Sunset Shimmer | Going Down | "But if ya don't eat, you'll never eat apples!"

Sunset blinked. "You don't eat food? But if you don't eat food, you'll die." His explanation made a little more sense, but most of her friends agreed on the same thing; food was great. "Well, let's try and find you some more food you'll like!"

edited 12th Sep '17 8:25:42 PM by secretlyasuperhero

"All right, one down!" Curly said as turn played out, a bit differently than predicted but overall, not bad. For now at least.

"Better than using my Spur against a dodge." Curly replied to Sans before addressing Tester "I'd like to observe the Fighter again, and charge and melee Blade on the Sorceress. Let's see if these rolls won't make King proud"

Unfortunately, it seemed like some people weren't feeling too hot about their contributions. Lewis wasn't much of a surprise, but he seemed to be perking up a bit. The blue girl... Two? Wasn't as surprising if that insanity thing that was mentioned on her sheet wasn't just a game mechanic... Actually, that sounded a little troubling if it was based on anything in the real world. At least the pink one was sorta cheerful about her declaration of uselessness so far.

"Caboose is right, sort of. Bad luck happens in this kind of battle. We're just trying to stack things in our favor as much as possible, don't worry how you're doing so far." Honestly, the blue armored man seemed to be almost too cheerful for the situation. But, it was almost refreshing compared to arguing and angst "Honestly all our battles have been pretty experimental so far, don't worry about it. It'll work out"

"I don't know...food all feels the same going down...I'm just...it's just...weird feeling, when you feel things moving inside of you..."

Cole fell silent after that, making his way down the stairs and wandering along the lobby, out the door, blinking a little at the dimming light of the encroaching "evening". "I guess we were in there longer than I...oh. The city brought the buffet to us. That is nice of it."

Sure enough, as he scampered just across the street and down one building, there was a large building, with one of the doors still currently propped open by a dining chair, with the smells of all sorts of different kinds of foods wafting out through it. "The city doesn't always bring you to where you want to go right away, so when it does, it is good to be happy about it."

Sunset Shimmer| To Buffet| "...you should always be kind..."

Sunset blinked. It was Sun- Twi- dusk already. She hadn't realised time had gone so quickly. "... food normally doesn't move on the way down. Unless you happen to be near Discord, apparently." She looked at the building in front of her. She vaguely recognised it. Perhaps she had seen it before? She had read about the City shifting, and she was getting hungry, so Cole had a point. "Thank you City!" she yelled into the sky.

It made her feel better.

To Prison

Makoto wasn't really sure if she trusted Garrett to not be up to something when he requested to be put down on the ground, but she didn't want to get left behind on the way to the jail either. She'd just have to hope he didn't sabotage the challenge while no one was looking.

"You fought someone who used...insects before?" Seeing what his watch could do, it wouldn't be surprising if that really did happen to Ben, but thinking about it was creepy enough. "Well I don't think this is a fighting challenge like yesterday, at least." She hopped onto the ground and silently commanded Anat to change forms again. If they were walking, she could keep up better with her bike. "I'd say lead the way, but I guess that's not really possible if everything is randomized," Makoto said, before driving on. She was careful not to accidentally run over any ants along the way.

Cole managed to push his way into the buffet with a bit of effort, looking around again, then walking over to the buffet stand, raising his hat to let Sunset step out and onto the bar if she wanted to. "This is where Arcade and I were earlier. He tried something, and I tried...something, but I didn't like it much. I don't know what most of this even is. We never had food like this back in Thedas."

He stood on his tiptoes, peering at the various dishes, frowning as though scrutinizing them heavily.

Sunset Shimmer | Buffet| "WOAH!"

"Woah," Sunset said quietly, looking around at the food available. An unfamiliar smell came to her nose and she realised with distaste that it was meat. For all that some humans ate it, Sunset found herself unable too, which she presumed was a carry-on from her time in Equestria. Still, there was so much other food. She looked around for things she recognised, and pointed at a bowl of apples sitting on a bench nearby. "How about we start over there? I'm not really a meat eater," she admitted, rubbing her hand behind her head sheepishly.

"Not if he charges when I do maybe. If nothing else maybe I can troll him into wasting a turn."

I rolled my eyes at Rex's shenanigans, while making a mental note that the Halo-looking guy sounded several Scovilles short of a Naga Viper (confirmed by reviewing the sheets). "Yeah, put the main healer right in the line of fire. No way that could go wrong."

Then again, there was a reason I had Arcade stick with Rick. "Though, he could just get out of the way, couldn't he? Is it worth two fewer people on the offensive, though, considering her mechanics...You sure she shouldn't go for more healing, dude? If you let the check get too high it's gonna be hard for her to do what you want." I gave sans a side glance.

