CoLC crossover RP, main thread

With XLR8 and Cole suddenly out of the way and Sawyer suddenly in the way, Brother Marcus basically batted her to the side with his swing, then yelled in frustration as he tried to aim his bolt pistol on the fleeing XLR8. The alien was too fast though, and was gone before the space marine could get a decent bead on him.

"ARGH!" Brother Marcus growled out, lowering his bolt pistol and turning to look at those around him. "You are all fools!" he yelled at them, and made as if to start walking away, but stopped. The space marine turned around sharply, clamping his bolt pistol to his hip to free his hand and grab Sawyer.

"What did you say?" Brother Marcus asked her very intently, in a lower pitch than normal.

"A sweet tasting, blue and purple pizza? I've never heard of such a thing" Kelsey admitted, sounding intrigued. When Rex suddenly pulled up and called to Mary by name, Kelsey looked only mildly surprised. "Somebody you know, Mary?" the young woman asked, glancing at Mary.

When XLR8 came into the library with Cole, he'd see Lieutenant Wells and a few random civvie types there; the lieutenant was seeing about getting some weaponry for them courtesy of Miss Tairee. The very fledgling beginning of his intended militia perhaps, but even if so there was still a long ways to go. "You again?" Lieutenant Wells thought aloud, recognizing XLR8.

Miss Tairee was quite surprised at the sudden arrival, looking confused as Ben went on and raising a hand slightly. "Ben, slow down, I can't just..." Miss Tairee trailed off, looking for the right words. "Let me take a look first, and we'll go from there, alright?" she mentioned, and started typing on the computer.

XLR8 of course got the attention of most of the people in the lobby, the maybe-militia-recruits in particular looking slightly concerned about this abrupt development. One man with a sniper rifle somewhere behind XLR8 took a few steps to the side as he was staring at the fast alien and demonic spirit. He took something out of a pocket with his left hand, then held up his arm to brace the rifle in the nook of his elbow. He lined up a shot right towards Cole's head, and pulled the trigger; in almost the same moment, as the bullet was flying out of the barrel, he pressed the detonation button on the grenade in his left hand, preemptively cutting off the presumably swift counter from XLR8 by blowing himself up.

Mary (Streets) - A Familiar Face

"Hmmm?"

Mary turned when she heard her name being called, and she spotted Rex not far away. He seemed to be a bit lost.

"Oh yeah, he is!" she replied to Kelsey, waving at Rex cheerfully with her bloody hand. "Hi Rex! Look, I have a big sister now! She made me breakfast!"

Fortification? Hm...... Plague Knight thought.

"Just for the sake of curiosity, what does your fortification look like?" the knight asked. "My companions are the types who enjoy helping others, so you can come to them in case you fellows are of in need of anything."

"Of all the things to do..."

Gon sighed when he heard what Hol Horse and Specter Knight had to say to him.

He then asked. "Did anyone see where Ben went off to?"

XLR8 nodded, and started to move towards the desk to let Miss Tairee get a better look. Then he heard the sound of the gunshot and immediately took a quick jerk to the side as fast as he could (feeling the air being displaced by the bullet as it traveled through the air), but before he could turn to retaliate, he heard the sound of an explosion. He poked out to see what had happened. "What?!" he simply asked. "What was that?!"

He looked back towards Miss Tairee to see if she or any of the others in the library were all right.

edited 28th Apr '16 7:19:38 PM by AllHailThrall

Top Layer - Mall - Food Court

Apparently Caro had made a good, if completely random, choice. Lune exclaimed that the sandwich was delicious and thanked her. " You're welcome. I'm glad you liked that. Hopefully, these should keep us sharp for a few more hours."

Sans explained that food from his world was instantly transformed into energy and absorbed by one's body. That sound like it would be really convinient for a situation like this. The sandwich she was about to eat would take some time to be broken down and absorbed enough to actually give her energy. Something that could give her a quick boost would be really useful right now.

