CoLC crossover RP, main thread

"Just waiting for these fine gentlemen to finish their shopping before I myself peruse," Plague Knight explained to Sans as unironically as possible. Sans would probably notice the sign up above that the building in question was a store that entirely sold explosives and explosive accessories. "Anything happen while I was in here?"

That aside glance, that complete and utter dismissal made Hol Horse feel like unloading into him, if just to prove him wrong. The fact that whoever he was, he saw Hol as so unimportant and non-threatening to even give a moment of his time, was entirely infuriating and also rather frightening. Was Hol Horse that weak in the grand scheme of things? If he was that insignificant, what could he do?

He stood back, and lowered Emperor. He tried to signal Gon to back off as well, hoping to get his weapon lowered the same way. Sawyer didn't seem to want the trouble, and he doubted that a guy with a normal gun (which is what he looked like, but chances are he had laser eyes and Hol Horse just didn't know it yet) would fare much better than a guy with a magic gun.

Mary (Streets, Middle Layer) - Ignorance Is Bliss

"What's Ruckus?"

Yes, that was a completely legitimate question. Mary, who had never heard the word "ruckus" before, either to describe the group or with its original meaning, was suddenly focused significantly less on the conversation that was taking place, and more on how the word sounded.

"Ruckus. Ruck-us. Rrrrruuuuuucccckkkuuuussss. Teehee, it sounds funny!"

"That's right!" Cassiopeia nodded enthusiastically. "From distinctly different worlds, but we four are in 'the same boat', as they say. According to Sir Redring, everyone in this city has been similarly taken away from their universe of origin, though we don't yet understand how or why."

The queen tapped a finger against her cheek in thought. "In fact, I'm attempting to puzzle out what means were used to bring us all here, so in service to scholarly curiosity, what was the transition to this place like for you? In my own experience, time itself appeared to halt and everything faded into total darkness. Next I was aware, I found myself standing on one of the balconies on the lower layer's edge."

edited 29th Apr '16 5:16:54 PM by darksidevoid

Lune briefly looked at Caro’s mundane submarine sandwich. Even though it had more simplistic ingredients (cheese, ham, lettuce and tomatoes), it looked just as delicious as Lune’s fried pork sandwich. After Caro and Lune finished their sandwiches, they threw away the wrappers in the trash. Caro noted that the cellphones will help them tremendously, especially if they ended up splitting up for some reason. If only Sadness and Zelda had gotten their phones sooner, this incident could have been prevented. Caro’s number was “6506-6101”. After hearing that, Lune added that number to her cellphone.

“My number is 555-5863. Got that, Caro?”

Caro asked how they were going to find Mary. The group didn’t even know what layer she was in. According to Sans, the city was constantly shifting. The group could blindly wander around and hope they run into Mary, or they could split up and become more vulnerable to the many threats that lurk inside the city. He also mentioned his number to Caro and asked if Aigis wanted to know more about Cole.

Aigis nodded, and Sans explained his situation in detail. He was about to head for the library with Cole until he was ambushed. Sans died and Cole was kidnapped by the Ruckus group. Sans blamed himself for letting Cole get kidnapped. He theorized that the Ruckus gang orchestrated the mass shooting as a way to distract the group. The leader of Ruckus must be real smart if he could pull that off. Anyways, Sans ordered the group to focus on finding Mary.

Suddenly, Plague Knight exited one of the stores in the mall. Lune looked up at the sign and it said the store sold “explosives and explosive accessories”. Sans asked what Plague Knight was up to, and Plague Knight said that he was waiting for another group to finish their shopping, and asked Sans if anything important happened while Plague Knight was window-shopping.

edited 30th Apr '16 10:42:06 AM by josh6243

"Uhh...ditto."

"Same here as well," said the Tick. "The colours made some pretty patterns as they were sucked away and replaced by a suffocating void of cold blackness. Almost artistic."

"That's nice, Tick," said Arthur patiently.

"Ohh....this is all my fault." Aigis said as Sans elaborated on prior events. "If I had stayed with him today like I said I would, he might never have been captured. I have to say sorry to him later."

