Happy Box Hater
BALCONY
This was news to Lucas and distracted him enough that his tears started slowing to a halt. While it sounded farfetched it did explain some of the inconsistencies he had noticed. Therefore he didn't entirely discard the explanation. But it begged a few questions and Lucas, now having a steadier voice, had to know "why am I here then?". If Thomas was being truthful then the fate of everyone was still uncertain." Where are my friends then?" he asked and then in a quiet voice asked "are they dead?"
When questioned about the shimmering Lucas just said "My shield". He wasn't really in the mood to explain more, considering that the information Thomas had was much more relevant to his current situation.
Why is a yam attacking me?
Jack bobbed gently on the wind as he stared down at the balcony from above. He'd managed to come across this one, and so far seemed like the only one to really have anyone around it. He eyed the small group of boats, and two submarines, down below. "What should I do..."
He hated to admit it, but he had probably jumped into this a bit quicker than he should have. He had no clue who or what he was looking for, and who these Ruckus people even were; Besides being bad news. He suppose he could just go down and see what people were doing.
...Wait, he could just ask now, couldn't he? Everyone could see and hear him. The spirit chuckled and grinned, his good mood further boosted by that little reminder. Bringing a hand to his face, Jack moved his focus from boat to boat. The submarine still underwater was out for sure. No way was he going back under. "Which one to try first..."
Shrugging, the winter spirit twisted himself to face downwards and dropped out of the sky towards a random sail boat. As he drew near, he slowed down and landed on the railing around the edge without a sound. "Hello? Anyone home?"
"So, that's the kind of things these demons do..." Curly said quietly as the others talked about Kelsey and such.
She turned to the militia now that they'd arrived "So what's the plan, wait for the Ruckus to try something and ambush them?"
As of right now, though, Seiga was lounging. Even if she had just managed to almost get murdered by some annoying computer and had gotten her dress a bit soggy, but otherwise it was a nice day out. She was still immortal, she didn't have anyone to run from, and the sun casting on the water was a pretty sight. Hence, why she took the seat nearest the windows while she relaxed.
Yoshika had found a bag marked "To Yoshika and Friends" lying on some seat, and she wondered if there was a second Yoshika running around the city. It didn't stop her, really, because it's not like this phantom Yoshika had claimed it. She sat next to her master, tasting the delicacies of store-bought, readily edible and not-human based food for the first time in a while.
While her jiangshi scarfed down a bag of mysterious, salty plant-based crispy things, Seiga had an idea. She got up, went to the library desk and wrote down a note. It read,
First off, do you have any name or title you prefer? I'm sure you don't want me writing that on the header of every letter I send to you.
Second, after the next 18 or so days are up, are we required to vacate this city? Will we have the option of staying here?
Yours truly, Seiga Kaku <3
Not only was the writing impeccably clean, she seriously did write down a little heart next to her name. What kind of impression this was meant to leave in her mind was completely unknowable.
She deposited it into the handy little suggestion box, and waited for a little bit, her arms behind her back. She nodded to Ms. Tairee and said, "I hope it hasn't been too stressful for you today."
Akuma Shogun
While in Stinkfly’s clutches, Lune spotted two kids off in the distance. Although she couldn’t see them very clearly, Lune vaguely pointed in their direction. Hopefully, Stinkfly and Eve could see the two much better than Lune could.
“Look! I see a pair of people over there!”
I just want to help!
Cole didn't seem to have anything else he could add to the discussion, just rocking himself back and forth where he sat, staring down at the floor. After a moment of this, though, he scooted back against the wall, then slowly shifted to lay down, just staring forward looking almost like he was pressing an ear to the floor as though to hear through it better, almost ignoring the lot of them.
Submarine - Resolutions
As Caro listened to Cole and then Sans explain what most be really going on with Kelsey, her features gradually softened and her expression clouded for a moment. When she spoke, it was with much less firm, soft tone, "I see .. Well, if that's the case ... I mean, we know of at least one person who was pretty messed up even before being affected by that demon, but obviously they couldn't all have been like that. Given how you described it, it's not all that different from a few situations back home, except that here, things ended up much more badly. And if that's the case, I can no longer blame her all that much. She still needs to be stopped, but mainly so that someone can help her ... ""
Then turned more towards Sans and with a warm smile, said, "Hey, we have been over this already. You may have suggested doing it, but it was my own free choice to go along with it. Besides, if you hadn't, I probably would have us go for it anyway."
