CoLC crossover RP, main thread

Mary - Privacy

Mary pondered Cole's words for a few moments. On one hand, he had apologized, which was good. But on the other, he still kept saying that Old Feather Beak was bad and not her friend, which was very bad. Eventually, she turned away from Cole, to face Old Feather Beak.

"Can you leave us alone for a bit?" the fabricated girl asked her blue friend. "Just the two of us? It'll be real quick, I promise."

The store was already more than half looted. What remained was in the process of being looted by a group of burly humanoid figures with pig faces. They didn't have the mark of Ruckus or the anti-human group, though they were all armed, and looked towards Plague Knight with raised eyebrows as he entered. There was a momentary pause.

Then the racking of multiple gun slides as they all drew and aimed their weapons at the knight. "Who are you?" the lead pig orc asked.

"I don't know if your friend is the only person in trouble" Rachel said, glancing around and listening to the ongoing maelstrom of noise coming from around the city. "But we'll try to find him. Come on, there's plenty of stalls about today; we'll grab you something to eat on the move" she told Ben, then glanced at Ranma holding the unconscious Hol Horse.

"Can you get him somewhere safe, or do you need a hand?" Rachel asked her.

"I see" the quarian muttered, leading the Annas and Rex out of the mall.

"It is almost time, for us to return home" the quarian said to them once they were out. "Come. We have to find a way down to the lower layer" he added, and set off to find an elevator.

It was Kelsey who spoke up first, starting to step forward towards the painting girl and spirit. "You can do it Mary, there's nothing to be-"

"No" Old Feather Beak commanded, holding an arm in front of Kelsey to stop her. "... We will honor our friend's request. Because that's what friends do" the daemon said, staring intently at Mary as he said it. He waved his other hand at all the Ruckus members in the room, and they all went into the stairway; Kelsey looked rather upset at this turn of events.

Old Feather Beak followed them last, pausing to glance back at Mary just before the door. "We'll be waiting in the stairway" Old Feather Beak told her, then walked through the door and closed it behind him. True to his word, Cole could sense that the daemon did not go far, walking only a bit up the stairs and waiting there.

That explosion must've pumped some adrenaline into his veins, because after he recovered from the extra cage-rattling of the impact, Hol Horse started to recover. His head was still throbbing, and the explosive force only served to make his ears ring harder, but he didn't feel nearly as groggy as before. He unhooked himself from Ranma's grasp, and got to his feet. A little shaky still, but overall stable enough to walk himself. "Nah, I can take care of myself," he said to this woman. He could barely hear himself speak, but hopefully that would pass.

He looked down at Ranma, and said a little sheepishly, "You don't owe me one anymore, got it?"

edited 25th Apr '16 1:28:28 AM by wikkit

Aigis, not needing food due to being a robot, elected to pass on the food break, and Sans would hear her heavy robotic footsteps behind him as he left.

"I would like to request more information. Who is it we are trying to find? And what sort of store are we looking for at the moment?"

"i actually don't know the girl all that well, you should ask the others about her. all i know is that she's a little kid," Sans explained to Aigis as he looked around, "and i'm looking for an electronic store"

As it so happens, it didn't take too long for Sans to find one such store, or five.

"well, that was easy. let's see..."

He then began looking into the closest one.

"Roger." Giving a tiny smile back to Hol Horse while being somewhat cheered up by the man's words, Ranma swiveled her head to regard Rachel and the explosions in the background before nodding. "That's true, there's way too much trouble today." Thinking seriously about the manner at hand and using her own real life experience of hostage situations (which surprisingly occurred every other week), the redhead decided it was high time to try to puzzle things out. Unfortunately, what she had were pieces and well, she kinda sucked at looking at the big picture most of the time and as a result tended to be led around by more crafty manipulators.

