"Grandfather, yeah," said Morty as the duo made their way through the tunnels, which seemed to change every time Morty took his eye off a particular passage or stared at a hissing steam pipe a little too closely.

"I-I mean... he's, you know, he's kind of a- he's a dick sometimes, yeah..." Morty tried to explain for the second time that day, feeling more and more as though his already-halfhearted defense of Rick's less savoury traits was growing weaker, "h-he's a dick... Rick- he drinks, and he's a dick - I mean I'm not sure on this but I'm pretty sure because it seems to that being a drunk dick is the only way h-he stays sane. And-but -a-and he's my grandpa, right? You're supposed to love your family, in, uh - even in spite of their flaws."

There was a pause as Morty stepped over what looked like the corpse of some particularly unlucky robot who had been pillaged earlier by some other scavengers.

"Even if they, uh, even if they embarrass you in front of girls, or pass out on the couch, or, or, make you smuggle illegal shit in a spaceport or whatever."

edited 17th Sep '16 6:41:04 PM by Locoman

"Nope!" Wander responded, quite cheerfully, though he had no idea what a muppet was. "Hey, is that a walkie-talkie? Wow, cool!"

Library

So Zelda had been doing research on the Lord of Change once again, as well as checking the phone stuff.

"Yeah, I figure that there wouldn't be much more we could learn about that thing anymore. But hopefully we won't need to worry about that anymore either. We managed to stop them from kidnapping people and Ben was planning on having on us do a raid on them to further impede them," Caro replied.

She went through the process of adding Zelda's number to her contact list, once again doing it so her friend could see it and hopefully get a hang of it.

Twilight pointed out that she had been at battle in the balcony and that she had followed their boat by flying above it. And apparently, things hadn't gone too well for during said fight.

Caro flashed a sheepish smile of her own as she said, "Oh really? Sorry, I didn't notice. There was so much going on out there ... " She looked a bit away for a moment, her expression faltering as she added, " Well, thankfully everything worked out mostly just fine back there ... At least you didn't try to do something that ended up going horribly wrong ... "

Sans' explanation helped her to get at least a bit out of the sudden down mood.

After hearing Zelda's thoughts on the matter, she nodded and said, "Well, I suppose there isn't really a problem ... Don't get me wrong, that stuff is great to add to certain types of food in order to add a little more flavor. It's just that I would have thought at it would be a little too thick and strong to just drink directly like that, is all ... "

Then Sans did some really freaky stuff with the ketchup, covering parts of his skull with it, seemingly to make it look like as though he was bleeding. He also did that ominous voice he had used to prank her with when they had first met. Honestly, given that particular event, she should have expected something like this soon enough.

In response to the whole thing, her eyes still ended up widening in shock and she let out a little gasp. Beyond that, she did her best to control any further reactions. She certainly didn't need Sans having additional ammo for future teasings, specially after what he had declared during the talk about him calling her his sister.

Instead, she shook her a bit, as if exasperatedly and commented, "Oh, Sans ... What are we going to do with you?" She then glance at the direction from which he had came from as he got back from picking up hid food, before adding "I think I will go grab something to eat too. I'm kinda hungry and thirsty after everything that happened ... Plus, if I am to go out again soon like Ben wants too, I will need to regain some energy. So, I'm going to be right back."

With that said, she quickly went over to the corner where the supermarket bags were stashec and looked through them. She ended up picking out a box of apple juice and one of those sword shaped sandwiches.

She then made her way back to the group. While watching out for anything significant happening there, she inserted the straw into the hole on the top of the box and took a sip from it. She then went to take a bite from the sandwich, but froze in place before she actually could. She just couldn't help thinking about the unpleasant experience of finding out just what went into another seemingly innocent food.

She turned Sans and with a bit of a concern look, asked, "Um, Sans ... Are you really sure that here isn't any kind of meat in this?"

