CoLC crossover RP, main thread

Chaoz

The assassin was lucky that the blades meant for him missed.

“Shit...” He peeked out to get a good look. “What the hell did I get myself into?”

——

Gon

Gon looked from inside the library to see if he can spot Chaoz outside.

"Alright, so." Rick cocked his pistol and took stock of the situation. "Morty's still out there and-honestly-if anything happens to him I'm gonna be blaming *urp* gonna be blaming you do-gooder superhero types for not stepping up in time-"

There was a faint buzz as Rick's cellphone went off - followed by what might be considered a slightly larger buzz as every other communications device or television in a wide radius spontaneously activated, displaying a faint, staticky video feed.

"Attention- *urp* - is, uh, is this thing on?" There was a faint tap-tap as an unseen finger bumped the microphone, producing an audible feedback squeal.

"Fuck." mumbled Rick. "It's these assholes."

"Attention, inhabitants of the city: this is Rick Sanchez, dimension J-391. It's come to my attention that - oh, *urp* fuck it, let's just cut to the chase here - you've been harboring a known war criminal and felon, a wanted terrorist on twelve dimensions and three hundred planets: a rogue Rick. The rogue Rick, really." The static resolved into a slightly-less dishevelled looking Rick (though not that much), hunched over a jury-rigged communications device, his face cast into eerie shadows by the swirling green light of a portal gun.

Rick stared down into the depths of his omnipresent flask and was already taking a deep, grateful swig. "Rick C-137, if- if you can hear this, and I know you can, I have your Morty." Rick's eyes narrowed.

"Morty?" continued the voice, "Go ahead and say something."

"Oh, uh... oh jeez, Rick, if, uh - you know, my Rick, if you hear this, I think we're in some deep shit, yeah? Rick, I mean, the other Rick, J-whatever, he's got me tied up in a-" There was a click as Rick shut off the audio feed from wherever he was imprisoned.

"You got two hours to turn yourself in, Rick, or your Morty gets it: library, relieve yourself of your portal gun and pistol. Don't even try to portal yourself to him." The screens went black.

"Oh, go relieve yourself." mumbled Rick. The main Rick shot a defensive glance around at whoever was nearby. "What, you really think I'm gonna fall for that trick? He's obviously gonna try to kill me." He took another swig and gauged the room.

"Council Ricks are like fish." he added, defensively. "Smart in a group, completely dumb on their own."

Edited by Locoman on Apr 30th 2019 at 7:13:08 AM

Cole grimaced a little when there wasn't really a response to what he said, but there was so much going on, that wasn't really unexpected. Still, he looked over to Makoto, wincing, before heading over to her. "...you're all right now? I'm sorry...Solas isn't usually..."

He winced again, then sighed. "These people are day bosses. I don't see into them anymore, but I saw into them before. They're copies, not real, so they will act just the way the ones you know will...but not quite. Solas wouldn't have tried so actively to hurt me like he did, he wouldn't want to kill me. That's not his way. So even...even the ones that might be peaceful, in their way...won't be. It's...safer in here, if...if people can get here...?"

Outside Library

It was very upsetting that now that she wasn't pretending to be a nice guy Zero had gotten stronger. Why did it always work that way? Caboose had noticed it happened with Felix too, but the thought that they might have been hiding their true capabilities hadn't ever occurred to the idiot. With the sim trooper being merely strong and lacking skill, his shield bash was easily parried.

And not only did she knock his shield arm out of the way, but even followed up with a thrust at his helmet. Caboose tried to raise up Freckles to block the blow, but it was clearly not going to get there in time... until the personality inside the gun intervened. The advanced program running the his weapon had ran the numbers, and there was only one good way it could save its precious captain.

And so Freckles fired a bullet into the open air.

The recoil sent the gun right into Caboose's face, knocking it slightly to the side. It wasn't enough to dodge the blow, but by some miracle his head had been shifted just enough that, despite piercing clean through his helmet and out another point, it hadn't even touched his flesh. His visor now was filled with cracks around a large hole, a glimpse of white skin visible within the shell from the right angle.

That helmet was a gift from Washington. The soldier loved this helmet, as a sign of their friendship and trust. And now Zero's mean sister had just stabbed right through it. That made him feel upset. Pretty upset. Just a bit peeved. Captain America's shield and his gun both fell to the ground, dropped by Caboose. Without a moment's hesitation, he reached up and tried grabbing the sword that was currently pierced through his helmet with both hands.