Even as she said that, however, she concluded Sans was correct in that she would accomplish little running around looking for him with no idea where he was. Chances were high that if he had died, he was now safe for the moment. After all, she had observed no odd side effects last time he had died. Why would this time be any different?

Aigis then turned as Sans addressed another man in a bird mask, and waved.

"Greetings! Is this a friend of yours, Sans-San?"

edited 30th Apr '16 10:45:29 AM by Meanken

"I can fix anything, but first I have to know exactly what the problem is" Miss Tairee said, flicking her wrist to have her bracelet project a holographic screen and keyboard for her to start using. With a few quick key presses, her eyes blurred for a moment and then glowed green, and she looked at Cole. Quickly her expression turned into a grimace. "He's broken, in multiple senses" she stated, starting to type once more, "first we've gotta make him not die on us and vanish."

With another couple key presses, there was a blur on her forearm and some kind of cylinder filled with a slightly iridescent green substance appeared there. There was some sort of barrel with a syringe needle beside it on the front of the cylinder, aimed wherever Miss Tairee aimed her arm; which she did, at Cole. A green laser shot out of the device, going to Cole's wounds, both internal and external, and closing them up steadily.

"It's weird; I didn't expect to be hearing this much commotion until the daily challenge started" Miss Tairee mused idly while waiting for the healing to finish. "Actually, it should be arriving pretty soon, but knowing my boss he's waiting for the-" the librarian stopped herself abruptly, and looked around.

"... Peeerrffeeect..." Miss Tairee continued slowly, still glancing around and pausing again. "... Timing" she muttered, stopping the healing a moment later. She opened her mouth as if to speak again, but then seemed to think better of it and closed her mouth; she looked to XLR8 and raised a finger to her mouth, hoping to relay to him that he should stay quiet. Then she started typing on the holographic keyboard again; after a few quick key presses, she abruptly thrust out a hand into Cole's head, it phasing through his flesh and bone as if it weren't there.

Miss Tairee's voice sounded out inside Cole's mind. You are a spirit of compassion. You are Cole. This is not you. Snap out of it.

"I too experienced that sensation, though I arrived here a few days prior" Sir Redring said as the elevator jerked to a stop. The octopode strode out after the doors opened and took a look around. "Hmm. This is as high as this elevator goes, but it seems the city goes yet higher" he mused, glancing up at the ceiling above them.

"From what I've heard, our destination is at the top; I suppose we should look for another way to continue rising" Sir Redring told Cassiopeia, then glanced at Tick and Arthur. "You two are welcome to come along, of course" he mentioned to them.

"Alright, let's pack it in" the lead pig orc said to his comrades. The four others made their way out the door, eying the mall that the city shifting had placed the explosives shop near warily. Inside the shop, all that still remained was a small handful of frag grenades and some explosive wiring; but the lead pig orc stopped at the doorway, regarding Plague Knight for a moment, then reached into his bag. "Here" he muttered, pulling out a brick of C4 and passing it to Plague Knight, "for the info."

Then he quickly left, following the other pig orcs.

"Like Mary said, I'm her big sister. Name's Kelsey" Kelsey said, still smiling. "What's up with you being like half-bike?" she asked, pointing to Rex's construct.

Brother Marcus stiffened up immediately after Shiara's words, still holding onto Sawyer. "That boy was possessed after all?! I KNEW IT!" Brother Marcus yelled, shaking a little in anger. "Which means it can somehow change its ascendant host back to their original form... And that psyker could somehow read machine spirits..." the space marine thought out loud.

"Which means that a boy possessed by a Lord of Change with previously unseen powers just absconded with a fallen psyker also with previously unseen powers- there are no words sufficient for just how dire this situation has become" Brother Marcus continued, then glanced around, looking particularly at Grimlock, then at Sawyer still in his grip. "I tried to stop this, but you made to obstruct me... No, I see it clearly now" he muttered bitterly, raising his chainsword back, "you're in league with it! I WILL MAKE YOU ANSWER FOR THIS HERESY!"