Lune smiled back at Lucas and sat at the table. Lucas proceeded to ask if the people at this table knew everyone here. Lune replied, “Sort of… People come by the library, and eventually, we strike up a conversation with them. Sometimes, we relate with their plight and a friendship often forms as a result.”

Lune curiously picked up a packet of tea labeled “Health Drink”. Really? Who’s the genius behind this flavor?! If this is like Kusuha's drink, there was bond to be lots of hurt in the future.

After making a cup, Lune took a sip and clutched her stomach in pain. In a few moments, she felt better than usual and continued to drink the tea. She noted, “Hmm… This is watered down.”

Library

Zelda frowned when Caro mentioned going after the Ruckus again.

"Considering what I was planning on doing earlier, I'm tempted to offer to help you with that," she said, "But my new equipment can only make up for so much, and I'm not sure Ben's the best person to be leading something like that." She was silent for a moment or two afterwards. "In any event, I hope it goes better for you than the fight at the balconies did."

She mostly said that because whatever happened at the balconies, it appeared to be bothering Caro even more than she was letting on. One part of her wanted to ask for more details and offer what comfort she could, but now didn't seem like a good time. It hadn't been that long after the fact, anyway. She instead opted to follow Caro's lead in finding her contacts on her phone.

She might had asked for her friend's phone number at that point if it weren't for Sans's little demonstration. As it was, that was enough to get her attention for a little bit. She hardly seemed frightened at all; instead, her expression could probably best be described as "grossed out." After a few moments, she just shook her head and sighed.

"...I don't get your sense of humor, Sans," she said simply, "Also, doesn't it feel strange to pour that into your eyes?"

Afterwards, she looked over her phone again until Caro returned with her food.

"I had one myself for breakfast," she replied when Caro asked about the sandwich, "Unfortunately I can't remember the exact taste, but I don't think meat was among it. However, I do remember feeling a little stronger after eating it if that means anything."

Sans chuckled a little bit, mostly because of Caro's reaction although Zelda's grossed out expression was nice too. It was a little impressive how Zelda just seemed completely unfazed by it otherwise, he wondered just how well she could deal with scary situations. His smile went back to it's usual jovial form and the light in his eyes soon came back as well.

"heheh, your faces just now were great. don't think you can hide how spooked you got, sis, i could see you holding yourself back" he said, looking at Caro and winking; then at Zelda, "nope, it doesn't bother me at all."

Caro then got some food for herself and asked about whether there was any meat in the sandwiches, Zelda answered for him but she also mentioned something he figured he might as well elaborate on.

"yea, there's no meat in those, you can go ahead and eat." He shrugged. "those sandwiches are special in that they give you a little boost of power when you eat them, not that it matters much for me since that just makes me go from a wimp to slightly less wimpy. the effects seem a lot weaker in these ones as well for some reason."

edited 17th Sep '16 10:16:47 PM by FullMoon

Eve|Library

What she had said had seriously affected Ben. He wasn't wrong about the City, though. It seemed as though it was just some kind of gladiator game for whomever had taken them there. Wherever Ben had come from, it was clearly lighter than her world, with a ten-year old kid being a hero without a background like hers or Train's.

"What works in your world will not necessarily work here. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try."

Maybe she should tell him. But then she wouldn't be Eve anymore. She would just be a murderer. But...no. She shouldn't tell him. Maybe later.

"Where I'm from...I'm a sweeper. A bounty hunter. I and my partners catch criminals for a living. There is a rule that if you kill anyone, even the criminal themselves, while catching them, the bounty gets halved. This rule is only disregard-able when facing the highest caste of criminals. These people are mass murderers, genocidal maniacs."

She stopped, wondering if she should continue with that line of thought. Wondering if she should tell him about Creed.

Sophie first heard, then spotted the cloaked young man reaching the fifth floor landing. She walked over to him, pointing in the general direction where Ben and Eve were, before shaking her head. "He's over there, but he's talking to someone. I don't think we should disturb them right now."

