As Plague Knight ran, he could feel that victory was at hand! His legs are starting to sore, but it was obvious Garret was in far worse shape. Victory was assured! The knight just had to keep going!
Soon the finish line came into view, there was nothing in the way of either racer. Just as long as nothing appeared out of no where, Plague Knight confident that he was going to win this race......
DAMMIT MARK, STOP HITTING HELPY!!I felt Lewis' hand on my shoulder, and I heard his reassuring words. It was nice to know that he understood... but unfortunately he was wrong. The visions not being real weren't the problem. The problem was me confusing him for one of them. If I hadn't rushed forward so carelessly, if I had allowed Eun to warn me, maybe things would've gone differently. Maybe none of us would've died like that because of me.
I needed to get it off my chest. I needed to say it.
"That's not the problem," I told him wiith a shake of my head. "I couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't; and I hurt others with my actions because of that. The worst part is it didn't stop there, and even now I'm afraid it could happen again. And I... I just wanted to set things straight... and at least make sure you're okay."
Streets - Recomposing and regrouping
As it seemed she had finally gotten to throught to Cole, with him gradually and comfortably leaning against her and sounding a lot better, Caro let out a short sigh in relief and content.
"Yeah, it sure is ... I certainly needed a lot of help my own issues, still do sometimes ... But that's not as much of aproblem when you have people to trust and rely on to do so. I thankfully ended up finding a lot of them and I hope that you have found such in us ... " she then spoke warmly.
As he then leaned in to return her embrace and after a while, spoke of how good doing such felt, feeling her own warm sensation upon it, she then said, "Yeah ... It sure is nice. It can help people when they are down, as well as let them share hapiness and show they care for each other ... "
She let it linger for a while, figuring this sensation was much needed, before slowly and gently letting go of it and getting up.
Glancing briefly at the gathering of people not much away, she then looked back at him and said, "Well, we probably should get back to the others. This place may getting a little too much packed, so maybe we should just go elsewhere soon."
With that said, she would start doing just that, noting as she approached that she didn't recognize most of the new arrivals there gathered.
Reaching back where Sans and Lily were, she did spot someone she recognized and who was currently ... Entangled with a pair of very ... Eeire twins.
"Oh, hey there, Rex. How are you doing?" she said to the teenager, before briefly turning towards his companions and adding, "Uh, hi there ..."
Then finally turning to Sans, she said, "Well, issue solved for now ... So, uh, just what is going on here?"
"Yeah but - I mean - th-this whole thing is - is -" Morty stammered for a few seconds before rolling his eyes and plopping back down on his seat in a mixture of exasperation and resignation. "Okay fine. Eff it. Gimme the, the, marijuana or whatever. I give up."
edited 14th Feb '17 7:25:20 PM by Locoman
Caro reassured him a bit more, and it actually did make him feel a little better. She knew what it was to be confused, to have issues...and having friends and a family helped her. And the hugging was still nice.
That said, she was right. There were other people over there, talking with Sans and Lily, apparently, and they probably needed to go see what was going on. Cole...had to admit he dreaded it a little. Other people might mean things were about to go wrong again. He hoped it wasn't that.
He followed along with Caro as she got up and headed over there, though he didn't say much. He looked at Rex, and the girls with him, who seemed to be sticking close to him. One of them was even hugging his arm. It reminded him a little bit of how Dorian would sometimes do the same with Iron Bull back home, when they didn't know he was around to watch. Of course sometimes that went to other directions, but...well. That wasn't something that was going to happen here, obviously.
Whatever was going on, he figured it couldn't be too important, though he hoped it would go away soon. So instead he just wandered back to Lily, looking up at her and offering a faint smile. "I'm sorry if I worried you, Grandma. I think I'm all right now."
Sans seemed to be having some issues with those girls hanging onto Rex. Apparently they were very naughty earlier. Sans seemed to have the situation under control, so Lily watched him closely. She wanted to make sure that he was actually a good father for Cole, the boy clearly needed one.