Still, where she lacked in talent, she would make up for sheer stubborn grit. "We were lurking around earlier and saw that the guys were being really careful to not actually hurt people, just objects and properties. It's kinda strange that they'd take their time to be so careful about doing all this when there's a huge douchebag party going on." Extrapolating her experiences with the very unfortunate Ruckus members with the newcomer Rachel in hopes of getting a new perspective on the problem, Ranma then perked up a bit more when the mention of street food came into the subject. "And yeah, I'll try to stop trouble wherever I go at least. A martial artist's duty is to help those that can't help themselves."

Plague Knight could feel the intense disappointment that his seemingly fabled Valhalla has already been mostly desecrated, from the cursory glance there was still some usable materials around here. Just need to convince the burly looking pigmen to let him in on the action.

"Now now gentlemen, no need for hostilities," Plague Knight said to the pig men. "I am but a humble alchemist with a passion for the explosive and the combustible. Is there anything left in this store for me to acquire? I promise I will not take anything you have already taken?"

edited 26th Apr '16 7:05:19 AM by UdtheImp

Cole watched as the Ruckus members left, staring until the door was shut, before trying again to wriggle his hands loose of the cuffs holding them. "Mary...I know they seem nice. I know how demons can be...help me leave, and I will find the others and bring them here...I won't make you leave, but I want all your friends to know what is happening...please. I...I want to help. That's all I want...you are within every right to hate me, you wouldn't be the only one, but I just want you to be safe, to be happy, and this isn't going to do that, I promise you, I swear to you!"

Ben smiled and nodded at Rachel's suggestion to go get food. "Sounds like a plan." He looked around, still hearing the chaos ensuing throughout the city. "There are so many people in trouble though... I need to save Cole but at the same time, I need to rescue the people who are in danger! And with this stupid watch cooling off, I can't do that!" He sighed angrily, petting Nightwitch as he held her. "And one of my other friends lost this cat, and I need to return it to her..."

Once again, the Tick was baffled by the reaction from the two anarchists. He scratched his head, and was about to ask Arthur if he was literally talking to a brick wall right now, when all of a sudden, there came a tremendous explosion from up above. "My word. That must've been one heck of a neon sign!"

"No, Tick," said Arthur patiently, "I don't think that was a neon sign. Whatever it was, it came from all the way up-"

"GREAT GALLOPING GALLEONS!" The Tick had just now looked up far enough to see what was supporting the middle layer. "Titanic tomes have descended upon the skyline! The day of reckoning is upon us! The books of the world have risen up and declared a new order of literature! Well, there'll be a chilly breeze in hades before I hand my dominant species card over to some stacks of paper and ink! HEAR ME, THESAURUS REX! THE TICK SHALL NOT BE BOUND!"

Before anyone could stop him, the Tick was halfway in the air, bounding left and right between the skyscrapers, until he could get close enough to the enormous book to punch himself a handhold, and start wailing on the hardback with all his might.

"No, Tick, hold on a..." Arthur's protest caught in his throat and petered out into a groan. He looked back at the two men, and suddenly a light went on in his head. "Wait a second, I know you!" He dropped down to street level. "What happened to the little girl you were talking to? You didn't do anything to her, did you? You didn't shoot her, or indoctrinate her or something?"

Lune watched Rex walk off with the trio of vandals. Well, it’s more like a duo if you count the Anne twins as one person. After all, the Anne twins seemingly shared the same mind. From what she heard from the conversation between the gas mask alien and Rex, the gas mask alien’s people was exiled off their planet by a group of sentient robots. Jeez, that’s pretty rough!

Rex tried to comfort the alien by saying that he can manipulate machinery. If Rex could do that, he’d fit in as a pilot in the Steel Dragon army. Eventually, he’d have to deal with Kusuha’s “special” drink. Whenever Kusuha asked everyone if they’d like to try one, they have to make up a quick excuse or suffer the consequences.

Seeing as Rex has the three vandals handled for now, Lune went off and explored the rest of the mall. Eventually, she ran into Sans and Aigis talking about something important. She politely waved at them.

edited 25th Apr '16 5:03:56 PM by josh6243

Aigis nodded as Sans told her to ask other people about the girl. "I understand."