Just as he prepared to swing the chainsword down and end Sawyer's life, a pair of small cylindrical objects came bouncing down the street, arcing up and hitting the space marine right in the back; they then exploded, relatively small blasts that didn't seem to really do much to the Ultramarine's armor, but did suddenly stagger him forward and make him accidentally drop Sawyer to the side. After grunting from the impact, Brother Marcus wheeled around, already drawing his bolt pistol. "WHO DARES-" his furious retort was cut short as a round object went flying right into his torso and exploded, this one going off bigger and sending pieces of shrapnel that were glowing yellow with heat scattering around. This time Brother Marcus was thrown to the ground, his armor a bit scarred up but not yet broken into. He let out a groan as he started to get up.

From down the street where the projectiles had come from, a figure in green armor approached, holding some strange weapon◊ that looked almost more like an industrial tool than a gun. Not that it mattered, as he moved his arm down and behind his back, a small flash of light happened, and he brought his arm back up, now holding a red-trimmed weapon◊ with three large barrels.

Before any of the party could thank this new arrival for helping with Brother Marcus, he spoke. "witness my perfection" he said in a synthetic, robotic voice, then aimed his weapon at Grimlock as the barrels made a one-third rotation.

XAN KRIEGOR

As the weapon fired, two rockets coming flying out. They were actually somewhat slow, as far as rockets go, and one was going slightly left while the other went slightly right, but both were going towards Grimlock; if they hit, they wouldn't hurt the transformer much, but they would still hurt him. Already Xan was switching to a different weapon◊ and strafing to one side.

Edited by FirockFinion on Mar 27th 2020 at 12:36:08 PM

Middle Layer- Oh, Crap!

Shiara did not expect that effect. At all. She attempted to step forward and explain that Ben wasn't possessed now, but she was ignored by the hulking blue person? Maybe a person. Might be a golem. Seeing that he seemed prepared to kill goth girl (she'd never met her, but she seemed nice), she ran forward and drew her sword,but her well-meaning movement was unessessary, as her got shot by something else. And dropped Sawyer.

She moved to Sawyer's side, sheathing her sword.

Are you okay?

Then, because this place doesn't take breaks, another (golem? Definately a golem) golem showed up, (must've been what shot blue guy) and shot bluey again. Not killing him, but disabling him. Then, he shot something at the giant green thingy, that was there when she almost died. Great.

Rex said that he thought that Mary had been captured by the Ruckus but she wondered aloud what 'Ruckus' meant and started repeating the word and laughing about its pronunciation. So, she didn't even know who the Ruckus were? Then what was she doing in their factory? Maybe Rex had wrongly assumed that the factory Ben and Twilight had mentioned wasn't the same one the quarian had mentioned. But the fact that he hadn't described it in any way was probably because there was only one. Maybe she was possessed like Cole.

The woman answered that she was her big sister and asked in return why Rex's legs ended in a motorbike.

"I'm an EVO. I can do that sort of thing. So, have you guys seen a big bird that can talk?"

Despair's awareness of surroundings had dulled with the injuries from Hol Horse's gun, and even on being healed, it was taking him a fair bit of time to recover his bearings. He was still able to snarl swears at them, not nearly as virulent as he would have liked, but he couldn't find a way into the woman's mind to try and get at her, and Ben had already proven difficult to crack.

And just as he thought he might be able to find an escape, there was the sensation of Miss Tairee's hand going into his head, and her voice speaking to him. He growled at her, gritting his sharp teeth.

"You...you don't...they don't..."

Compassion...

Pressing against the Veil, finding the thin spot, trying to reach the starving boy laying still at the bottom of a cell. The boy...Cole, me, him...dying, the pain of dying, the pain of not being able to help...

Ben and Tairee would be able to see green glowing cracks appearing alongside his skin, and his eyes opened, completely green as well.

"Am I him...someone who saw me who could...see...me... Was that...Rhys...?"

The green glow seemed to swirl from within him and around him, and for just a moment his body almost seemed to blur where Ben and Tairee couldn't quite clearly see him anymore, before the mist vanished away again, leaving Cole...non-toothy, non-gangrenous handed Cole, looking horrified and bewildered, stock-still, eyes wide and still glowing green.

"N-no...n-not Rhys...no I don't know you...don't..."