She couldn't help smlimg sheepishly at Nails' reaction to learning Sans and her had fought the Lord of Change. "Yeah, we did ... That thing had just appeared close to the library and had used one of those creatures to breach the barricade, so we decided that we had to stop before it could it endanger everyone there any more. But as you heard, it only partially worked. If hadn't been for that mysterious help coming from the library, we would have been both done for ..."
After they stopped close to the balconies, the talk then turnec towards planning their assault on Ruckus, "Yeah, we definitely need a reasonably solid plan and probably need it fast ..."
For the Horde!
Stinkfly flew close to the docks to try and get an aerial view of the situation. He turned his eyes towards the people Lune was pointing out. He flew in that direction, landing in an area that was relatively open so he wouldn't hurt anyone. He then gently let Lune and Eve go, and began to crawl past the small crowd of people and towards the balcony. "We gotta be careful. Any one of these guys could be a Ruckus agent," Stinkfly told the girls as he walked.
edited 4th Sep '16 9:01:53 PM by AllHailThrall
I can still hail the Horde even though the company has shamed us. Strength and Honor even if Blizzard has neither.
feeling blue
Sans smiled as Caro reassured him, well, not that he wasn't smiling already but now it looked like a more genuine smile. He stored the amulet back in his pocket as he heard Nails ask about them going to fight the demon.
"yea, we ambushed the bird and at least now i know that i do have enough firepower to cause big damage to that thing. if i had gotten a direct hit on it i'm pretty sure it would be smoke before it even realized it."
The topic of a plan came up and indeed Sans had been thinking of how to approach the situation. Considering the plan of the Ruckus was to kidnap people, perhaps getting a bunch of militia members on the balconies at once wouldn't be wise, they were just as elligible to be sacrifices as anyone else there.
"i think we should go on the balconies and look for trouble and the militia should wait. having a lot of people on the balconies where they're preying is not the best idea, they probably have something in store for a mass kidnapping so placing a bunch of people in the same spot is doing exactly what they want." He looked at Curly and Caro. "we could go in as bait, lure the ruckus into trying to take us on and figure out what they have in store, if things start going south, the militia then can pop up and strike while they're distracted with us."
Sans then directed his gaze towards Nails.
"or we could do the opposite. you guys go scouting the balconies and if things go south, we come out as backup to help you guys out. having more people there would probably act as a better lure, but that could also mean less backup if things go wrong. what do ya think?"
someone
Eve|Balcony
Eve looked towards the two people, catching a brief glance of...something in her peripheral. It was long, but before she could turn to take a closer look, Ben landed. The group of people were concerning, considering that she couldn't trust any of them. Eve decided to just stay close to Lune and Ben for now, until she was separated from them by a fight or more allies arrived.
[TOP SECRET]
Library - Decisions, Decisions
"...I guess that'd depend on the kind of weapon," Zelda said with a frown, "I mean, even though I've been training at the Knight Academy for a while I still don't have the best handle on a sword, and I'd imagine most other weapons would require a lot of skill to use effectively."
She sighed again. "In any event, I had made up my mind to just stay here a while ago. But I'd be lying if you weren't making me reconsider things a little."
She gave the people entering the library a brief lookover, but otherwise paid them no attention and once again went back to looking over the pamphlet for the cellphone.
Icon by Civvi the Civilian!
Akuma Shogun
“Roger that, Ben!”
Although there were only 2 kids at this balcony, it doesn’t hurt to be a little paranoid even if they seemed harmless at first glance.
Mary did kill Cole that one time, and these kids might have some kind of secret power like turning objects into explosives that only go off when touched or something even more dangerous. Still, Lune kept an eye on the duo in case they did something real suspicious.
THE SLORG!
Thomas gave a shrug. "Far as I know, everybody got taken on their own; your friends should be back in your world still, so... I would think they're fine" Thomas said, in a hopeful tone. "I don't really know why we're all here" he then added, in a more apologetic tone.
On the dock where Stinkfly landed, there were three figures sitting at the edge along one side; two had pointy elf ears, and the third was a robot that almost resembled a trash can with four small legs. One of the two elf eared fellows noticed Stinkly, Eve, and Lune land, then pointed them out to the other two and quietly said something to them.