She then halted outside of the store, one of many like it in this area. "Ah. That was quick. So, why do we need to enter this store? Is this girl a fan of stores that sell electronic components?"

edited 25th Apr '16 4:10:30 PM by Meanken

"nah. i'm just looking for...

Sans then comes across a cellphone area in the store and walks towards them. He grabs one of them, then takes out his own and seems to switch from using one to the other before looking back at Aigis

"these." He then hands her the cellphone "here, i already added the number of this one on my own cellphone and vice-versa. with these if you decide to run off on your own we can still keep in touch in case either of us find anything."

edited 25th Apr '16 4:31:55 PM by FullMoon

Aigis nodded in understanding as she took the phone, taking a moment to glance at the number herself.

737-7662

She then quietly opened a storage component on her back that she put the phone inside of.

"Now then, I myself would like to take a moment to search for a store, A weapons store, to be precise, preferably one specializing in ballistic weaponry. If we encounter any significant resistance during the search, I want to make sure we are prepared. That encounter demonstrated many people in this city are armed, and so we must be armed as well if we wish to "Even the odds". I already have many guns built in, but more backup guns are helpful in opening options, and our other friends can also take some as well." With this said, Aigis turned to begin her search, waving for Sans to follow but not forcing him if he did not want to.

edited 25th Apr '16 4:45:36 PM by Meanken

Mary (Crime Scene Apartment Building) - Permission to Leave

Mary watched Old Feather Beak, Kelsey and the other Ruckus members leave without saying a word. Even after they left, she simply kept staring at the door in silence while Cole spoke. She did listen to him, yes, but she did not reply, for her mind was clouded with questions. She did not really specify

(Can I trust him? Was he serious? Is he my friend? And what about him?)

However, the more she thought about it, the more a single particular word started ringing in her head, before a realization hit her and she turned her whole body towards Cole.

(Leave... leave... he has to leave...)

She approached the spirit again, knife in hand, still looking angry, but also unusually calm. She stared at him for a few moments, and only after nodding a couple of times did she spoke.

"Fine. I'll help you leave."

And with that said, she lunged towards him and her knife quickly descended to meet Cole's shoulder.

The two didn't notice her at first glance. Guess whatever they were talking about must be real important. Maybe Lune would need to get a little closer for them to notice her? Apparently, they were talking about using cellphones for easy two-way communication. From what she heard, Aigis's number was 737-7662?

Then Aigis talked about arming herself with better weapons in case the weapons she had weren't strong enough. Maybe that sounds like a good idea... As Lune followed Aigis and Sans, Lune smiled and asked, "Hey, what are you two up to?"

"wait up, i'm just gonna get some more for the others"

Sans then went back to the cellphones and got one for each of the girls plus Rex if he showed up again. Once that was done he went back to Aigis carrying another bag full of cellphones and came across Lune as well.

"hey lune, you're not gonna get anything for you to eat? i couldn't get you your stuff so you must have been gone all this time without eating anything," said Sans, then handing Lune a cellphone "by the way, this is for you"

As soon as Sans mentioned that Lune didn’t get a bite to eat just yet, Lune noticed her stomach rumbling. Guess she forgot about getting a bite to eat when she went on a search to find Mary and Sans with the others. How silly of her…

Sans gave Lune a nice cellphone. Although it was primitive in her time, given the invention of videophones, she saw it as a nice gift from a friend. Maybe she’ll learn a bit of history while using this phone.

“Thanks, Sans…”

Lune grinned and quickly peeked at her phone to learn her new phone number. When finished, she began reading it to Sans. “My number is 555-5863. Got that?”

edited 25th Apr '16 5:53:06 PM by josh6243

Cole actually managed to catch sense of Mary's intent a fraction of a second before it came, but it wasn't nearly enough time to do much more than flinch, and he cried out when the stab hit, falling back to try and escape it a second too late. "Mary! Don't do this! Please! Just let me help you, let me get someone for you, don't do this!"

Top Layer - Shopping Center - Looking for Noms

Zelda nodded as Sans headed off. "All right then. Be careful."

