CoLC crossover RP, main thread

Leaving Library Right into Trouble

With a bit of disappointment that his friends wouldn't be joining him, Caboose followed Garret outside. However, his ears suddenly picked up a familiar sound. It was Freckles!

The sim trooper, completely forgetting that the AI was currently in the gun at his side, saw no flaws or issues with that. He ran outside after Garret and towards the sounds, only to come face to face with Freckles giving a piggyback ride to a complete stranger. He was a blue, though, so that meant he must be good!

"Hello, stranger!" he called out, waving his arm.

Freckles, meanwhile, finally finished processing the situation. His circuits had gotten a bit confused trying to reconcile the existence of two identical Caboose's, but the artificial personality had finally rectified it in its fake mind. And the weapon had one simple reaction, delivered in an emotionless deadpan. "Son of a bitch."

Upgrade shrugged.

"Fine, whatever. It was just a thought anyway," he said, before the asari entered and warned the group about the giant robot.

"Giant robot? This should be a piece of cake," Upgrade laughed. "Get me onto the ship's cannons and we can blow it up from orbit. Let me at them!" he exclaimed, following Greg up the stairs and looking at the robot.

"It's too bad that thing's evil, it's super cool looking. But we can't focus on that now, where are the ship's cannons?" he asked. "Let's scrap this sucker!"

"Primary target identified" the fake Freckles said, rotating back to face the real Caboose directly, and ready its weapons.

"Hi real me! It's me! The fake you!" the fake Caboose greeted, waving an arm. "Wow, so you really did switch to Red Team? That's gonna make Church disappointed, isn't it.." the duplicate remarked, pausing for a few moments before adding, "well that's okay. I don't really like Church anyway; he's mean."

"Whoa, Ben, we're not a hundred percent certain that's actually an enemy yet" Greg pointed out, glancing at Upgrade after taking a look down at the robot and rider. "But, get on the gun anyway; we'll want to end it quickly if it is" the militia member suggested, then saw Caboose approaching the robot and rider.

"Okay well, one of those is definitely a fake, but which one?" Greg thought out loud, taking cover at the edge of the deck, and readying his laser musket. Other militia members were likewise getting ready with weapons, while two of the cannons on that side turned to the scene. One of the gunners waved at Upgrade, then hopped out of the seat and started to grab their own laser musket to use instead.

Gon, monitoring things and figuring things out

Now what?

Gon kept himself quiet when he saw that two versions of Makoto were present in the library a while ago.

I'm assuming that's today's theme.

Since that's the case, the assassin assumed that there'd be another version of himself roaming around somewhere.

And it'd be a matter of time before he gets killed. Or the other person gets killed.

He took a minute to check his things before he can decide on what to do next.

Outside Library

Wait... this was the fake him? Caboose started doing a lot of mental arithmetic, trying to resolve this new piece of info. Surprisingly, even though his train of thought was messed up, he at least got the situation somewhat into his thick skull. He had seen movies with this sort of scene before!

"...How do I know if I am the real me or if you are the real me?" the sim trooper asked after a few seconds, completely serious. "I mean, I remember becoming a red, and by the way Church was OK with it because he is not dead now, but what if what I remember is not real?! Wouldn't that mean that Church isn't alive anymore? But I also remember finding out that he was dead, so maybe that part wasn't true either?" His brain was about to go through a miniature identity crisis when the faker resolved it.

Slowly, the red clad soldier looked up and stared blankly at his blue counterpart. "You know, that is not a very nice thing to say about such a nice person who everyone on the red team and blue teams like," he said patiently, as if explaining to a child, but an air of menace lay beneath his words. "Like, sometimes he yells a lot. But that is because he is stressed and being loud is how he shows affection. And that is OK!"

"Repositioning recommended, Captain Caboose," his own Freckles spoke up from his side.

"No, not now Freckles. I am in the middle of something," Caboose remarked, shutting down his ally's sound advice. "Anyways, so when you say things like that about him it reminds me of how I felt when I found out he was gone and that makes me feel not happy so please stop that."