Ben looked up at her, listening to her explanation. "It's simple then," Ben told her. "Just don't kill people and you're good. No one has to die. Even if you're doing it for money, you're bringing bad guys to justice," he muttered. He noticed the hesitation in her voice.

"....Eve, you didn't start killing people, did you?" he asked, his voice wavering a little more.

Eve|Library

She paused.

"No. I didn't kill people while I was a sweeper."

In fact, it was what had made her stop.

Anyway.

"A couple of months before i was brought here, there was this man. His name was Creed.Creed Diskenth. He was planning to take over the world. Incredibly cliché, but he had the power to do it. He had the force, the followers and the mindset."

A beat.

"He was completely and utterly insane."

By now, Ben would've noticed that Eve wasn't really talking to him any more, but instead appeared to be staring off into space.

"He was insanely wealthy. He spent billions of dollars to create an immortality nanomachine, something which could keep him young and healthy forever."

There she stopped, as if she didn't want to continue but knew she should anyway.

edited 17th Sep '16 11:38:34 PM by secretlyasuperhero

Ben looked at her with a powerful look in his eyes. "You did it, didn't you?" he asked her. "You killed him...?" Ben asked, not sure what to think if it were true. She had just said it was the last resort, something they would only do if the time needed it. Yet why did he hurt so much now? He wasn't even sure if she did go through with it.

Even if it did, it sounded like a man like Creed was irredeemable. He looked at her with some pain regardless.

Eve|Library

"No."

This was definite, certain, almost angry, but not quite.

"He's still alive. I destroyed the nanomachines that prevented him from dying, but he's still alive. I wasn't even the one that fought him. That was Train."

If she had fought him, she wouldn't have been able to beat him.

"He invested so much money into nanomachine research, financing a man known as Torneo, a international arms dealer."

Her guardian. Her trainer.

Ben winced. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I didn't mean to accuse you. But I don't understand," he told her. "I don't know what you were getting at. I don't know what your world is like..." he murmured.

Now he felt hurt that he had basically accused her of killing when she did no such thing. Especially after she had just been so torn up about killing the people on the sub.

"Eve... I didn't mean to...." he muttered, the tears coming back stronger.

Eve| Library

Now Ben was crying. She hadn't meant to sound so angry, but Creed remained a sore spot for her.

"Ben, hear me out."

Her tone was gentle.

"My world is like any other. Good people and bad people, and people who blur the line. There are festivals and dances, but criminals and murders too."

A beat.

"But I'm not finished."

"Your boss, huh..." Curly said thoughtfully as she looked at the plaques "He's a fan of fighting then? Hm"

She shrugged "Well that explains a lot, a prison might be handy for keeping those Ruckus guys from constantly terrorizing everyone. Though I was wondering if you'd mind helping me find a book or something about what happened to my world after I ended up here? And maybe one of those phones I heard someone talking about?"

edited 18th Sep '16 1:01:11 AM by BlitzTrain

"But, there's no need to tie you up or hit you when you're cooperating. Now, if things were a bit different I might tie your hands or get some handcuffs, but after you helped us find the Ruckus guys and Fred again, that'd be a pretty crummy reward" Nails said, keeping his gaze ahead as he piloted the sub.

"In my universe we have something we call 'common courtesy'. It basically means you shouldn't be rude to someone when there's no good reason to be; sounds like it doesn't exist in your universe" Nails continued, thinking for a moment. "Though that does tell me something that Phil must've been right about" the militia man added, and did finally give a brief glance back at Cole, "you must be weird, even where you come from. Some weird mind reading kid, I mean, I could get being worried about you if I had something to hide, but regular, decent folk shouldn't have anything to fear from you... I think."

Nails focused back on his driving then. "There's only one thing I can think of that I wouldn't want people to know about myself; but heck, you're from another universe anyway, so even if you knew and blathered it around, it's not like it'll matter once I'm back home" Nails thought out loud, and gave a shrug. There was a brief silence, then he perked up a bit, and grabbed his walkie talkie. "Hey, Nails here again. You mentioned there's a big boardwalk type thing with multiple buildings on it right above HQ, right?" the militia man asked into the militia's channel.