All his strength would be going into the task of keeping Zero from moving it. And now that he was upset at her, that was a lot of strength. If he wasn't able to get his hands on the weapon, though, he'd instead throw a wild punch right at her.

Silanea's attempts to shield herself from more attacks got a chuckle out of Van Kleiss. In his mind, she was only a nuisance but maybe her death would be demoralizing enough for Rex for him to actually lose it.

"I want you to pay attention Rex. Remember her face when you failed to protect her"

A loud bang rudely interrupted his speech, quickly followed by a projectile hitting him and exploded. The smoke cleared to reveal a medium-sized tree, smoldering and twisted after the impact it had received but still mostly in one place. The explosion had still been powerful enough to push Van Kleiss back and his current abilities weren't particularly suited to face off against long range attacks or fire.

"Law enforcement" he said, almost disappointed, as if the idea was ridiculous to him. Naturally Rex had found the only people willing to police this chaos of a city.

Meanwhile, Rose tried to use her womanly charms with Rex to stop his attacks, or more realistically, distract him before a well-placed attack.

"Sorry, I'll have to ask my girlfriend if she's cool with it first"

She was quick, though. Much quicker than she looked and fast enough to catch Rex off guard. In a blur, her sword had basically gone through Caboose's but thankfully the soldier had enough in him to still keep the fight for now. Somehow that made Rex feel even more uncomfortable.

"I know when I'm outgunned. But this is far from over. I assure you, Rex, I'm not the only going after you or your friends. How can you last, I wonder?" Van Kleiss, declared. He broke down into the vines that had initially marked his arrival and retracted once again into the ground.

Rex quickly looked away from the fight against Zero to see him disappear. His nemesis could not leave like that and become a massive pain in the neck for his future self to deal with. It was bad enough spending all day trying to look for Makoto's sister but the idea of Van Kleiss showing up whenever Rex dropped his guard was orders of magnitude worse.

"Come say that to my face, you're not-" he could go after him, and help slow him down enough for the ship to finish the job. He totally could. But as confident as Rex generally was in his abilities, he had to admit that didn't seem likely. No, he had to go help Caboose. It was the right thing.

Cursing his heroic nature, Rex ran at Zero and grabbed her from behind. He built his wings and his engines pushed the air that was directly in front of her to move both of them away from Caboose.

"Leave him alone!"

Hercules got from his seat as soon as he saw Ben approach him and with an injured civilian into the Library which Miss Tairee immediately healed up. “Ben where have you been?” He asked as soon as he went up to him, Ben then explained that he encountered….’A Goat Like Being’ and even worse he had encounter with Hades as he described him as being big, blue, toothy and having flaming hair.

“Oh my gosh! You encountered Hades! And you say you were attacked? My goodness…” Hercules gasped once Ben told him this new information, concerned Herc then thought for a couple of seconds before continuing.

“Where did you see him?” He asked clarifying on where Hades could been at this very moment. For all Herc knew Hades could be anywhere in the city by now.

Edited by TheStarscream759 on May 1st 2019 at 5:14:47 PM

She wasn't phased by the block, though that wasn't a big deal as she still had to move back. "Well I had a feeling, I just didn't wanna start anything while bleeding from the everywhere." I quickly backed out of her range, and then took off toward the door, counting on the distraction of everyone else dogpiling her to keep her from pursuing.

An elaborate ransom video came live on my phone, and every screen in a considerable radius for that matter, but I kept moving. Not much of it was surprising or new anyway, albeit distressing and faintly infuriating. In the meantime, the vine guy had left after just getting here, so that was...convenient, for now. It'd probably bite us in the ass later, but.

I speedwalked to the desk once I got inside, already requesting "10 strong healing potions?" while approaching. "Uh, please?"

Ben raised an eyebrow as the other Rick hijacked the communications. He then glanced at the real Rick.

"Well we can't just let him hurt Morty like that. Any way we can lure him into a trap?" he asked.

Next he turned towards Hercules. "It doesn't matter where I found him because he's gonna be shifted somewhere else. Remember, places in the City are weird and keep moving around!" he reminded the demigod.

As soon as Lt. Wells came inside and Miss Tairee directed him outside, he looked a little upset but sighed.

"Miss Tairee. I don't like saying this... but I think I'm gonna need some way to fight when I'm not in hero form," he stated. "If I'm caught out there without the watch on, I'm a sitting duck. And there's a kajillion evil dudes murdering people out there. You have anything that could help me defend myself and other people?"