"Why don't we try to get somewhere else? Are you hungry?" Thomas suggested to Lucas, looking around. "I was waiting for someone here, but I'm worried now that I picked the wrong balcony" he continued, then spotted Stinkfly on the docks coming towards the balcony. For a moment Thomas looked surprised and reached for something in his cloak, but stopped as he eyed Lune and Eve, calming down slightly.
The small boat Jack had drifted down to had one occupant: A woman laying on her stomach at the back of the boat looking towards the balcony platform with some kind of futuristic binoculars. His voice startled her, making her jump up to one knee and whip her head around to look at him; her right hand went to a pistol holstered at her side, but she did not draw it. "Jee- Get out of here! Ruckus is around! It's not safe!" the woman said to Jack, slightly hissing it as she kept her teeth tightly clenched while saying it, "and you're blowing my cover!"
Meanwhile in the sub, Nails shook his head. "This kind of ritual, they wouldn't be able to just pop it out of thin air. If they're planning to do it here, they'll need to spend some time prepping it; but more likely I'd guess they have it prepped somewhere else already and want to take people there" Nails explained to them. "Going at them piecemeal would just give them a better chance to grab some people and take off before the others could intervene. If we hit them all at once, we have a better chance of overwhelming them" the militia member theorized.
"Guys I think there's something you forgot to take into account" Phil said, easing the sub slowly around the balcony in a wide circle. "There's our bait, right there" he added, pointing out the glass at Stinkfly, Eve, and Lune on the docks.
Just off to the side of their own submarine, the long submarine just under the water started to rise and breach the surface, moving forward at the same time to bring it alongside one of the wooden docks.
Miss Tairee glanced at Seiga with a slight but not complete frown; however she said nothing, partially because there was still like three people talking to her.
"Well if you change your mind, I know of a few weapons that don't take too much skill to use. Or I could make a sword for you" Miss Tairee did say to Zelda.
Whatever response Seiga was presumably expecting from putting her note into the box did not come. A whole lot of nothing came instead.
You are reading this.
I just want to help!
Cole just remained silent as the others talked, apparently still listening to the floor of the sub, closing his eyes for a second. Then he opened them, and his eyes had gone green, just glowing blankly.
"Deeper than we think...deeper, darker, desperate, and down below, worried, watching, waiting, wondering, where is it going to be, where, where where where..."
Another blink, and then he seemed more or less back to normal, tapping on the floor with one finger, tracing little shapes for a moment. "I want to stay here. I don't want them to find me. They aren't seeing yet, but soon they will."
feeling blue
Nails offered some good arguments against his idea, but it turned out Ben, Lune and someone else showed up anyway so the role of bait probably would go to them now. Meanwhile it seemed Cole had detected something else and this time it was a little harder to figure out.
"it sounds like... i think they were expecting more people to show up for this and since there's not too many people around they might be wondering where exactly the gathering will happen," said Sans, trying to think about it and bringing a hand to his chin, "they might be getting desperate now, so maybe we should lay low and wait to see what happens."
It was really difficult to understand the exact message, the "deeper, deeper" part seemed to indicate that there was something hiding down below that could be scaring them, or maybe that they were planning to go a bit lower for some reason. Either way, maybe waiting and seeing what happens would be the best way to approach this.
edited 4th Sep '16 10:34:43 PM by FullMoon
For the Horde!
Stinkfly was using his four eyes to look in all direction as he walked towards the two who were standing on the balcony. He kept one eye on the elves while also walking towards the two people on the balcony. One seemed to be a young kid, a little older than Ben but still fairly young. The other was an older, cloaked teenager who nonetheless the younger teen seemed to be somewhat nervous of. Stinkfly tapped Lune and Eve on the shoulder, gave a bit of a nod to Twilight who seemed to be flying in as well, and gestured in the direction of the elves. He then scuttled over towards Lucas and Thomas.
"Hey, is this guy giving you trouble?" Stinkfly asked Lucas, using two of his eyes to look at Lucas, one to look at Thomas, and the other to keep looking at the elves who were whispering earlier.
I can still hail the Horde even though the company has shamed us. Strength and Honor even if Blizzard has neither.
Jack lifted his hands up slightly, chuckling. "Whoa, take it easy. Didn't mean to startle you."