That thought was interrupted by Cole showing back up. He apologized for worrying her, assuring her that everything was better. Lily stood up and engulfed the boy in her arms again. "You don't have to keep apologizing, dearie," she told him, "grandma's just glad you're alright."
edited 14th Feb '17 8:02:10 PM by Skooter910
I say that aloud too sometimes, just: "man, no life."For whatever reason, Ara denied that the visions were the issue, only to continue on about what most definitely sounded like something the visions would do. Had they confused her to that level? She didn't seem to realize the contradiction just from saying it aloud.
Yikes, maybe she needed more help than she realized.
"I appreciate the concern," I told her, slowly bringing her into a hug, "but you didn't do anything to cause any harm. None of that was real, and I know you know it. It's nothing to feel guilty about, which means you don't have to apologize for a thing. You understand?"
i guess you can watch me shitpost i guess"A god-thing, huh?" Lo Wang rubbed his chin. His tone was lightly joking, even has his brows furrowed. "Sounds like someone your brother would get along with, huh Hoji." Then he frowned. "But fuck, two more weeks? Who knows what Enra might do in that time."
"He might even figure out a way to get the last piece of the Nobitsura Kage." Hoji said, speaking up from the mask.
"Shit." The man cursed, before looking back at the two men. "Are you sure there isn't a way out of here? I was kind of in the middle of stopping a demon apocalypse."
Stadium
Sylvia wanted Lucas to make a suggestion. Fair enough. He hadn't put much thought into what kind of challenges he might do well in. The most obvious category of challenges would be ones involving the use of a bat, but Lucas wasn't sure if Sylvia would be able to hold one properly due to her hands being different from a human's hands.
After a few moments of pondering, he held out his bat to Sylvia and said "If y-you can't hold this correctly then we should just try other p-people, since all of my ideas r-require being able to use that. Well... aside from the magic p-pudding eating contest, but I d-don't think you want to do that. If you can use a b-bat, then I was thinking of seeing who was more accurate with it... or s-something like that."
Why is a yam attacking me?The obstacle course once again went away once Ben had won, and Thomas and Louie walked over, Louie now at 0 points and Ben at 1. "Yeah, thanks Ben" Louie muttered, sounding a bit more cheered up. Then he looked from Ben to Thomas. "So now we're back down to two... Now what?" the young trainer asked.
"The streets have been kind of empty. I think people might be gathering somewhere... And I've got an idea where, too" Thomas said, then pointed past Ben and Louie to the large stadium, not too far away.
"Oh boy, if I'm not mistaken Adam, I just saw someone come in here with three points" Jeff's voice said over the speakers as Fate and Arf descended into the arena.
"Now the more points someone has, the more there is to gain if you beat them; but you also gotta wonder that maybe they're a bad ass if they've got that many points. So will we be seeing other contestants avoid them, or is it going to paint them as a target?" Adam's voice said in response.
"Well, right now we've got a bit of a lull in the action again. You know back in our casted tournaments, this would've been a good time to segway into mentioning sponsors, but we don't really have any" Jeff's voice mentioned.
"The librarian gave you the stuff for us to do this, so that kind of makes her our sponsor, if you think about it. She doesn't have like a slogan or anything we can work into things though, does she" Adam's voice pointed out.
"I guess what we could say is that if you want a book, there's probably nowhere better to go in the city- but you're gonna have to hold that thought because we have some action happening again!" Jeff's voice announced, some enthusiasm entering his tone as another bright, red light shot up into the air. This time it was at the spot where the militia member with two points was, as he and some elven fellow started a simple 100 meter dash against each other along the running track.
"We've got a man in the militia going up against... I don't know who that is; I don't think it's anyone important. But what matters now is that they're both off and it looks like it could be anyone's game!" Adam's voice added in with similar enthusiasm; much of the crowd had started cheering as well.
"Hey! You!" Silanea tried to yell over the noise, pointing up at Arf. "I challenge you to a contest of destroying some targets at range!" the snake woman continued.