XLR8 continued to hold on to Cole as Miss Tairee went to work. He winced a little bit at how she simply seemed to stick her hand inside his head. not hearing the words that Miss Tairee was sending him. His wince turned into a smile when he saw Cole beginning to turn back into his old self, glowing green. The green light in the room gave way to red, however, when the Omnitrix began to beep, and the room was flooded with red light. Soon, Ben stood behind Cole, awkwardly holding his arms. Now that he was free, Ben let go, collapsing back onto his rear end. He sat for a while to catch his breath, then looked up at Cole. "Who's... Rhys?" he asked the spirit.

edited 30th Apr '16 5:10:58 PM by AllHailThrall

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck." Rick swore for the second time in as many minutes as the newcomer came tromping onto the scene, effortlessly smacking Brother Marcus around with a kind of lazy, robotic precision. "Just *urp* when this whole mess was about to blow over... I guess it's once more into that *urp* metaphorical breach, dot dot dot, huh, Morty?" Rick took a shot before tossing the empty flask over his shoulder. "Alright, time to get to *urp* work." Rick was already rummaging through Morty's backpack for a spare part or two, eventually surfacing with a faintly glowing energy core ^note looted from some of the cyberpunk electronics earlier that day and a deadpan, world-weary expression.

"Rick... oh jeez, oh jeez..." Morty poked his head up again, just in time to see the monstrous robotic... thing open fire on Grimlock. "Oh God! It's the boss, isn't it! Ii-i-i-i-it's the boss, Rick! W-w-what the hell is that thing?! Is it, I dunno, like a robot? "

"I dunno, what it is, okay? It's either a guy in a *urp* an exo-suit, or just some kind of robot, I don't give a flying crap at this point." Rick had already ripped a nearby computer out of the wall, exposing some faintly sparking wires. "Kill the power *urp*, Morty, then cover me!" Morty stared hesitantly down at the laser rifle in his scrawny hands.

"What?"

"Cover me, Morty! Keep him distracted!"

"I dunno, Rick, couldn't we just do the, the, uh, you know, the spinach thing again?" Rick grabbed a hefty battery off of a shelf, then a pair of what looked like heavy-duty jumper cables, but found a moment to lightly smack his grandson on the back of the head.

"That only worked once, Morty! It only worked, jesus Christ, it only worked once because we were in a cartoon! Now shut up and start shooting." Morty looked down at his gun - it had seemed so powerful a moment ago, but now seemed puny in comparison to the armored titan that was currently wrecking up the place- whimpered something to himself, and squeezed the trigger, firing off a not-very-accurate barrage of energy at the robot monster. Or monster robot. Whatever.

Meanwhile, there was a brief flicker as the store ^note  some kind of light electronics store, judging by the sign 's glaring neon sign suddenly died, accompanied by the power going out in the local region. Someone ^note Rick seemed to have temporarily cut the power while he worked on... something.

edited 1st May '16 6:48:09 AM by Locoman

"i don't really know that guy all that well but-" said Sans, but then one could almost hear the sound of a record needle scratch as the skeleton's expression changed to one of confusion "wait, what did you just call me?"

Although he was going to answer Plague Knight's question, Sans' seemed to have gotten himself quite distracted with what he could only assume was a nickname Aigis was giving him.

"Thank you," Plague Knight said after receiving the pack of C4. He examined the seemingly mundane lump of white clay in his hand. While he would be initially skeptical about such gift, the fact the orc presumably procured it from the shop was a sign the clay was actually some sort of explosive. He would have to examine the composition, and perhaps replicate it, later.

Reentering the store, the knight scrounged around, only finding the grenades and the wiring. He studied the grenades for a few moments, momentarily fascinated at the design of having the trigger mechanism based on keeping a metal pin in place, but ultimately found them useless in the short term as his bomb functioned nearly the same purpose. He would keep one though. The wiring would be of true interest to him, however.

As he walked out, he handed Sans one of the grenades, not realizing the skeleton was currently in dumbfounded confusion. "This should be more useful to you than me," he said to Sans. Then he turned to Aigis. "Oh, hello again, miss," he greeted the gynoid.