He hopped down off the ledge, Twinetender over his shoulder. "And yeah, I know. That's why I'm here. Trying to find out who these Ruckus guys are, and stop what they're trying to do. Sounded bad from what I've heard." He crouched down near the woman to look out at the dock, balanced on the balls of his feet, and dropped his voice to a loud whisper. "Find anything yet? Oh, and would you happen to be one of those militia people?"
I just want to help!
"Yes...and no," Cole said softly. "Desperate, wanting, longing for more, but..."
His voice trailed off as he tapped again, before pointing. "Not on the ground, not yet. Going to ground. Someone underneath, watching, not them. They are not there. They are there." He pointed in some direction again, which if anyone could see a surfacing sub, would make it obvious what he was pointing at. "There, all in a row, like...like ducks. Lost little ducks walking in a loop, looking for mother..."
feeling blue
Sans listened to Cole talk and looked at the direction he pointed, which just let to a wall so he decided to go to the front of the sub and try to see if he could spot anything from there and indeed he saw a large submarine beginning to emerge to the surface.
"that's their sub. they got impatient and are going to the surface right now. nobody at the balconies is a member of the ruckus, they're all packed inside that submarine," he stated, trying to make it as clear as he could and making sure everybody else could hear him.
He then thought back to the people on the balconies, Ben was in bug form so contacting him would probably be a little hard, but then he remembered Lune was there and he had her phone number. He could only hope he still had her phone with her and would notice the text he was currently sending.
Akuma Shogun
Just as Lune nodded to Ben and looked at the elves talking about something rather important, her cell phone went off and she silently read the text message. As it turned out, it came from Sans. He wanted Lune to keep an eye on Ben in case he’d do something real stupid. Also, the Ruckus was planning to ambush the group in a submarine.
She quickly sent a text reply, which says
Lune now looked at Stinkfly and hoped the situation didn't go south while she looked away. Then again, plenty of things have gone haywire over the past.
edited 5th Sep '16 12:19:20 AM by josh6243
Curly moved toward the front window as the group on the balcony was pointed out by the militia men. "Well, that solves that debate" she said, then turned to look at Cole as he was muttering cryptically again, then he started pointing and she made sure to get out of the way if needed for Sans to point out the surfacing sub.
"If they're all in that ship, I bet I can do something about their get away once they pop out"
THE SLORG!
"Shit! We're like right on top of them!" Phil said, cutting the sub's engine and letting it slowly drift to a mostly stopped position at an angle behind the long submarine. The hatch on the side pointed out towards the other sub, and he got up from the pilot seat, grabbing his gun as he did, to move over to the hatch and get it opened.
"Should we try to capture them? Because you know..." Nails trailed off, leaving the rest unsaid.
"Until we have that prison, hnng! It'll be a pain in the ass to keep them somewhere safely" Phil stated, straining for a moment to get the hatch seal to open up. "We force them to respawn, that'll scatter, disorganize, and disarm them. Let's not worry about putting them away for good until we have a situation with more control" he continued, then after the hatch was opened up, took cover on one side of doorway.
Nails frowned slightly, but nodded in agreement nonetheless. "Right" Nails muttered, and took up the other side. Both militia members then peeked around cautiously, waiting.
Meanwhile on the small boat, the woman looked at Jack incredulously. "You're trying to stop them? But just what..." the woman trailed off as she noticed Twinetender and seemed to piece together an idea; she may not know about Jack personally, but she knew her archetypes. "Oh great, a magic jester. Exactly what we needed" she muttered sarcastically, turning her attention back to her binoculars but not before adding, "and would you get down!?"
"Yes, I'm with the militia. Who are you though? Part of Ben's heroes? Shouldn't you be over there with him?" the woman told Jack frost, and asked her own question in return.
Over on the balcony, Thomas grimaced a bit and took a step back. "My goodness; no offense, but you've a foul odor to you" Thomas commented, holding one hand over his nose. "I was just trying to help. Do you know him?" the teen then asked in return, sounding a bit confused.
Then there was a loud crashing and breaking of wood as the long submarine drove itself partially into one of the docks before coming to a stop, the noise startling the fishing trio, the small group of bartering people over on another part of the docks, and Thomas; many of those on the nearby boats also looked over, including the woman with Jack. "Shit, I think this is where the party starts" the woman said dryly. The fishing trio even stood up and abandoned their fishing poles, the two elves warily reaching their hands for their pockets.