"Don't do it! She doesn't play fair!" the man who had lost to Silanea a minute ago yelled.
"Huh?" Anna-Rose muttered after Rex's denial, looking towards him with a confused expression. Before she could piece things together though, Sans spoke up and with his words her expression fell into shock. She tried to stammer out a response, but it was like someone who just had a concussion trying to walk in a straight line, as she said, "wh-what? No- I mean, yes? I mean, we're just hooking up for a date with Rex here, so-"
"We didn't know it would get that bad!" Anna-Maria cut in, stepping forward. Anna-Rose glanced to her, expression somewhat confused again.
"Maria? What are you doing?" Anna-Rose asked her simply.
"This isn't working, Rose. Just look at Rex; he's trying to shove you off. He probably thinks we're trying to pull a fast one on him; let's just come clean" Anna-Maria responded. Unlike Anna-Rose, she hadn't missed the way Rex was acting and his choice of wording. Anna-Maria then sighed and looked at everyone else there. "Look, we never even hurt anyone, I swear! They had us threaten people with guns a couple times, and there was that time we helped make a bunch of noise by wrecking up that mall, but that was it!... Everything got fucked up on that sand day with the zombies; we both died a few times" she explained to them, hugging her arms to her shoulders and shivering a bit at the memory, her expression a bit sad now.
With pretty much the same expression, Anna-Rose let go of Rex and continued on where Anna-Maria had stopped. "Ever since that day, there's been people angry at us because we used to be in Ruckus. The militia nearly arrested us a couple days ago, but then that big thing at the grocery happened and they left for that instead. And yesterday some angel statue thing killed us- this whole city is really scary now!" Anna-Rose stated, frowning some more.
"So we just thought, maybe we could get somebody powerful on our side" Anna-Maria added in simply.
"B-but, it's not like we were going to skimp out on our half of the deal!" Anna-Rose insisted, looking at Rex again with a pleading expression. "I promise we weren't just trying to trick you!" she told him, then after a moment nervously mumbled, "well, not in that way, anyway..."
"If I knew of a way out of here, I wouldn't still be here" Phillip said to Lo Wang, his tone apologetic, and gave a slight shrug. "From everything we know, your only chance would be appealing to the guy or thing or whatever directly" he added.
"Maybe if you win today's wish you could use that, but the books mentioned certain restrictions, and I wouldn't be surprised if wishing to go home was one of them" Nails added in, his tone likewise apologetic. "Sorry man, there's nothing we can really do about that for you. We could help you try to find the library, if you want to go there" he then suggested.
edited 15th Feb '17 12:12:23 AM by FirockFinion
You are reading this.Ben grinned at Louie. "No prob. It was awesome." When Thomas pointed out the stadium, Ben looked over, raising an eyebrow as he heard what sounded like someone announcing... something off in the distance. "Yeah, that makes sense to me! Let's go check it out, there's bound to be a bunch of people to challenge in there!" he exclaimed, grinning and rushing to go see what all the fuss was about.
Ben entered one of the stadium entrances to see a number of people he recognized (and quite a few he didn't recognize) gathered to partake in a number of different challenges. "Make way, the City Knights are here!" Ben exclaimed excitedly, grinning and looking about. "I wonder who's free to get beat by Ben Tennyson?" he asked, a smirk forming on his face.
I can still hail the Horde even though the company has shamed us. Strength and Honor even if Blizzard has neither.Cole really hadn't been entirely aware of what exactly was going on with the others in the group, more interested in being hugged by a giant blue grandma apparently. But regardless of his continuing difficulties in paying attention without the use of his powers, since the two girls with Rex seemed to be who everyone was paying attention to, he figured he ought to pay attention to them too.
He regretted that decision rather quickly.
Whoever these two women were, it was clear quickly enough from listening to them talk what they were. It wouldn't be hard for Lily to tell that Cole had gone as still as possible, staring at the two with wide eyes and clutching at her a little tighter.