Caro put down the phone that she was carrying on the ground and started to unpack her own sandwich as Sand continued to explain. The sandwich she got was relatively tamer from what she had briefly seen of Lune's more exotic one, with things cheese, ham, lettuce and tomatoes. It tastes fairly good and would be pretty nourishing on top of that, so that was good.

Sans explained that the city was now divided in layers, with each layer being in a worse condition than the one above it. " That could be really bad. Mary's apparently being missing since yesterday, meaning that she probably spent the night in some random place in the city. There is no way of knowing in which layer that place ended or if she even stayed nearby today. How are we gonna find anyone in these situations? We seriously need a plan ... "

She had finished her meal, throwing the wrapping in a nearby trash can. She picked up the phone from the ground, fiddling with it until it had turned on. " These will probably help us a lot, specially if we ended up spllited away from each other. If only Zelda and/or Sadness one ... Anyway, I need to give you guys a number, right?" She fiddled with the phone a little more until a number was displayed on the screen, which she showed to the others: 6506-6101. " It would be good if I had yours too before we left. But more important, how are gonna go about this? How do we find Mary if we have no idea on even what layer she is located in?"

"Where have you been? Sadness was really worried about you. And why are you covered... Is that blood?"

For all that he wanted to, Despair-Cole simply didn't have the strength left to fight against being hauled along bodily by Ben's alien form. Being yanked about to get carried up the stairs and to the library didn't do his injuries any favors, and by the time the movement had stopped, all he could really do was snarl threats under his breath as he hung loosely in Ben's grip.

"I'm...I'm not the...the one you need to worry about..." he finally got out, grinning again. "They'll...they don't...care what..."

His voice trailed off, Cole slumping a bit more. The blood soaked across the bottom and side of his tunic and beading along his leathers was plenty enough explanation for why he was nearly out of it.

Mary (Streets, Middle Layer) - Explanation Time

"I was in a building with lots of different rooms to sleep in, and a refrigerator with chocolate ice cream," Mary explained to Rex, while in return he pointed out that she was covered in... oh, right. "Well, I did have some trouble a while ago, but I'm okay. Nothing bad really happened to me."

Hol Horse didn't have any idea about what exactly the significance of a feathered demon would be, or why Big Blue had any interest in it. What he did have an idea about is that this person looked like he could crush Sawyer like an aluminum can, and considering he just tried to saw a kid-alien combo in half he probably wasn't adverse to the idea.

There really wasn't any choice, he couldn't stand there and let something like that happen.

"Oi! You let the lady down right now, ya bastard!"

Pointing his Emperor at the marine's head, no matter how dinky it looked in comparison to that giant gun of his, his voice had the correct mixture of confidence and anger to give the right impression. His expression radiated an aura of seriousness, but on the inside of course he was entirely frightened. He figured that even with that jump jet thing, that guy could barely move with all that armor on, and couldn't fly around inside any of the nearby buildings. He would just have to outrun him if push came to shove. But at the same time, he was pretty damn sure push was about to come to shove in the worst way possible.

edited 28th Apr '16 8:32:02 PM by wikkit

"Oh, fuck." Rick belched mightily then quickly decided to open the door of a nearby store, ducking behind the sturdiest wall he could find. Morty joined him a second later, peeking out over the storefront every few seconds with the air of a frightened meerkat.

"Hey, *urp* here's *urp* here's an idea, how about you don't start pissing off the giant super*urp*human soldier, huh?" he shouted over the din, thoughts of Cole and demonic possession temporarily replaced with more pressing concerns.

edited 28th Apr '16 8:47:55 PM by Locoman

"We're on our way to find a pastry shop, or some jello" Kelsey said, having been smiling the whole time. "Do you want to come with us?" she asked Rex.

The pig orcs were silent for a few moments, just glancing at each other after Plague Knight's question. The lead pig orc eventually turned his eyes back to Plague Knight. "It's a gun store. We claimed it on our first day here and have been staying there since" the lead pig orc answered him. "We'll think about it... Thanks" he added, his tone making it clear he wasn't sure what to think about Plague Knight's offer.