Towards the end of his little rant, the childish soldier's tone became a bit frantic, almost upset. Without even thinking, his own excellent instincts guiding him automatically, his grip tightened on the guardian spear. "So maybe you can apologize and get down from there so we can eat sandwiches together and be happy, OK?"

Books were amazing.

There were so many different stories, so many new things to find, so many interesting people to meet. Even if I couldn't read words, I could read the new image books the librarian gave me once I got used to them. And I read a lot of them.

There was one about a man with a sword that fought a very big lizard to save a lady in pretty clothes. There was one about a girl that made a little girl that looked like her out of metal, and the little girl then rode a little metal dog around and went to all sorts of places. Then there was one about a girl that could make fire appear from her fingers, and she used it to help people who were out in the cold. And there was one where a girl was made of something that hurt other people when she touched them... that one didn't have a happy ending.

But my favorite one was the one with the fluffy tail family. It told the stories of two girls with big animal ears and lots of fluffy tails, their mom, and another girl that looked a lot like one of the two girls, but smaller. There were a lot of little stories, and all of them were very nice to read. But there was one that really caught my eye. In that story,◊ mom fluffy tails got sick, so the two girls had to go outside and ask another girl for boxes, and then they came back and tried to give them to the mother, but the mother didn't get better. That made them cry,◊ but then the boxes started shining, and two new girls appeared. They took care of the mother until she was healthy again, and everyone was happy.

It made me happy to see the mother healthy again, but it also made me have questions. What were those boxes? Did all of them have people in them? Would those boxes have made mother keep loving me? Would they have made someone who would love me? Would they have cured me? Would they have been my friends? Come to think of it...

That was when Rean came to say hi and asked if I was feeling better. I was, so I nodded. I had food, I had water, I was healthy, so I was fine. I still had questions, though, but maybe he could help me out with those, because he was older and he knew a lot more than I did, I was sure. So I asked the first question that popped into my head. The one I hadn't had the chance to ponder yet.

"Do you think the library lady came from a box?"

I didn't actually want to ask that and when I noticed what I said I wanted to hide under a pile of books real bad.

Makoto seemed more focused on everyone else's safety than her own well-being. Even now she expected Rex to stop Anat on her tracks if she caused problems, no matter the cost.

"I... look, I can't really promise that" Rex admitted. "But I'm not going to lose if you are worried about that. It wouldn't look good on me"

That was the usual response coming from him but Rex truly felt confident in his abilities to handle this. If push came to shove, he could always distract Anat long enough to tire her out. Who he couldn't tire out apparently was Lewis. He came out of the library, wondering if they would go back inside because the copy would just cause more problems if they did. Naturally, Makoto had no intentions of hearing more of what her copy had to say.

"Read the room. Besides, we shouldn't even be in the library. That's the place every copy is going to go after"

"You brought that thing in the first place and then fucked off without regard for the emergency you about started but sure, I'm the one with no situational awareness." I rolled my eyes. "I'm not asking you to come in, I want you outside. I wanted to bring the copy out to ensure that when shit hit the fan the fan would be firmly outside. That analogy was less goofy in my head. Anat needs to blow off steam anyway, as far as we've figured that's all that'll get that stuff out." Something floated out a bit to my side; upon looking, it was evidently Cascabel floating the radio to Makoto's side. "She needs to do her business, and already had eyes on that thing, and no offense but I wouldn't want to chance her zooming back inside just to murder it and then having to have that fight in there. Besides, it's not like it can talk sass now while out like a light."

I leaned against the wall, giving Makoto a glance. "There don't seem to be particularly good places to do this, so. I'm ready when you are, I guess."

Library outside to inside

"...Damn," Garrett gasped as he saw the colossal machine towering over them. "Get in, you idiot!" he said, pulling Caboose by the arm, before he ducked back into the library.