Once they finished talking, seemingly trying to convince others of their better intentions, that they hadn't personally hurt anyone, that they weren't going to trick Rex, the group would hear what almost sounded like a snort, and Cole shook his head.
"...you did hurt someone..." he said, looking right at both of them, frowning. "I remember that day, when there was all the noise, all the sounds carrying on outside. I remember it because while you were doing that, you were distracting my f-f-f...my friends."
He looked a fair bit angrier, though it was clear he was trying to rein it in. "I was with the demon when that happened, because he led me into a trap, and had me brought to him, and had me...had me hurt, tortured, killed, because he knew what would happen...what I would become, what I would do! He told me..."
Cole's voice abruptly changed, and anyone who had heard what OFB sounded like might recognize the voice despite the fact that even Cole's mimicry couldn't even come close to the creature's actual voice. "Do you hear that Compassion? Those fools you call your friends are taking the bait of my distraction. Nobody will be coming to help you in time."
"Your noise was what kept my friends from saving me, from stopping me from being turned into a monster by that demon! And it was nothing but luck that I ended up near them after I died, that I was around people that could fight back before I hurt them!"
He still seemed pretty worked up, rather angry, but then it seemed like something else came to him, a slight twitch behind his eyes, and his expression softened slightly.
"...but I've already confronted someone from the Ruckus who hurt me more directly. And he...he was motivated by fear. This city is frightening. ...and I would be...I would be a hypocrite if I didn't allow someone a chance to atone for their mistakes."
He cast another stern look at the two women. "But that is what you have to do. You can't just pretend it never happened. You can't pretend your sins aren't still there. You have to do something to make things better for people...because a lot of people were frightened on that day. And a lot of people were hurt by your actions, even if you were only a small part of the whole. You can't just try to hide behind someone bigger and more powerful to save you from consequences...that is what happened with the demon, and that is what brought you to a point like this in the first place."
edited 15th Feb '17 6:57:36 AM by ColeMinor
Sans had apparently made the girls confess to something with only a few sentences, that was a good sign for his parenting skills. Lily, having no idea what any 'Ruckus' was, ignored whatever they were confessing to in favor of hugs.
Then Cole went still, which made Lily tense up in preparation to attack or be attacked. Cole, however seemed to be able to handle whatever it was that the girls had done to upset him, she was so proud of him for standing up for himself. Lily cocked her head to the side as his grievances became rather odd. All this talk of 'demons' and being killed, apparently? Lily was starting to figure out that things were different in this not!Jacobstown.
She remembered that odd transition from home to here, did that really happen? Her hallucinations were never so strong as to make a whole city she had never seen before appear as if it was a real place she was in. Cole was certainly real, she'd tried to hug her phantom grandchildren... What were their names?... She'd tried to hug them and felt only air.
If Lily was remembering everything correctly, then that meant even more confusion. She resolved to get some actual answers when everything calmed down. She still had trouble keeping everything straight in her head, it got to the point that she wondered if she would need to take the rest of her dosage to make sense of it all.
edited 15th Feb '17 7:17:39 AM by Skooter910
I say that aloud too sometimes, just: "man, no life."Sylvia took the bat and weighed it carefully in her hands(?). "Well, I haven't used these that much before," she confessed. "But my throwing arm ain't bad! I'll give this accuracy thing a shot."
"Pudding..." Wander said to himself. His attention span already fraying at the edges, he started looking around the stadium and was rewarded with yet another familiar face. "Ben! Hey, Ben!" he called, stretching his hand up as high as he could and waving in his direction.
Currently writing something. Currently procrastinating.Sans listened to the two girls trying to explain themselves, though he was looking rather not impressed by how they were going about it. Cole and Caro soon came back, which resulted in the former giving his own speech on what those two did, in fact, do. While the spirit was talking, Sans decided to look into the twins' souls to confirm some of his doubts regarding how honest they were really being and, somewhat surprisingly, he found out that their LV was at the lowest possible.
"well, i can confirm those two haven't killed anybody. i looked into their souls and they're surprisingly clean," said Sans, closing his now fully updated journal
and standing up, "just a pair of bored girls who had no idea what they were getting into."