Aigis marched off after Sans without so much as acknowleding Zelda's presence. Given that Zelda had said nothing to her, she wasn't surprised. Hopefully there'd be time to chat once the group got back together.

At that, she turned and returned to Caro and Sadness. "It looks like you're on bodyguard duty for now, Caro," she said, before glancing towards the rest of the building, "Anyway, while Sans and Aigis are so occupied, we might as well look for a food store around here. Unfortunately, I don't think any would be staffed considering what's going on, so...." She sighed. "...We're probably going to have to steal something. It's strange coming across a situation where that's the best option, but that's just how things are going right now."

The armored guy continued leading them outside the shopping mall. Rex felt uncomfortable because he couldn't keep his cover for much longer. A bunch of their members were going to recognize him but he could still try to get some valuable information from them.

"Hey, have you seen a blonde girl running around here? She's about this tall and wears a multicolor dress"

edited 25th Apr '16 6:26:36 PM by DeisTheAlcano

"1901-1419, got it?" asked Sans as he added Lune's number to his phone, once he was done he looked up at her again "now go eat something kid, if you end up starving to death after literally being surrounded by restaurants i'm never gonna let you live that one down." He gave her a teasing wink. "actually, why don't you go there and deliver these to the others for me?"

He then handed Lune the bag of cellphones, might as well take the opportunity to take some weight away, he kinda wondered if the bag from earlier was still in the same place or if it was taken, the kid certainly didn't say anything about it and after throwing a fit earlier he probably wouldn't be very receptive of another call.

"i'll go help Aigis here look for some stuff, we'll join you girls in a bit, 'k?"

Top Layer - Mall - Food Court

Sadness said that she could project her powers and tried to demonstrate it, but it seemed to come out weaker than intended. She was not sure of the effect this would have on people and was uncomfortable about deliberately making people sad in such manner, but somewhat conceded to it if meant to protect people. " Like I said before, you don't have to do it if you don't feel comfortable don't it. But if you would, I guess could see if I can help use it from a distance. I don't know if it can be shaped like we shape mana, but it would a try."

Zelda said that it would no loss if they couldn't figure out a way to combine Sadness' power and hers, but it would have been nice as a form of a distracting people and not have kill them. " Well, it might still work somehow, but even it doesn't, we don't necessarily need to kill our enemies even without that. I mean, the TSAB works if stopping criminals, arresting them and putting them on trial. Our magic is not meant to cause that much harm to other people, just damage their Barriers Jackets and knock them out. I don't know how it will against something that is neither a machine or someone with protection against magic, but it shouldn't do much harm. So far I haven't seen any place to arrest someone in, but that doesn't I won't try to stop them non-lethally."

A robotic looking came up to them and asked what was going on. Sans basically said that they were looking for Mary, but he didn't know much about her, so she should ask the others about her. However after he mention that he need to get something from a store, she decided to accompany him. Sans also said that he would Caro's questions after he found what he was looking for, to which she nodded and replied, " Alright then. We going to eat something and when you come back, we will discuss it."

Zelda then said that it was up to Caro to protect them. She said that they should really go grab something to eat, but wondered about it being stealing even in a chaotic situation like this. " I wonder if it actually would stealing though, even without a situation like this. Remember when we were discussing how much we missed our homes and Sans said that he preferred this city over his? He said something about things being free here. Which makes sense. The storyteller god grab from all sorts of universes, right? So there is not a common form of money between us. Some of us may have not even had money when got here. There doesn't seem to be any way to earn money here that we know of. That brochure Miss Tairee gives out probably would have mentioned money if there was any. So is it stealing if no one has to pay for it anyway?"

"Vacation among the off-world colonies! Sign up today!"

"What?" Morty stared back at the billboard hesitantly... before a blast of steam from the sewers sent him twisting back around, trying to regain his balance. "Rick, w-what is that billboard sayin', huh? What colonies?"

"Don't think about it Morty, i-i-i-it's just.. .*urp* dimensional residue. *urp* leaking in." Rick fumbled for a shot as he tinkered with something; Morty shrugged and adjusted the heavy backpack on his shoulders. Shoulders hunched, the elderly inventor slapped a few more parts together as he made a beeline for the nearest elevator.