Cole's condition was bad sure enough, but he hadn't vanished yet which meant he was still alive; he could still be treated and saved. Thankfully there was someone with access to literally all knowledge and the ability to conjure anything just a few feet away.

And when Ben turned around to look, he'd see there was a bullet hole through Miss Tairee's head. She promptly slumped on top of the keyboard, dead, and vanished a moment later.

"What in the frassin' heck just happened?!" Miss Tairee yelled in her Southern Belle accent from somewhere in one of the upper floors.

Brother Marcus slowly turned his helmet to glance at Hol Horse after the Stand user made his threat. After briefly assessing the man and the gun he was holding, Brother Marcus turned his helmet back to Sawyer, ignoring Hol Horse.

XLR8 stood there stunned when he saw Miss Tairee laying there dead by the computer. He was so shocked that he nearly dropped Cole, until he heard her shouting from the upper floors. "Miss Tairee!" XLR8 shouted, then he moved (not quickly) up the stairs to see if she was all right, still holding Cole in his arms. "Where are you?" he asked loudly. He was starting to worry how much longer he could stay in this form, especially considering he had brought Cole to the library with a bunch of people.

He was also starting to wonder if he really was a hero, since he had just let Miss Tairee die right there. If he had simply let the man shoot Cole, would it have helped at all? He couldn't think that. Right now, though, he had to make sure Miss Tairee was all right.

Sans added Caro's number to his cellphone then looked at her as she asked what they are going to do about it, to which he responded with a shrug.

"the city is always changing, all we can do is blindly wander around and hope we come across something. the only other solution would be to split up and investigate all the layers at the same time while keeping contact by phone, but then that makes us more vulnerable to an enemy attack."

The skeleton had to admit he wasn't really all that concerned about Mary, for all he knew she could just be walking around the city without a care in the world while stuff happened all over the place. From what he heard from the phone call with Ben, it looked like something bad was happening in the middle layer other than the fact that Cole died.

"i do have the number of a few of the others, but they're all busy with their own search. by the way, my number is 1901-1419." He then looked over to Aigis "speaking of the others, you wanted to know about cole, right?

Middle Layer

Sawyer would have squeaked if she could. Still, with marine's iron grip on her arm that could turn it into powder she had to be careful. Only miraculously it wasn't broken by the strength of his earlier swing.

Or not, really. At this point, she just wanted to point him in the right direction.

"Settle down, cowboy." She addressed Hol Horse with a small shake of her head, then turned back to Brother Marcus. "A feathered demon with... a beak. You seem like it... sounds familiar to you."

"It has a whole... group with it. They call themselves... Ruckus. Armed and dangerous." Even if her fate was to messily die here by a hand of a seven-feet-tall behemoth, at the very least she hoped to turn his attention towards people that he should deal with. She would respawn, and so would they, but once they started dying en masse... perhaps they'd reconsider allegiances.

"I'm right here" Miss Tairee said, meeting XLR8 at the stairs going up to the third floor. "Did somebody just set off a bomb in my library?" she asked aloud, sounding simply annoyed at this turn of events.

"Are they still in here? I'mma' turn that sum'bitch into a newt if they's still in here" Miss Tairee told XLR8, preparing to walk past him but pausing as she spotted Cole in the alien's arms. "Ah right; ya' were tellin' me 'bout somethin'" she muttered, trying to get her composure back.

"Ruckus? I've been hearing about them. Thought they were just hive gangers of a fashion... That would make some sense, but then why..?" Brother Marcus muttered, thinking, his helmet turning slightly. After a couple moments, it turned back directly at Sawyer again. "If it is what I think it may be, then everyone in this city is in danger" the space marine stated simply.

"You saw the daemon? Describe it" Brother Marcus commanded Sawyer.

XLR8 raised the now-weak Cole up slightly to show him off. "He was captured by the Ruckus, they did something to him, and now he's turned into this," he pointed out. "He got hurt real bad as well. You think that you can fix him?" he asked. "I owe it to the guy. Plus I think he's got my cousin and my grandpa and I wanna make sure they're safe... I thought I'd never see them again and if they're here in this city and they're in danger I don't know what I'd do..." XLR8's voice wavered slightly as he explained it.