"that said, considering that just now you were trying to trick people into being your bodyguards, don't think i'll trust you that easily." He shrugged. "luckily for you, i don't care enough about some vandalism to bother doing something about you. if you two decide to keep causing trouble, well, i could see that you're scared of me in particular, so i'm guessing you know what i'm capable of."
Forrest challenged Rex to a race. More specifically a foot race. One without using anything else than their human legs. So much for it being a cakewalk.
"...yeah, I'm gonna pass. I already took part in two races today and I'm bit tired"
Cole and Caro finished talking on private and joine the group. What was specially odd was that Cole got close to Lily and apologized for something while also calling her 'grandma'. And Lily was apparently okay with this.
"I guess I missed a few things while I was gone"
The girls didn't have much of an argument against Sans' reasoning. The skeleton accused them of using Rex as a shield to not have to face the consequences of their actions and while Rex wasn't particularly afraid of them pulling a fast one on him, he was glad someone was helping him stop them from doing... you know.
The girls explained themselves. They had joined the Ruckus but never actually killed anyone and after OFB's disappearance, things got worse for them. So, they tried to get someone powerful on their side.
"I'm flattered, really, but we haven't known each other long enough to do... that" he said, using air quotes. There were kids present, after all.
Cole chimed in to correct them. While they may not have killed anyone directly, they had helped OFB distract everyone while he tortured Cole.
"Just when I thought I was over the whole thing with Mary. Why does it always come down to her?"
Nonetheless, the spirit was willing to give them a second chance.
"I'm sorry about that, Cole. That was on us. We—I should have figured it out sooner"
Rex was used to forgiving people that had tried to kill him but he was only willing to forgive just that. He wasn't going to let another slip up go unnoticed. And considering Sans confirmed that they hadn't killed anyone by looking into their souls... wait, what?
"Ok, apparently I actually missed a lot. Since when can you do that?"
Anyway, the thing is he was willing to give the girls a second chance.
"Nevermind. Cole's right. You can join us. Make this city less of a dumpster. What do you say?"
Ben turned when he heard someone call his name. He raised an eyebrow. It was Wander, the little orange guy that he had met on the boat on Day 11. He smiled and walked over to the happy little critter.
"Hey Wander," he greeted. "What's up? Did you wanna challenge me?" He pulled his glasses down to examine Wander's point total. Zero. Either he got knocked out or he hadn't signed up. Ben frowned and pulled his glasses back up. "Oh, you don't have any points. Never mind," he muttered, putting his hands on his hips. "So where's your dragon... horse... alien... purple friend?"
edited 15th Feb '17 11:11:03 AM by AllHailThrall
I can still hail the Horde even though the company has shamed us. Strength and Honor even if Blizzard has neither.I didn't cause any harm? It wasn't real?
I really appreciated how much he was doing to make sure I felt better. Not many people hug others they know so little about to make sure they didn't feel bad. But... what he said didn't make sense. I was completely sure that my attacks had hit him. I knew that he'd been killed after that, and that the same had happened to me and Cole too. It just... didn't make sense.
'I doubt he realizes what you are talking about, Ara,' I heard Eun say in my head. 'You should probably tell him exactly what you are apologizing for.'
...maybe Eun was right. Maybe Lewis didn't know what I was talking after all. Maybe I just needed to tell him... but I didn't want to be too blunt. So I tried to word it as best as I could without being too direct.
"...I got you killed."
I tried.
It began to sink in that this was going to take a while. Perhaps a very long while. I began to worry that this might substantially cut into the time I'd need for the challenge, need to save those people, but...I didn't think I could live with myself to drop this, short of saddling her on someone else who was better at this than I was. It wasn't like there was anyone to saddle her onto, either, except maybe the librarian or this girl on the couch who had problems of her own. Would she understand if I excused myself? I didn't want to count on it.