"Okay then...bye I guess." Hercules managed to say as soon as Garrett and Caboose cleared out of the library, Herc was in no hurry to go outside and follow them so he wandered over to where Rean was and saw that he was interacting with Ellen, the girl from yesterday and thought he might as well introduce himself to her. "Hello Ellen, nice to meet you, my name is Hercules. I didn't get a chance to talk to you yesterday. How are we today?" He asked he could see that Ellen was reading a lot of picture books around her, not that it would matter anyway since Hercules would not know what a book was.

Upgrade wasted no time and upgraded the gun, growing it in size and making it have more firepower. At once, Upgrade pointed the gun at the blue Caboose on the giant robot.

"There! That one's the fake!" Upgrade said. "Caboose did some stupid challenge that involved him switching teams or something. And last I checked his talking gun didn't turn into a 20 foot tall mech. On your signal we blow that one to Kingdom Come!" Upgrade insisted, readying his own weapons.

Between Caboose's heavy armor and strength, and the fact that he evidently didn't want to move yet, trying to pull him was a pretty fruitless endeavor for Garrett. The fake Caboose meanwhile did seem to perk up somewhat at the real Caboose's suggestion.

"Oh! I like sandwiches!... But I still don't like Church. He is... He is..." the fake Caboose strained with the enormous effort of trying to think of a suitable insult. "A... Stinky poo poo head!" the duplicate finally added in emphasis.

Probably because it knew this would start the fight in earnest, the fake Freckles decided to stop waiting. "Engaging" the fake Freckles declared, suddenly jerking back to buck the fake Caboose off the top, then stepping forward and opening fire on the real Caboose with its minigun.

Meanwhile up on the Thunder Child, Greg glanced over at Upgrade. "You know that guy?! Okay, everyone target on the robot!" Greg called out, then as the fake Freckles started to engage, added, "fire now!"

Along the deck edge, a few militia members started firing with their small arms, while the other cannon fired its meteor-like projectile at the fake Freckles. After some of the small arms fire hit first, the fake Freckles paused its march and activated an over-shield, taking the cannon shot and staggering sideways, but seemingly mostly undamaged.

The fake Caboose was quick to stand back up after falling. "I'm okay! I just landed on my head!" the fake Caboose said in a reassuring tone. Then he glanced up at the Thunder Child. "Hey! You can't shoot at my Freckles! That's not very nice!" the duplicate told them, though his tone was one of only mild annoyance. He raised his assault rifle and started shooting; Greg and the other militia members using small arms ducked down for cover, with one of them yelling out as they took a shot to the shoulder.

The weapons fire, particularly the cannon, would be audible on the other side of the library, where Makoto, Rex, and Lewis were. Thomas and Louie, busy tying up the Terran Republic soldier and the race car driver, likewise looked over. "More trouble!" Louie said, taking off running towards the sound of battle, despite Thomas' protests about finishing up with the copies there.

The Miss Tairee copy near the currently designated children's' reading table just raised both eyebrows in mild disbelief upon overhearing Ellen's question. Seirwuosuhr and Tommy both waved at Rean and Hercules, then jumped in fear as the cannon blast went off outside.

"It's alright children. The library cannot be damaged" the Miss Tairee copy assured them, looking over as some stray minigun rounds from the fake Freckles hit the glass wall and revolving door, and did no damage whatsoever.

Outside Library—-Away from battle

"...Can we not talk about me like I can't hear you?" Makoto asked, frowning at Lewis and Rex. The radio signal helped a little in controlling the urge to do something drastic, but how was she supposed to just let Anat rampage on command? It went against every instinct in her body to let her Shadow take over, but there didn't seem to be much of a choice if she wanted to gain control again. Gun and cannon-fire echoed from behind them, signalling the start of another fight. This one sounded more dangerous than the last one, and Makoto shifted uncomfortably on the ground. She was wasting time.

