey Two, I am glad to see you look confused instead of sad right now," the dimwitted man said cheerfully, clearly deciding her reaction to the woman in white's presence was better than what existed before it.
Except his brain soon caught up with what had been said. This was one of Two's sisters? "Huh..." Caboose uttered, tilting his head to the side while staring right at the woman. She didn't look like any of the intoners he had seen, and those were, like, all of her sisters...? "Who are we supposed to hit?" Who was this woman? Two knew her and had used a funny number instead of a name...
Suddenly he realized how silly he was being. Of course Zero was her name, Two was also a number and so were all the other intoners! But Zero was the bad one... or the not good one... the one who wanted to fight the flower but needed to kill to do that. That one. Crazy clone of their enemy... "Huh," he said again, the angle of his head tilt increasing. His two functioning brain cells finally sparked, though. And then he understood what was going on.
"Oooooh..." Caboose exclaimed, dragging out the sound. "Now I get it! You're Zero!" He sounded very pleased with himself for figuring this out. Not that there'd be much opportunity to respond to that, considering how he would immediately attempt to slam his fancy shield right into Zero's face. "It would make me sad if Two died again. So I think we should just go into the library."
Why is a yam attacking me?
THE SLORG!
"He's right, Cole. Someone being here to hurt you isn't automatically your fault" Miss Tairee said to Cole reassuringly; meanwhile her copy 'conveniently' mentioned something out loud about the situation, and the gremlin militia member took off running across the lobby quickly.
The militia members on the deck of the Thunder Child didn't see what was happening with the other group that had just arrived right away, but one of them did see what Caboose did right away. "Hey! Hey!" the militia member shouted, firing his phaser pistol twice at Caboose's back, accomplishing nothing of note against the armor. "Stand down!" the militia member added, holstering his phaser pistol then starting to unsling his more effective, and more lethal, laser musket rifle.
Meanwhile, the revolving door closest to where Solas was spun around as the short, fur-covered militia member dashed out of it. Seeing no reason to announce his presence preemptively to the elf, Fastanook simply took his phaser pistol and fired on Solas immediately.
The wounded civilian looked at Hades with some recognition, but mainly fear. "Holy shit that is so much worse when it's not a cartoon" the man mumbled, before XLR8 moved over to the door and placed the man down. With a glance at the door then the fight, the man opened the door and tried to move inside to hide, but fell to the floor with a yelp since he still had a bleeding hole through one of his legs.
Edited by FirockFinion on Apr 17th 2019 at 6:44:36 AM
You are reading this.
As usual Lewis didn't do his best at keeping what little peace was left undisturbed. People had to fight against something that had some significance to them. So far it looked like what they usually dealt with—Marcus with xenos, Makoto with shadows, Ben with aliens—but the idea of the significance having to do more with an emotional baggage than their simple nature was terrifying. Specially if it extended to people that weren't part of people's homeworlds.
"No, that's not gonna happen. And let's not think about that anymore" Rex said, trying to stop the images in his brain of a definitely not innocent little girl. Makoto apparently decided to take a page from Lewis' book and theorized Van Kleiss could be Rex's personal pain in the neck today. It seemed everyone around here had a remarkable ability of immediately coming to the worst possible conclusion.
"Nah, I'll probably get something dumb and embarrassing like... Circe. Gosh I hope it's Breach instead. She would enjoy this kind of place, it looks like her dollhouse"
Rex had hoped his day wasn't completely ruined but it didn't seem things were going to get better. Now he was nervous and that had lead to him talking about things that didn't need to be discussed and thinking about problems that were probably not a reality.
"Let's just walk..." he hoped off the grocery store window and pointed at a random street "We'll cross that bridge when-if we get to it"