So I persisted. "No, you didn't. Whatever that oversized pigeon planted in your head, it's all lies meant to scare and confuse you, so that you can't fight back while it drains your being away from you. I would know. It's what happened to me. You're not the only one, and you don't have to suffer this alone. Believe me, isolation is a bitch and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. So I'm here for you, Ara, and you've got Eun there in your hair too and..."
Wait.
I confess, where Ara was a meager acquaintance to me, Eun was an outright enigma. But if I had to wager, the two of them would never be found apart, given that from what I'd seen they more or less shared a body. If the kitsune stepped in as it was happening, would that...interfere at all? She'd taken over pretty suddenly the one time I'd seen her in control; I wasn't sure how fast the whole assault was, if only because having your mind saturated with hallucinations isn't good for your sense of time, but if it took long enough for me to make some futile attempt at a counterattack (I'd done that, hadn't I?), then surely it'd be long enough for Eun to meddle, at least a bit...
Was she consumed herself? Had she made an attempt to intervene but fallen short and been zapped away with Ara's still-warm body? Or was all of this...?
"...Ara...? What are you talking about...?"
i guess you can watch me shitpost i guessStadium ~ And There It Is
So much for going unnoticed, Arf commented as she landed, upon hearing the announcers' latest words. At least it shouldn't be too difficult to find you someone to challenge....
Right as she said that, some kind of snake woman slithered over to them and promptly challenged Arf to a target-destroying competition. Case in point.
Except she's challenging you, Fate replied, As much as I don't want you doing all the work, it looks like this one's on you.
You are my master, Fate. I'll do all the work if that's what you wish. However, I think this particular one sounds more like you than me.
"You aren't wasting any time, are you?" Arf replied with a smirk, "Well, I'm sorry to say that sort of ranged challenge just isn't my specialty." Then she motioned to Fate. "My master, however, would be more than happy to oblige you."
Fate nodded in response, before transforming Bardiche into his axe-like device mode.
Icon by Civvi the Civilian!That's really quite something. Power shifts more quickly than some people think, in this City. Seiga didn't have anything to add to this conversation, so she'd just stand awkwardly at the si-
"Seiga...what's a Ruckus?"
Seiga shrugged. "At this point, I'm honestly not sure," she whispered back.
Rex turned me down. He was tired of all the races and wanted to take a break. I don't blame him. Racin' is a pretty tirin' sport, after all.
Still, I must have bad luck as I ain't got anyone who would want to play a game right now. Maybe I need to change up the sport? As I watched Rex chat with the others, I began thinkin' of a sport that didn't tire the person so much.
“Sorry about that. I didn't think clearly for a sec. Maybe we could do one of them go-kart races to the library. You decide the rules this time.”
Stadium
Competition was starting to pick up in the stadium. Lucas was starting to get a bit excited, even more so when Sylvia apparently could use this item designed for five fingered human hands.
Lucas said back to Sylvia "W-Well, I didn't mean that we'd throw the b-bat. I was thinking of who was better at h-hitting moving targets by swinging it. So... I guess the g-game would be... balls would be l-launched at us, each one harder to h-hit than the last... and we need to hit them back w-with the bat. The first to miss three l-loses. Does that sound alright?" In other words, the challenge was who would be better in a batting cage.
Why is a yam attacking me?

Sans just kept listening on what was going on while he kept writing his journal. After listening to the girls talk, he remembered them as being there causing a mess in that one day that started the whole Ruckus mess. Seeing how they had such nervous smiles on their faces, how Rex was clearly trying to avoid them and tone of voice, how one of them clinged to Rex while behind him; it was pretty obvious that they were plotting something.
"are you two really trying to use rex as a shield to avoid facing any consequences for your actions?" He asked them in a neutral tone as he began looking directly at them, "you're not very good liars under pressure, i don't even have a brain and managed to figure that out." He winked at them while keeping a rather smug smile on his face. "i don't really remember you two doing anything in the ruckus other than creating a mess, but that was what you most of you in there for, right? being able to do whatever you want without having to worry about anything, no wonder why that group was so big at first." He rolled his eyes.