"Maybe?" Rick shrugged, thumbing the trigger of his own pistol nonchalantly as he thought it over. "He's a Rick though-a dumb Rick, but still, a Rick..." He took another swig as various trains of thought martialled themselves in his head.

"Here, you want a gun?" asked Rick to Ben. "I got, like, twelve of 'em back at my place."

The council Rick's message did not appear on Miss Tairee's computer or holographic screens, but she rolled her eyes as she heard it over the radio on the central desk. The Miss Tairee copy looked to Cole as he wandered over, since she had just healed Makoto. "That's correct, they're just copies, and it's safe in here. Plus nobody will stay dead from today; they'll either be resurrected when their opponent is killed, resurrected when the day ends, or resurrected if they're randomly sent home. It is a tough day out there, but Writer has not broken his normal standards" the Miss Tairee copy noted.

As there was currently no version of Miss Tairee, copy or otherwise, actually at the central desks, she then turned her attention to Lewis. "I can't give you terribly strong potions, but ten healing potions it is, certainly" the Miss Tairee copy said to him, tapping on her holographic screen. Ten small bottles with red liquid in them appeared on the desk in front of Lewis in a blur not too long after.

Meanwhile, the other Miss Tairee copy looked to Ben. "I could give you another phaser, if you lost the one I gave you before" the second Miss Tairee copy offered, before adding, "other than that you'll have to get more specific."

Silanea wasn't even waiting around to let Van Kleiss have his little monologue, immediately sending an ethereal blade at him once the blast had cleared. After that villain vanished, she turned her attention to Zero, moving the ethereal blade forward, but holding back since Rex had grabbed Zero. Likewise, the militia members on the Thunder Child had to hold their own fire now. "Rex, I don't want to hit you on accident!" Silanea called out, still holding her shield up in front of her in case of any attacks thrown her way.

Wells stepped out from the closest revolving doors, laser musket held in hand but lowered, as he used his other hand to get his walkie talkie. "What's it look like, Eight Four?" Wells asked into it.

"A couple of nasties from my home universe, sir, plus some other shifty-looking types. They're clearly suiting up for a fight, but they're not attacking us just yet" Eight Four's voice responded over the channel.

"Keep me informed once anything changes. Do you think you'll need backup?" Wells said in return.

"Depends on if any of those others are holding surprises up their sleeves, but even if they're not, this won't be easy" Eight Four's voice answered.

"Understood. Any of the patrolling groups, if you see the prison, reinforce their position" Wells ordered in the channel, and got a few affirmative responses.

Library Lobby

"I'm alright," Makoto said to Cole, smiling at him. "He's gone now anyway, angry copy or not. Sorry if I scared you." Maybe this twisted version of her sister was more of an exaggeration then? It was a nice thought, but it didn't make today any easier. After the broadcasts from the other Rick ended, she sighed and started thinking of any supplies she might need to go after this. Actually decent medicine would be nice, instead of using her own magic to stay alive. Van Kleiss retreated when the Thunder Child turned on him, leaving just Rose to deal with. That made the battle outside a little less pressing to rejoin, but she still had things to do.

"I want to keep backing up Rex in case that jerk from his world tries to drain the nanites from him again, so I can't stay here," she explained to Cole. "And I promised to look for Morty, and now there's a lead...sort of." She walked over to Rick. "If you have any idea where he's keeping Morty, or a way to get him to come to us, I'm on board with it. Whatever it takes. You don't have to risk yourself if you don't want to, just tell us what to do."

Cole let out a quiet sigh, one that seemed vaguely disappointed, but also not surprised, while looking at Rick, frowning a moment, before looking back to Makoto. "Miss Tairee gave...g...g-gre...nades? Those things, that stopped magic, to use against Solas. If you have to fight another him, maybe you should take something that stops his...technology? If that is something that exists."

He glanced back towards the window with a slight grimace. "...though you cannot have Rex with that. I saw what losing magic meant for you. It would do that to him."

Edited by ColeMinor on May 1st 2019 at 12:20:24 PM

The Miss Tairee copy gave a nod. "That's right; since both of them use nanites, anything used to disable one would probably disable the other" the Miss Tairee copy said after Cole's suggestion.

"Thanks..." I nodded distractedly, going to scoop up the potions when they appeared. Was there anything else we might need...? It seemed like a bad idea to take too long trying to think of stuff though, with shit still going down outside, so I had to make it quick...