Gon, seeing incoming trouble. Trouble doesn't want to give the guy a break.

"Incoming!"

Gon shouted when he saw the projectiles heading to Grimlock.

"Big guy! Take cover!"

"There, it seems he's back to normal now" Miss Tairee said, pulling her hand out of Cole's head. "Or close enough, at least" she added, typing away on the holographic keyboard and shortly making her eyes return to normal with another blur.

"Now... Would either of you like to explain what happened?" Miss Tairee asked Cole and Ben.

Ranma hated feeling so hopeless, unable to do anything with the Big Blue Ox manhandling Sawyer like that. One false move and she'd be broken like a twig. The shot coming out of nowhere disabling the man in the power armor was welcome, since then her acquaintance was let free. Seeing someone move into help her, the pigtailed girl grimly nodded as the chainsaw-wielding woman was cared for. And then yet another guy popped up to attack the defuser of situation, this one looking much more unfriendly considering he was blasting at Grimlock.

"..." Deciding not to half-ass things, the girl went on full offense as quickly as possible. Arms lashing out to grab a nearby lamp-post via ripping it bodily from the ground, the girl then spun on her heels to build up centrifugal motion before launching the entire thing as a demented boomerang towards the robot. She then dashed off in an irregular zig-zagging pattern towards cover as soon as she threw the object, knowing that to stay still was to invite pain.

edited 30th Apr '16 8:39:44 PM by Makaioh

Top Layer - Food Court

Sans replied that their options seemed to be to either wandering aimlessly until they found one or more of the people they were looking or split up to cover more layer at the same time while keeping in touch through their phones, but that would leave them more vulnerable to attacks. " Yeah, it would probably be for the best if we stick together. Things seem to have quieted down, but you never know what might happen. Our best guess is to search this layer until we either find at least one of the people we are looking for or find the way down to another layer, whichever comes first."

Sans and Lune both told her what their phones number were, which she registered in her phone after figuring out how to do it.

Sans explained to the robot girl what had happened to Cole, who Caro remembered as the guy with large hat who had sensed that Ben had been possessed by the Lord of Change. Apparently, the same gang that had killed Sans had also kidnapped Cole for an unknown reason, which Sans blamed himself for letting happen. The girl apparently had been with Cole previously and also blamed herself for having failed to protect him.

Turning to both of them, Caro said, " Look, I understand that you wish you could have done more to protect this person, but it probably wasn't either of your fault. Trust me, I have been there. Well, not me specifically, but the group I worked with until recently. Our enemy attacked our base and kidnapped someone important to us, a girl even younger than me, in order to fulfill a very destructive plan. The point is, no one of us saw it coming and probably neither of you did with this situation. All we can do is to our best to figure out what happened and find him. So I guess that is one more person that we need to search for. In which case, we should really get going."

Someone in a bird-like mask came and greeted Sans. The person was apparently wanting for more people to come out of what seemed to be some kind of armament store.

When this person greeted Sans, the robot girl asked if Sans knew them, only that did it by adressing him as Sans-san, which seemed to have confused the skeleton. Turning to him, Caro said, " I think what she used after your name was a form of respectful adress from her language." Then turning to the girl, she said, " You're from Japan, aren't you? I have friends who came from there as well, so I'm used to that. My name is Caro by the way. And this here is Friedrich, " She gave her usual motion towards the small silver dragon flying next to her as she said the last part.

Cole let out a breath when Miss Tairee finally pulled her hand away, drawing in his arms to fold them against his stomach as though in pain, lowering his head to try to hide beneath his hat again. "I...I'm sorry...I'm so sorry...I never wanted to hurt anyone...I shouldn't have chased that man, I should have come straight here..."

He blinked a few times, sniffing, wiping at his eyes, the glow finally vanishing. "I'm...oh...oh no!" Cole looked to Ben in alarm. "I hurt you! I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that, I didn't...I wouldn't have, I...the demon and Mary...the demon has Mary! She was there, they...those people, that man who hurt Silanea, he took me there and Mary...she...she killed me...they trapped me, tied my hands and legs and she...s-stabbed me..."