"Synthetic algae flavoring! Goes great with ramen noodles! Brought to you by Soylent Green."

"What about that one, huh?" Morty pointed to the ad... although by that time it had already flickered off-screen, replaced with another ad for the latest, top-of-the-line synthoids.

"I dunno, Morty ,they're just here for *urp* atmosphere or something. Now shut up and gimme a shout if reality starts to melt or something."

"Reality... melting? Jeez, Rick, I dunno if I like the sound of that." Morty flinched and looked around nervously as though it might start at any minute.

"Yep. Did I say that already? Coulda *urp* sworn I said something to that effect already." Rick cocked his gun and stepped into a nearby elevator. The greasy doors screeched open, revealing a rather worse-for-wear interior, already stained by dirt, grime, and all the trappings of cyberpunk. "I mean, the thing about reality melting, Morty, is that *urp* usually it kinda creeps up on ya, so, uh, you gotta be real *urp* vigilant. Don't start thinking about Miss Tairee or nothin'."

"What? I'm not-" Morty rubbed his arm self-consciously and stared at the floor for a few seconds. "Hey, Rick," he said, eagerly changing the subject, "h-how come everything's all... layered, huh?"

"It's parta the *urp* cyberpunk... uh... the cyberpunk... aesthetic, Morty. You got the assholes on the top pissing down on the middle, and then you have the *urp* guys in the middle pissing down on us, Morty, pissing right down on us."

"Oh."

The elevator doors swung open; Rick cocked his laser rifle and kept it trained for anyone- or anything that tried to jump him.

A Certain Flower-Filled Castle In The Sky

Queen Cassiopeia of Nazcaa smiled gaily, and her face seemed to glow as radiantly as the sun streaming in through the nearby sky-view window as she did, for the queen was well pleased.

The once-desolate, sterile white of her castle hallways that had not so long ago been devoid of all live save hostile, ravenous monsters were at last utterly transformed. Flowers, nigh-countless flowers of every size, shape, and color sat evenly spaced along each and every wall, even brightening up the stately feet of the inactive guard robots that to foreign eyes surely looked in all their sleek curvature to be merely futuristic suits of empty armor rather than the system of magitech sentinels that they were. The blossoming flora complimented their rounded black and white aesthetics nicely, and - fate willing - the automata would not be moving from their positions any time soon, or ever again.

"la-la-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-laaa-la-laaa..." Having long since forgotten the actual words, the verdant-haired, green-thumbed woman sang a quiet old nonsense ditty to herself as she knelt and packed the soil of the final pot into place, then wiped a bit of seat from her brow. "Whew!"

It was just as she had raised her head to congratulate the fine people of the neighboring kingdoms who had so kindly volunteered their time in the exhaustive arrangement process that everything began to go wrong again.

As if Father Time Himself had put his hands on the clock to halt it even as her own brain kept ticking, the Nazcaan monarch found herself staring with growing horror at the equally frozen face of the fuzzy yellow cat-woman down the way, and though she could hardly turn her head to take a look, she was certain that the state of those on her other side was no different. Worse still than being unable to speak or even move, however, the seconds after the world faded from her view into inky blackness stretched on for a subjective eternity in Cassiopeia's mind, and in that span, millions of thoughts began to race through her head. Was this what death was like? After a few short weeks of being mortal once more, had so many years of living finally caught up with her due to some universal law or another? What a lightless and desolate place the afterlife was, then. Or was this some form of ironic hell wrought by the always distant Gods or Nature Herself as punishment for her crimes, taunting her with a glimpse at happy normalcy before snatching that peace away and plunging her into eternal isolation once more, this time with the addition of complete paralysis and unending darkness? Or was it—

Bottom Layer, Balconies

Abruptly, the queen became cognizant of the fact that she had wrapped her arms around herself and was shivering, and therefore could not possibly be frozen for all time in any sort of nebulously-defined underworld or otherwise infinite void. Realizing how utterly ridiculous she probably appeared to any onlookers at that moment, she snapped her hands down to her sides and quickly stood, letting out a shaky little laugh. "H-H-Haha! How silly... of... me."