The hatch on the long sub swung open, but nothing yet came out.
edited 5th Sep '16 5:09:24 AM by FirockFinion
You are reading this.
Happy Box Hater
Lucas was now convinced this guy wasn't from home. He wished he knew more but he felt he could probably trust Thomas now and was about to take him up on his offer for food. But then two people and one frightening bug chimera started approaching them. While Thomas seemed undisturbed, Lucas grabbed his bat and got ready for a possible fight. And when the chimera asked him if Thomas was giving him trouble Lucas responded with shocked silence. He didn't think a chimera like that would be able to talk. But it changed nothing. Most chimeras would be hostile and Lucas wasn't going to automatically assume this was an exception.
When Thomas asked the bug chimera if it knew Lucas it really confused him. What sane person would converse with that thing. Lucas did answer Thomas's question with a definite "NO". But before the situation with the chimera could escalate, something that vaguely reminded him of something in Porky's museum crashed into the dock. Lucas reacted quickly, using a shield α on Thomas. His role in most of his fights was keeping his friends alive after all.
Why is a yam attacking me?
For the Horde!
Stinkfly shook his head. "No, I've never seen him before, he's probably new here." Thomas commented on his odor and Stinkfly smirked. "Well this form is called Stinkfly, so.... yeahhhh..." he admitted, with a chuckle.
"Now don't worry, kid, I'm a hero! Name's Ben Tennyson! I'm here because I'm putting together a hero group, and I heard about—" he started to say, when a loud crash of wood rang out, a submarine crashing into the docks. Stinkfly's four eyes all looked towards the sub, and with a loud buzz he lifted off into the air, hovering in place and readying himself for a confrontation.
"Ah, looks like the party poopers have arrived," Stinkfly muttered, using one eye to quickly look at the girls, Lucas, and the other people on the docks nearby before turning his attention to the sub.
I can still hail the Horde even though the company has shamed us. Strength and Honor even if Blizzard has neither.
"Oh dear, it seems I was right then" Thomas said after Lucas' comment, and let out a slight sigh. "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but you're not in your world anymore. Like everyone else here, you've been brought here to this world: A strange city where things move while you're not looking and every day it all changes" the teen explained, then glanced around and added, "like today, it doesn't even look like a proper city anymore."
The brief shimmer around Lucas caught Thomas' attention from the corner of his eye, and he looked back at the blonde boy. "What was that?" Thomas asked, confused.
Miss Tairee looked at Wander and raised an eyebrow, both at his odd appearance and general behavior. "No, I am not. I just work for him" Miss Tairee answered Wander simply, and then added, "is there something I could help you with?"
From the boat outside, the civilians piled off and slowly ambled into the library at their own pace. A couple went to sit down on a sofa together, while most of the others went upstairs to browse the books. One large, human-like figure with horns on his head hesitantly started to approach the central desks. Dave the troll doctor was still wearing the short sleeve Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and sandals he'd been wearing the day before; alongside him was a human man in t-shirt, jeans, and hiking boots, whom one could now realize was perhaps not just a civilian as he had a pistol holstered at his side.
Nails cringed as Caro vaguely described the scene at the pastry shop. "Geez, I can imagine" Nails muttered sympathetically. After the conversation continued, he blinked and widened his eyes. "You two went up against a Lord of Change? That's..." he trailed off and shook his head, running a hand through his hair, "fucking hell..."
"So uh, should we get on the horn and warn Fastanook?" Phil asked, still driving.
"They're fighting right now, we'd probably just distract him. He'll report in once they're done" Nails pointed out.
"Or they'll all die and lose their walkie talkies" Phil stated in return.
Nails frowned, then glanced up as he saw something through the front window. "There, I think that's Ben. Why don't you slow us down, before we tip off Ruckus" Nails suggested to Phil. With a return nod, Phil did just that. Nails then looked over at the balcony they were getting close to. "It looks like there's not many people on this balcony right now, which is good- just a couple of kids, looks like... I suppose it would be too much to hope that it'd just be empty" he stated, pointing to where Lucas and Thomas were standing.
Outside the submarine, looking around one could see a number of small, personal style sailboats and rowboats around, another small submersible floating on the surface, and a long, thin submarine floating just underneath the surface which was hard to spot except from in the air above.
edited 4th Sep '16 3:10:09 PM by FirockFinion
You are reading this.