"Look, just...fight Anat until I can reason with her again, please." Rex needed to give it his all. "I'm not asking you to kill me, but you can't just stall either or she's going to kill you instead. Lewis knows what I'm weak to so it shouldn't be too dangerous." Anat was pissed for her revealing that, but it was necessary in case her clone had a Persona too. Fortunately she hadn't, but now the bombs she'd asked for had another purpose. Makoto took a deep breath and tore off her mask. It hurt more than usual, and as she bit back a yell of pain, her eyes turned yellow. It felt like she was back in Kaneshiro's palace, struggling to make sense of the being wrestling to gain control of her body. Except this time, Anat had no interest in Makoto accepting herself.

"Finally!" Anat was strong enough to almost shove her into the back of her own head. It was like trying to fight anesthesia gas, and she eventually slumped over against the wall. A few seconds later, her body was engulfed in red and black energy, and Anat was there in motorcycle form. The corrupted Persona looked duller in color than normal, and glowed a faint red instead of blue. Makoto was nowhere to be seen. Anat's wheels spun as the engine revved, and it tried to charge past Lewis and Rex to get to the two clones Thomas had been looking over.

"Change of plan, Morty- we're getting the hell outta Dodge and onto-"

There was the brief sound of a portal opening and closing from somewhere just above the deck of the ship, followed by two familiar figures dropping ungracefully onto the floor of the ship... followed by Rick staggering to his feet and taking a quick look around at the deteriorating situation.

"Shit, no! Morty I know this never ever happens but I think I made a mistake here!"

Outside Library

Caboose's visor hid all hints of how he felt, but his face twisted into a nasty scowl as his fake spewed the most vile of insults about best friend Church. "You take that back, meanie face!" he screamed back, not even noticing Garret trying to move him.

But what he did notice was the giant robot getting ready to attack. Having repaired it from scratch himself, his brain possessed all sorts of knowledge on it. That was trouble. Thankfully, the sim trooper wasn't smart enough to think about it. Caboose simply acted, shoving Garrret to the side and out of the way while running in the opposite direction of where he pushed the thief.

In the few moments before the fake Freckles opened fire, its target had already began to run at speeds that should not have been possible for a man in his armor. All the obstacle course training Washington had made him do really did pay off.

He definitely didn't expect an overshield to pop up and protect the fake machine, but the impacts it did take were definitely enough to disrupt its sustained fire. It would surely start up after a short moment, though. He didn't have much time for a breather.

Now his brain just needed to sort together how to defeat a mantis class military assault drone... Donut had killed Cyclops. Teleported it onto a minefield. But he didn't have a minefield or the future cubes, and no one with Donut's throwing arm was here either. And bombs might not work so well with that overshield.

But that was a hint, wasn't it? Legs were important, right? A mantis without legs could barely do anything, and if the head was on the ground then it couldn't turn to target anything. Caboose had built one of these before. He could also break it. But... was that as important as breaking the fake him?

Well, he did have a good weapon that might have more luck breaking through the shields than the other weapons here. Better to focus on what he was good at!

All these thoughts were not consciously processed by him. It was all simply automatic instincts working behind the scenes, telling his impulsive id exactly what course of action to take.

As he ran in a circular pattern around Freckles, the soldier lifted up his guardian spear in both hands and began to aim at the legs of the mantis. His ideal goal were the joints, which were ever so slightly weaker, but he'd take any damage. As soon as he got a bead on the limbs, he'd open fire.

Edited by pillowmantis on Oct 16th 2019 at 10:15:23 AM

There wasn't time to waste today, something that became clear once more gunshots could be heard right near the library. Apparently the library was even more under threat of attacks than Rex had initially thought.

Seeing that, Makoto decided to cut to the chase and summon Anat to get this over with. Once Rex defeated her things would go back to normal and they could focus on running away or fighting. Of course it wasn't as straightforward as simply punching her really hard—as straightforward as that could be considered. No, once the transformation was done, Anat was the only one remaining.

"I hope your conversation covered this bit too"

And she wasn't particularly interested in joining the fight at the other side of the library. Rex quickly jumped in front of her with both his smack hands ready to stop her.