Her voice failed her yet again as her eyes finished adjusting to their new location, and she boggled up at the bizarre sight before her. At no point in history had she ever encountered a literally tiered city before, and in spite of the poorly-lit nature of the closest layers, that was what the thing that stretched before her appeared to be. Granted, her geography and exact ideas about specific kingdoms were probably completely and utterly out of date, but surely someone would have mentioned something like this if it had existed.

Naturally, the very next thing her thoughts bent to was that she must be in another world of some kind. To 'trauell betweene Worlds seeking Maysterie over the Noble Art of Magicke' was, of course, entirely expected of most Wizards, and although she had always been rather too busy being a queen and then sealing herself away for years on end to do much wandering of her own, Cassiopeia had always wanted to visit another world at some point. Had she somehow been summoned hence by a casting of Gateway? She had never bothered to think through the possibility or theoretical implications of reverse-engineering the trans-universal portal spell before, but it might be possible to drag someone across the multiversal firmament without their prior knowledge. Maybe. But no, that had been nothing like the experience of passing through a Gateway, and besides, how and why in all of reality would she have been targeted by such an invocation? Where was this place, anyway?!

So preoccupied by her thoughts was the white-clad queen that she didn't even notice she had been slowly walking toward the city until she bumped into the cold iron of the balcony rail. "...Oh. Well, it's a good thing this railing was here for safety purposes, isn't it!" she exclaimed with false cheer, gripping it tightly as she stared down into the yawning abyss.

No one answered. A gust of wind howled emptily through her ears, then left as swiftly as it had arrived.

Cassiopeia was suddenly aware of the fact that she was very, very alone.

"H-Helloooo...," she called plaintively out into the darkness, "Is... is anyone there? Anyone at all...?" The darkness made no reply.

In a valiant bid to fight back a burgeoning fit of panic, the greenheaded woman swiftly brought up a hand and traced the rune for Gateway in the air, trying to focus on home. It immediately fizzled out into nothing. Nothing! Even a failed Gateway spell should have at least summoned a set of unopenable doors! Beginning to hyperventilate, she shakily drew up the rune for a Magic Lamp. "A light, a light, a light!" she chanted quietly and desperately, as if some unseen force would hear her and snuff out even that small comfort, "Please at least give me a light! At least give me a light!"

The enormous wave of relief she felt at the regular appearance of the cheerful little ball of illumination that manifested over her palm was entirely disproportionate.

No sooner had she moved the construct to hover at her side and drooped her shoulders into a tiny sigh of relief, however, than the flash and sound of gunfire caused her to whip her head back up again. Shamefully, her first thought at that moment was not 'there may be innocents in danger!', as would have been befitting of a model Wizard, but rather, Violence means fighting, and fighting means people, and people means I'm not alone! Hooray! Oh, happy day!

No matter how hard she tried, however, the queen couldn't locate the exact source of the ongoing cacophony. Whenever she turned one way to look at it directly, it seemed to jump suddenly to someplace on her periphery. How terribly vexing! Well, it would be worth a shot to start looking for some other living thing, at least, even if she had no idea where she was or where she was going. Anything would be better than just standing there by herself!

Only at the last second did Cassiopeia startle and observe that she had planted a leg on the railing in pure instinct and was about to vault over into the fathomless non-existence below. Chiding herself silently, she quickly scrawled out a Levitate rune - which thankfully was working just as well as her makeshift nightlight - and floated her way across to touch down on the bottom layer proper.

The White Witch took a deep breath to steel her quivering nerves, looked resolutely forward, and ran at full tilt into—

On second thought...

The White Witch quickly kicked off her cumbersome heels, stowed them away in her bottomless bag, took another deep breath to steel her still-quivering nerves, looked resolutely forward once more, and then ran at full tilt into the gloom with the light of her Magic Lamp as her guide.