Finally he managed to compose himself again. "So, can you help him?" he asked. "And if you can't... can you at least conjure up something to hold him until we can fix him?"

Gon, waiting to see... Oh never mind.

"Hey!"

Gon shouted at Marcus when he saw Sawyer grabbed by the marine.

"Let her go this instant! We got other things to worry about aside from trying to kill each other!"

I'm not that good in diplomacy, but I'll be damned if this clusterfuck goes way off the rails than the last few days.

edited 29th Apr '16 12:36:54 AM by Ominae

Middle Layer -Reunited

Shiara got to the crowd of others in time to hear Marcus' question. In the back of her mind she looked for anyone she remembered (Rex, nope, Cole no, Ben no, hey, there's that guy who gave me the healing potion, Nightwitch! Yes!), but the question took precedence.

"The daemon. You're talking about that Lord of Change Miss Tairee got us to read about, right? The one who kinda-possessed Ben?"

Nightwitch ran over to her, and Shiara absentmindedly bent to pick her up, more out of habit than any consious thought.

The Tick stroked his chin and pondered the question. "...d'you know, I can't quite recall. Though I'm fairly certain it had something to do with these charming little antennae on my head there." Satisfied at a mystery solved, the Tick tapped the button and patiently waited for the elevator to make its way up. He even hummed along to the tune, a vacant smile on his face.

Arthur coughed awkwardly. "So, um...you two got sucked in from another world too, huh?"

Middle Layer

Sawyer looked over at Gon. "I said it's fine." They did not need this situation to turn even more sour.

Though it could very well turn into one if Marcus interpreted Shiara's innocent interjection the wrong way. "I did not, but... others did." She replied truthfully, glancing briefly at her arm locked in marine's grip. "It messes with people's... minds, for sure. Goes by the nickname... of Old Feather Beak."

"It warped Cole into... this bothersome sight that... you just saw. I presume that... beating some sense into... that beak would help... lift its influence over both... him and Ruckus."

"That is correct." Aigis said with a nod. "Please, tell me everything you know."

"Weird, I don't see any injuries. I thought the Ruckus had captured you, are you sure you're okay?"

Rex was starting to connect the dots. This was the second time Mary was covered in a red substance and, come to think of it, she probably was covered in blood the first time around but Rex was too busy that day to have noticed.

The woman that was with Mary seemed a bit off. She didn't stop smiling and it was starting to creep Rex out. She asked him if he wanted to come look for a pastry shop. Time to get some answers from the creepy lady.

"First of all, who are you?"

"Thank you," Plague Knight said, bowing to the lead orc. As he waited for the orcs to leave, he noticed the food court outside, seeing......

"Oh, hello Sans!" he greeted to the skeleton from inside the explosives shop.

"i was talking with cole a bit earlier when i was trying to get to the library, but on the way he spotted one of those ruckus guy and they lured him and me into an alleyway. i knew it was a trap and i could've maybe dragged him away from it, but i just went along with it because i thought there wasn't anything to lose. well, i ended up dying and cole was captured instead of killed like i was, didn't see that one coming." Sans shrugged. "so, i guess whatever happens to him is my fault since i let it happen, i must not be a very good friend. either way, i think the shooting that was happening was all a distraction by that gang so that they could buy time to do whatever they wanted to cole, which apparently was just killing him anyway, still haven't figure that one out."

Sans stopped to think about the whole thing again, but could only draw a blank, there was probably something else that was special about Cole that he just didn't know that would make the whole thing seem logical, but right now the only thing he could think of is that they wanted to possess him, but supposedly possession was removed with death so... was that wrong?

He shook his head a little. "either way, there's already plenty of people who must be dealing with that problem now, we should focus on trying to find mary."

Then a familiar voice called him and he looked outside from the food court to see that the bird mask guy was in a building nearby doing god knows what.

"... uh, hey, what are you doing there?"