"Maybe, get this bat charmed? Vivi's works...though, wait, is that actually the charm's doing or because of her past life...? Maybe something techy if the potions get blocked...hey, what's the deal, here...?"

...

I knelt down, brushing back a tiny bit of Louie's hair. One might have thought he was asleep if they weren't paying attention, but I had a hard time missing it. He was unnaturally clean for a corpse that probably got shot or something...Tairee? I stared for a few seconds, feeling...something, not grief but definitely somewhere on the sad spectrum. Odd, knowing he'd be fine eventually, but so it was.

Eventually I shook my head and sighed, pushing it back enough to focus. "Hey...could I get a VS Seeker?" I asked softly, as if he was only napping. Maybe it'd sniff out whatever other trainer might be running around...? As an afterthought, I remembered the question about the potions and added, "And, some kind of sci-fi health thing, now that I think about it. In case the magic health things get blocked."

"I don't think one of those will help you, but alright" the Miss Tairee copy said, tapping at the holographic screen. There was quickly a blur on a nearby coffee table as another one of the Terran wrist mounted healing devices appeared, then around thirty seconds later there was another blur next to it as a VS seeker appeared.

Rick thought about it for a few seconds, tapping his head as he paced back and forth. "Okay, so, I'm a council Rick, I have no life, I'm an obedient corporate drone who sacrificed every ounce of Rickness in favor for, a low-paying 9-5 job... I'm stranded and alone in the city, in need of spare parts..."

"Oh." It seemed so simple, all of a sudden. "The *uurp* the arcade."

Library Lobby

"Oh, so that's what hit me..." Makoto said, remembering how her Persona had failed a second time. "Yes, I'd rather not almost kill Rex with a badly placed anti-tech field." For all she knew, completely disabling his nanites could have really bad health effects. The idea itself had merit though if this clone of Rick was as heavily dependent on machines as the real one. Rick guessed that Morty was being kept at the arcade.

"Alright, I'll try to find the arcade and see if he's there then." Shadow Sae might still be out there, if someone hadn't somehow killed her yet, so maybe she could handle both issues at once. Three issues if Van Kleiss crawled out of the ground to bother them again. Makoto went over to the front desk. "Would you mind giving me a few EMP grenades, a hand radio, and some Recov-R: 100mg bottles?" Makoto asked Miss Tairee.

I nodded slowly, putting on the...healing watch, I guess you could call it, and clipping the VS Seeker to my bag. "Thanks, again..." A sigh. "What happened, anyway? Um, make it quick."

"Alright then" the Miss Tairee copy said, tapping on the holographic screen and having the items Makoto requested start to appear nearby in blurs. While working, the duplicate librarian glanced to Lewis. "What happened? You mean to Louie? Well he got killed, obviously. I'm not really sure who-"

Ace the blaziken let out an angry shriek and leapt at Rick with a flying kick, getting abruptly stopped in mid air as a bubble appeared around him. "No, no, you can't fight in the library" the Miss Tairee copy reminded the pokemon in a frustrated tone. Ace squawked at her while his eyes teared up, but she shook her head. "Not even if it was him" the duplicate librarian told the blaziken in response.

Ben visibly winced back as Rick offered him a pistol, not wanting to get anywhere near the weapon.

"I'm not using one of those things! I hate guns!" he said sternly. When Miss Tairee offered to give him another phaser in case he lost he, Ben dug into his bag and slammed his phaser onto the desk, pushing it across.

"This thing doesn't work," he said bluntly. "I used it on the shield dude who tried to kill us and it didn't affect him. I need something that actually works or there's no point. Something strong that isn't a gun that I can use to defend myself if I'm not in hero form."

He looked towards the grieving Blaziken, and looked uncomfortable before turning his attention back towards the others.

"This is so stupid..." he muttered. "The one day that the Writer turns back on permanent death and it's the day with a bunch of psychos running around. I hate this place. And I still hate the Writer but he knows that already."

The Miss Tairee copy sighed, lifting her glasses frame up for a moment to pinch her nose. "Ben, either you hit him where he had some kind of protection to absorb the shot, or he was too tough for the number of hits you got on him to put him down. You have forms that are capable of taking several hits without going down. So just because you used it and he didn't fall unconscious doesn't mean it doesn't work" the Miss Tairee copy explained and reminded to Ben, picking up the phaser and examining it for a moment. "I can't give you anything that would let you cleanly and effortlessly be victorious in any kind of conflict you find yourself in; that's too broadly non-specific and too powerful for me to be allowed to give you that" the duplicate librarian went on, placing the phaser back down.