"Yessir there is" a man's voice replied.

"I think I see it right now. Big square building with a teal roof on one end?" Nails relayed; indeed, up ahead of the sub was a large boardwalk floating there with buildings lining either side, and a large, square building with a teal colored roof.

"That would be the one, yeah" the voice on the channel responded.

"Alright! So now we just gotta find a tunnel access here and we're pretty much right at HQ!" Nails exclaimed enthusiastically.

Thomas stopped at the top of the stairs and looked at Sophie, taking a moment to catch his breath before speaking. "But, there's something important Ben should know about!" Thomas said, and shook his head. "Some people downstairs are talking about a way we could contact our families back home!" the young wizard added, holding one arm out and pointing downwards.

Meanwhile downstairs, Miss Tairee gave a shrug. "Not specifically, no. He's a fan of good stories, and climactic battles make for easy, dramatic stakes" Miss Tairee explained to Curly. "As for a book about your universe... I can get you one, but you may not like what you find in it. It would be of an alternate timeline of sorts, one where... You never go back" the librarian added, then looked at Curly for a couple moments and blinked.

"... Even with those, you still need a phone anyway?" Miss Tairee asked, raising an eyebrow and motioning briefly at Curly's headphone like not!ears.

edited 18th Sep '16 2:37:36 AM by FirockFinion

Gon, trying to register what was happening with Rick and Morty. He needs to eat kimchi really, really soon. No, that wasn't a joke aimed at him.

Gon was tempted to ask Rick and Morty aside on how they were able to maintain such a relationship, despite the scientist's... well... he didn't know how to describe it except he seems to be a bit more weird than any scientist that he knows by name.

He sighed and looked at the robot and kicked it a bit. He wondered if anything can be salvaged from it.

Library

"My point exactly," Garrett answered to Rex. "You already died once here, and all it did was to get on your nerves. That's all this city's threats and any 'challenges' can do... annoy us. There's no real point in sparing ourselves this hardship, if it's to be at the cost of our home worlds' well-being.

"And damn straight that I'm not the only one who has important business back home. It makes it even more important we secure the ability to send messages home, for everyone."

He took a look at the book in his hand. "You got a point about the believability of this book. But what reason would the guy have to convince me of something like this? And somehow, despite being a kidnapper who treats us as playthings, he just doesn't strike me as the kind of a person who would directly lie to our faces... this kind of person prefers ambiguous half-truths and the like.

"Granted, you might have a point about the consequences of losing the challenge... but then again, I assume he'll be sporting enough to inform us of them in advance. If we don't try, we gain nothing."

edited 18th Sep '16 6:10:04 AM by Korodzik

Ben sniffled, managing to compose himself slightly. "Okay," he muttered, in between sniffles. "I-I'm fine. Please... please continue," he told he, looking over at her intently as he waited for her to continue her story.

He felt so weird opening up to this girl. He usually tried to look like an infallible hero, especially to a pretty girl like Eve.

Pretty girl? No, just a girl. No, not just a girl, a very nice and sweet girl. As that thought came to mind, he looked back down so she couldn't see that he was blushing ever so slightly.

"If that's the case, I hope he doesn't find stories where the villains lose to be too boring" Curly said giving half a chuckle before taking on a more serious tone "Anyway, I think I overheard that part... But I didn't have a home to go back to even if I did survive, and I think I owe it to my friends to at least see if they made it off that island in one piece even if your boss stopped me from finishing my mission"

She paused, partially to reconsider if she was really ready to find out what happened if her partner had failed without her, then blinked as Miss Tairee pointed out her "headphones" "Heh, fair enough" She gave a little smirk at that, "Well, I haven't found the frequency to call phones yet, but I thought it might help that kid if he had a way to contact people" She said, gesturing over to Lucas "Seemed like being attacked by the Ruckus right after arriving shook him up a bit"

edited 18th Sep '16 8:52:22 AM by BlitzTrain

"Wwwwweird. Yes, that is what my friend Sera calls me. And other words. 'Freak' and 'creepy'. And 'it'. I don't like 'it' very much. But some of my friends call me that because I am not like them, or like anyone else. I guess I am...weird. Even in this place. People all have such clear definitions for themselves...I've...never quite fit in any of the slots that other people do."