He shuddered, crouching down on the ground, rocking back and forth there. "I'm sorry...I...Sans! They killed him!" He looked up at Ben, eyes going wide. "Is he okay?? He was with me and they killed him, he came back, didn't he?? Maker, how many people were hurt??"

Mary (Streets, Middle Layer) - Funny Words

"Ruckus... ruckus rickus," Mary continued rambling, and she didn't stop until Kelsey pointed out that Rex's lower half looked like a bike, something that she had completely missed... and would have missed again if "bike" wasn't completely different from "human legs". "Oh cool! What does it do? Can we jump on it? Can we ride it? Like a piggyback ride?"

She didn't even wait for an answer, and instead immediately tried to climb on top of Rex, obviously not considering it rude or at all invasive. However, the moment Rex asked if they'd seen a "blue talking bird", she stopped for a moment. That description matched her good friend Old Feather Beak, and while she believed that Rex maybe wouldn't act like Cole did towards him, she really wanted to make sure it wasn't the case.

"Why do you ask?" the girl asked in return, tilting her head as if she didn't know anything. "Is it your pet? Did it get lost?"

Ben moved closer to Cole, raising an eyebrow. On one hand he was still angry at the spirit for yelling out to everyone that he was possessed and he needed to be killed; plus, he was angry about the whole Gwen and Grandpa thing. On the other hand, he seemed genuinely remorseful at the point, and he was clearly in a state of distress.

Ben put a hand on Cole's shoulder. "Shh, calm down," Ben said to Cole, trying to comfort him. "Sans is fine. I was talking to him before you... well, before you attacked us," Ben told Cole. "He came back. Don't worry. Mary killed you?" he asked, frowning. So Mary was a killer after all. He had forgiven her (why??) the first time, but this time he couldn't forgive it. Heroes don't kill. He cleared his throat.

"And, uh.... you mentioned something about my... my cousin and my grandpa. Where are they? Are they here in this city?" he asked the spirit, sounding pained. Over the week he had spent here, he spent a lot of time thinking about Gwen and Grandpa Max. They must be worried sick. Max would probably be trying everything in his power, up to calling the Plumbers for assistance, to get Ben back.

Cole flinched slightly at the touch, as though expecting something worse, but when the seemingly expected hit didn't come, he relaxed...just a bit. "Cousin and...grandfather. Their...voices. I used them against you..." He hung his head down again. "I...am sorry. I only have seen them inside your mind. You think of them so often, worry about them...I wish I could bring them to you so it would help but I can't...I-I don't think it would be best anyway...to be here."

He looked up at Ben, biting his lip, then looked down, looking rather embarrassed. "I'm sorry for reading your hurts. I...I would stop if I could, I'd not do it for people who don't like it but I can't. It's like hearing or seeing or feeling, it just is there, always, for everyone. I...I'm trying not to but there's so many hurts in so many people..."

Aigis turned to Caro, nodding. "That explanation is accurate. I was built in the province of Japan, and have spent all of my life there. -San is one of many honorifics used there, and I make use of it with most people I speak to. I am sorry for any confusion, Sans-San." She then turned to Plague Knight, nodding to him. "Oh, have we met before? I do not recall speaking to you before." She asked, not remembering him among the large group at the grocery yesterday.

Ben's face twinged with pain when Cole explained that Gwen and Max were in fact not in the city, or if they were, he had not seen them. It was only safe to assume they were still back in his own world. Ben fought back some tears, then he bunched his hands into fists. Finally, he slammed one of his fists against the library floor. "Darn it!" Ben choked. "I thought I could see them again. I thought I could save them. But it was just.... a trick...."

He wiped his face with his arm, trying to compose himself. Then he looked at Miss Tairee. "Do you know if Gwen and Max Tennyson are in the City right now?" he asked her, his voice wavering. His hands went into his hair and he looked down, his breathing becoming shallow as he fought back more emotions.

When he managed to finally compose himself, he sat up, looking at Cole as he was sitting in the floor of the library Indian-style. "So.... how do you read my... "hurts"? Are you psychic or something?" he asked, looking and feeling like a great deal of energy and enthusiasm had been yanked from him.