"Wait! We should talk about this"

"Sorry, I just wasn't sure how to, uh..." I scratched my head. Of course, something had to go down right then, because breathers were illegal around here. Figuring there was no point putting it off, Makoto let the shadow go loose. "Had to do it sometime."

I drew one of the psych bombs from before with one hand, adjusting the shield in the other. "I know enough. These guys don't tend to be much conversation once they're in this mood, unfortunately. They'll talk at you plenty, though..." Was she going to where we were before with the guys on the car? Why there and not the explosion noises? "Ya think maybe we should give someone the heads up that she's real, just infected by something?" I asked, chucking the psionic explosive at the front wheel.

Edited by Oceanstuck on Oct 18th 2019 at 8:05:44 AM

Upgrade fired his own cannon, which shot a larger, denser orb of fire in the Freckles mech's direction. Shortly after leaving the cannon, the fireball exploded, sending smaller shots in a cone concentrated in the Freckles mech's general direction.

He fired this off a few times, trying to shred the mech with concentrated firepower.

The fake Freckles rotated to keep up with Caboose, the over shield dropping as it fired off a rocket just ahead of him, leading his current path. Caboose's shots with the guardian spear were causing some damage, but it did seem like the bolter rounds had some trouble dealing with an armored target. Still, one leg was clearly starting to malfunction, having issues moving properly.

It was kind of a moot point in the end though, as Upgrade's first shot knocked the fake Freckles down to the ground with the force of the impact and explosions, and the follow up shots practically obliterated the robot entirely.

The fake Caboose paused, glancing over. "What!? Guys! That was Freckles! You can't just kill Freckles, that's, that's!" the fake Caboose paused, shaking in anger. Then suddenly, his shaking stopped, and he stood up straight. "... My name is Michael J. Caboose. And I. Hate. Sunday School!" the duplicate then said, in a much deeper tone than before, then bull rushed at his real counterpart.

"Because it's related to church!" the fake Caboose explained in the same tone, throwing a wide swing at the real Caboose that was aimed to hit Caboose in the chest, then grab him, lift him up, and slam him back down into the ground.

Meanwhile up on the Thunder Child, militia members covered their ears as Upgrade fired, and one ducking for cover noticed the new arrivals on the scene. "Huh?! Hold it! Who are you?!" the asari yelled, aiming her rifle at Rick and Morty.

Louie glanced over in confusion as he heard the motorcycle, but didn't respond just yet, because he didn't seem sure what to think. Thomas likewise looked over, just as confused, but raised his wand. "Stop!" Thomas commanded, his eyebrows lowering.

[[Purple: "Uh...What?"]] Rean said in response to Ellen's question. He looked over at the nearby Tairee clone, And kind of tilted his head. It's not like he knew where she came from and the Writer possibly made her for the purpose of watching over his 'project', but she also could've just been like them and brought into this and given power to serve that purpose.

Either way...

"...I don't think so, no." Rean said, peering over Ellen's shoulder at the comic she was reading about a family of fox people. "People don't normally come out of boxes."

Then gunfire sounded, and Rean looked towards the window where Caboose and the others were fighting Another Caboose and some large machine. It looked like they had it handled, though? He glanced over to where he left his sword and bag. Did they need his help right now?

Outside Library—-Away from Ship

Anat skidded to a stop in front of Rex, and then revved her engine at him before inching forward. An unvoiced threat that she'd keep going if he didn't move. The Psycho Bomb detonated, and Anat was forced to the side, landing on its side and crackling with strange purple energy. The motorcycle shifted to its humanoid form and stared at Thomas in response to his command, about to stand up as soon as the Psycho Bomb wore off.

"You're in my way too?" she asked in a deceptively calm tone.

Outside Library

It seemed like heavy explosives still worked on Freckles, even if he had tanked the first hit. That was good, even if it meant that Caboose had basically wasted his attacks. More pressingly, though, the mantis droid had landed a missile dangerously close to the running sim trooper.