"Also, the death is still not permanent; it's just less fleeting and temporary than on previous days" the Miss Tairee copy added, motioning to Louie. "I believe I have already explained to most of you here that Writer's project includes seeing the long term effects of what your visits here will be on you when you return to your home universes. Which is why having any of you actually, permanently die here in the city is obviously not part of his plan" the duplicate librarian concluded.

I watched the blaziken get shut down just as it started to go apeshit, nearly starting something before deciding against it. "...Ok before anyone loses their minds, was it this one in particular or the other even more terrible one that just announced his existence to everyone in a 10 mile radius? I ask because one, I've been with him for a good chunk of this morning and we were nowhere near this, and two, I'm trying to save you, save you from something really stupid." Ben was being so very...himself. "Ben it's just a gun. It's not made of orphaned babies."

A thought.

"...Not a word," I added, pointing to myself.

Edited by Oceanstuck on May 3rd 2019 at 4:03:00 AM

Zero, Outside Library

What an annoying position to be in. Most of these phasers did little more than inconvenience her - but she didn't like being inconvenienced. Still, it seemed that her thrust would reach the mark, except when it did only partially. "You've gotta be kidding me..." It was as if that red idiot's weapon had a mind of its own! Not even a moron like this one would just randomly fire into the air for no reason.

With the red idiot angry and having dropped his weapons to try and wrench her sword out of her hands though, it was something that Zero could work with. "Actually, hold onto it for a bit." With a swift move of her foot she kicked the shield up and opted to seize it in place of the sword she let go of - it was made of dragonbone; not even this idiot could break that - and just in time for Rex to intervene. Zero was thrown back by the EVO's grab and tucked herself into a roll to stabilize a bit further away, the shield currently substituting for her blade. She could probably take someone's head off with it still.

Unfortunately, with Van Kleiss turning tail she was the only one left now. How inconvenient. She wasn't planning to leave until someone else died, but... Seeing as Two was still in the library, and hoping that Rex would prioritize taking care of Caboose than her, she dashed towards the snaketail girl, throwing a mean swing with the edge of Capmerica's shield. This was meant to be more of a diversion - the one that would require Silanea's attention in case she liked her arteries - to cut and run to fight another day.

"O-oh no, sorry, I meant Cole and Arcade..." Two replied sheepishly when Makoto fervently denied that option. She could well understand why the Phantom Thief wouldn't even consider it. Rex was out there - and so was her sister's shadow copy. Then the talk changed to Zero. Two's face fell. "Her name is Zero. She's our elder sister, seeking to kill us and cutting a bloody swathe through our subjects to do so."

"Now that I know what the Flower is... I guess she was trying to get rid of something that would spell doom to our world." The bluenette's face was grim and struck with profound sadness. "Well, this is a copy of Zero either way, so I don't think we can talk our way out of it..." The good news was that the person after Cole was dealt with already, at least.

"I guess we can restrain him the old-fashioned way." Two added her own three cents when Van Kleiss came up as a topic, cracking her knuckles for emphasis. She couldn't help but flinch when Ace grieved, mistaking one Rick for another. "I can take a few hits and distract him if need to. Same with the, uh, corporate Rick?" Perhaps this wasn't the best time to be asking what "corporate" meant.

"I'm good to go either way. Well, if I could have a couple of these healing potions first... and, um, some bag to hold them in." She said to Miss Tairee sheepishly. Two's garments didn't lend themselves to holding a large amount of small objects, unfortunately.

"Caboose, calm down! We'll get Tairee to fix your helmet later! It'll be fine!" Rean shouted.

He ran up to the red soldier, and grabbed hold of Zero's discarded weapon. Unfortunately, it was way heavier than his own sword, and so he had some difficulty dislodging it. However, this would give Rex the opportunity to focus on something other than Caboose.

"...whoops" Rex took a bit to process he had accidentally helped Zero. No one was going to shoot her if he was in the line of fire—as much as some probably wanted to pull the trigger anyway.

It was enough for her to take advantage of the situation and focus on someone else. Caboose had been hit with some pretty awful attacks but he seemed lucid still and luckily Rean was there to take care of him for the moment. Rex wasn't going to waste his chances. To stop Zero from hitting Silanea with that weird round shield—why was Caboose carrying that again?—he went after her and built his smack hands. He had to keep his distance with her so he decided to grab Silanea instead and pull her away from the danger.

"I thought we had something special" he joked, and turned to Silanea "You okay?"