He shrugged slightly, apparently not all that concerned about any of this, looking up when the voices on the walkie-talkie confirmed with Nails that they seemed to be close to the militia headquarters. Only when Nails said that they were practically there did a note of fear creep back into Cole's voice, as he hunkered down rather defensively.

"L-Lieutenant Wells s-seemed very good w-when I spoke with him...r-r-reasonable? ...h-he won't let anyone th-that wants to hurt me...d-d-do that without...without a g-good reason? Th-they won't...they won't...h-hurt me like T-Templars?"

Karkat - On a Boat - On a Scale of Yes to No, Yes

Karkat waved John's deal of propelling the boat for food off as a way of saying yes. Then he asked if the chances of getting eaten by a tentacle monster were likely, and...he wasn't so sure about that. I DON'T FUCKING KNOW! AND BESIDES, IF WE DIE, WE'LL JUST END UP BACK HERE ANYWAY. NO HARM DONE. UNLESS BEING DIGESTED BY A GREAT AND MIGHTY UNDERWATER BEAST OF COMICALLY GIGANTIC PROPORTIONS IS A SLOW AND TORTUROUS PROCESS THAT WILL MOST LIKELY TAKE UP THE ENTIRE DAY SLOWLY MELTING OUR FLESH OFF, IN WHICH CASE, WE'RE PROBABLY GONNA GET MIND RAPED BY HOW DISGUSTINGLY HORRIFYING THAT IS.

Mirai assured Rex that she could probably deal with whatever the challenges were. If that wasn't enough, he could always rely on Rex, who had already faced a lot of them.

"No offense but you don't strike me as the fighting kind. I mean, you said you were a warrior but what exactly can you do?"

As much as Garrett hated the way he treated them, the author didn't seem like a straight-up liar to him so he felt that what was written on the book was true. Why would he gain by making them accept the deal, anyway?

"I don't know, to make you dig your own grave? That's the kind of drama he lives for"

Rex felt exhausted—both physically and mentally—and didn't want to argue with Garrett anymore but maybe he could gain a bit more information from Tairee to figure out which one was the best option.

"Look, I had a long day and I really need to eat something. But I'll see what Tairee knows. Go ask the rest what they think about it, if you want"

Rex walked to the librarian's desk. He felt a bit vulnerable because he didn't want to give her (and, by extension, her boss) a clue of what he had in mind. Still, not asking about those details could bite him in the ass if he actually went through with his plan so he wanted to be on the safe side.

"So, Tairee, I have a few questions about how the policy about not interrupting other people in the library works. Would it apply to anyone like, say, Marcus?"

Eve| Library

She had hurt Ben. He was looking down to hide his tears, or so Eve tnought. It was strange. She hadn't wanted to tell anybody this, but now she was talking to somebody about it, it was easier.

"Torneo recruited Dr Tearju Lunatique, an expert in the field of nanotech."

Her progenitor. Her mother.

"She, and a team of scientists, worked to create a human bioweapon, the ultimate soldier."

Eve. Sometimes she wondered what the other scientists had thought about her. If she was just a project to them, or something else.

"Capable of adapting to any situation through the use of nanomachines. Then Torneo took over its training."

Ocean - eww!

John grimaced for a bit. "yeah, i don't think i want to picture that in my head. noted."

He speeds up the boat further, at the point of spraying water to the sides. "say, karkat... isn't there a way out of here? wait, no, then this place would be empty by the time i got here. did you just fade out of consciousness too? is that a thing in this place?"