Though not a direct hit, and not close to enough to kill a man as hardy as he, the blast did launch him a few feet. As he unsteadily got up, he saw and heard his other self yelling about how much he hated the Church. "Hey! That's horsey!" he yelled out, failing to recall that it was actually heresy.

Before he could right himself properly, though, his clone landed its hit. The guardian spear clattered to the ground as Caboose was lifted into the air. Though he tried to escape the grip, the sim trooper just wasn't angry enough to access the reservoir of strength needed to match his clone. Upon being slammed into the ground, he felt a lot of pain. There was no lethal damage, or even crippling injuries, but he was not happy.

And he didn't want to be happy for what came next.

"Well... I AM THE REAL MICHAEL J. CABOOSE AND I HATE YOU! AND HORSES!" the moron screamed back, clearly incensed. One arm went to grab the one his clone was holding onto him with. It would try to squeeze and push back the limb with all its might. Meanwhile, his other arm went down to his side.

"AND I KNOW I AM THE REAL ME, FAKER, BECAUSE I KEEP MY FRIENDS CLOSE TO ME!" he added, letting his free arm grab his own Freckles from his side and bring it up right towards the clone's body. His hand would pull the trigger without hesitation.

"Woah woah woah woah!" Rick held up his hands in the universal gesture of surrender, or, at the very least, the universal gesture of "please don't shoot me before I get a chance to explain."

He paused for a sec as he and his grandson shared a glance. "Hang on, you don't know us? You know, the guy who's been here basically longer than-whatever. Look, the library's getting overrun, we're probably gonna die horribly, so... might as well stick with you guys and kill as many people as we can, right?" Morty stuck his hands in his tattered pockets and shrugged.

"You, uh, d-do you have a shower on this ship or something before... before I, uh, w-we get into the killing part?" He smiled an awkwardly hopeful smile.

Library -> Outside

From beyond the safe library walls, Garrett watched as the colossal machine was toppled surprisingly quickly, leaving the Caboose clone without a weapon.

While the Caboose copy moved into melee, the thief hesitated. However, he prepared his bow, ready to come out and intervene if it seemed that the real Caboose was losing.

"Well I don't know what you think you're doing" Thomas answered calmly. "I'm taking these two men prisoner for the militia; and last I checked we didn't have a self driving motorcycle that transforms into, whatever you are, as part of it. Charging straight towards us is suspicious, and I would be led to think you are another enemy of the day, coming to free your would-be friends" the young wizard explained at length, keeping the wand pointed at Anat.

"So either explain yourself, or stand down" Thomas concluded simply.

The fake Caboose's arm shook a bit as he struggled with his real counterpart, but his arm stayed in place; an advantage of the city not dampening his strength. "I hate horses too! But that's not important!" the fake Caboose said sternly, lifting up a leg and stomping it down into Caboose's chest, hard enough to indent the asphalt with Caboose's armor. He didn't see Caboose raising up the real Freckles though, and jerked back, finally letting go as the shots hit against his chest armor.

"You still have a Freckles?! That's not fair!" the fake Caboose complained in the same tone, then used one foot to kick the guardian spear up off the ground. He grabbed it out of the air, and started swinging wildly at the real Caboose, with crazy strength typical of the soldier- he was using the wrong end of the spear, however.

Meanwhile up on the Thunder Child the other militia members on the cannons were holding fire, since they didn't want to hurt Caboose; a couple others were trying to take careful potshots with laser muskets, but they weren't doing much.

The asari looked at Rick and Morty with simply a flabbergasted disbelief. "What? We're not here just to kill those hostiles; we're here to protect the civilians! And you know that talking about wanting to kill people makes you sound like the evil copies of whoever you are, right?" the asari told Rick and Morty, shaking her head slightly in disbelief. "And no, we don't have a shower" she added as an afterthought.

"So wait, who are these guys?" Greg asked, turning from the edge of the ship and likewise aiming his rifle at Rick and Morty, though Greg seemed more confused than suspicious.

"Either they're evil copies, or they're idiots, I think" the asari answered him.