"Oh, apples. I know how those work." Cole wandered his way along the buffet towards them, reaching out to get one, then drawing his knife from his belt, slicing it up perhaps a bit more expertly than a three-year-old should be able to. "I don't like meat either. I could always feel the death on it when I touched it. Hear the boards and nugs not wanting to die as they were slaughtered. Even if I had needed to eat before I wouldn't have eaten that. I don't want to have death moving inside me."

Sunset Shimmer | Buffet | "...oh, I don't think I could ever eat meat. I can’t do that to my animal friends..."

When Cole started to talk about why he didn't eat meat, Sunset winced. She couldn't imagine what that must’ve felt like for him. He was (slightly alarmingly) slicing up the apple with a prescision that would make Applejack proud. She hadn't ever touched a dying person, but she didn’t ever want to. "I think I understand....pass me some of that apple?" Sunset asked, in a totally not transparent attempt to change the subject.

"Oh you can have as much of it as you want." Cole carefully slid the apple slices over to her, looking around before wandering over to get a chair and drag it over, hopping up on it to sit down near her, looking at the other things around the area of the buffet they were at. "...I don't...I don't...really want anything but..." He sighed softly. "I know I have to..."

He still looked almost comically morose about it though, surveying the selection of food as though he were being asked to choose his method of torture.

Sunset Shimmer| Buffet| "This isa' good apple, but not as good as tha ones from home, of course."

Sunset clambered out of the hat onto the bench, grabbed the apple pieces and began to eat, as if they were a particularly large melon slice. "Try some apple. It's pretty good, even if I can never tell Applejack that. And you do have to eat. Maybe I could introduce you to foods from Equestria. Everypony there is a vegetarian."

Two, Renewed Sense Of Usefulness, Mindscape

Everybody poured in the encouragement. It was a strange feeling for Two; normally it was just Cent. At the same time, she never felt quite as down as this before. Though she might have met all these people merely moments ago, they were all right; from Caboose's strange explanation to Yuna's cheerful reassurance... Sans even brought up an embarrassing story of Rex to make her chin up.

The bluenette's fists tightened some more for a moment before she straightened out and took a deep breath, then slapped herself with both hands a few times. "Sorry, sorry. I think I'm just losing it from the nerves..." She managed a smile once she was done with that exercise. "Thank you. Um... I know I'm being a handful to all of you right now, b-but... thanks for putting up with me. And for making me feel better. Again." She beamed at Yuna and Caboose.

"Okay! I will charge the Cleric then!" She nodded resolutely, eyes focused back on her target. If she whiffed and were forced to attack the Fighter, odds were that she would at least be able to chip some hit points off him.

Thomas nodded, then flew upwards and off in the direction the floran went. As Ben and the others left to go find the prison, that left Garrett to inspect the lots and the ants.

The lots were, as described before, pretty much just empty concrete, save for the piles of blocks next to them. The block piles were looking a bit torched and smoking, until some blurring happened, and they seemed back to how they were before.

As for the ants, they seemed to be moving around randomly, like ants. Though unlike normal ants, they kept navigating around and avoiding people. As Garrett got closer, a few wandered up to his feet to wave their antenna at him for a bit, but then wandered back off again.

"You here for the challenge?" a man asked from somewhere near Garrett, sounding small and quiet even at the master thief's current scale.

"Alright, the turns are processed. We begin with as always with defensive actions and free actions" Tester announced to the party. The Sorceress and the Rogue both braced themselves for incoming attacks.

"We move on to special actions" Tester went on.

Rick and Arcade both had an arm point towards Two on their own, and had that orb of light reappear in said hand. Then the orbs shot out a beam of light towards Two, converging on her and closing up some of her wounds.

The Cleric's hands glowed more brightly for a moment, then light seemed to descend down from above on the four remaining Guilts.

"There is once again no normal melee attacks, so we move on to ranged attacks" Tester continued.

Caboose's gun appeared in his arms, and his body moved on its own to once again fire away on the Rogue. The Rogue shifted his stance towards Caboose, using the buckler to block one shot as another went too high and missed; but one of the shots hit the Rogue in the chest, getting him to flinch.

"Alright, we now move to charge attacks" Tester mentioned.

Two charged forward at the Cleric, sweeping her sword around in a horizontal, actually somewhat amateur swing. But when the Cleric brought his mace down to try to block it, Two's sword cleaved right through the mace and the Cleric alike. Like the Ranger, the Cleric wailed out unnaturally, his red eyes extinguishing, then his body dissipating, then the wail trailing off a second or two after his body was already gone.

With Rex's target gone, his body still moved on its own over to where Two and Yuna were, but made no attack.

Lewis zoomed forward towards the Sorceress, gliding over the ground and swinging a punch towards the woman. Buck with a quick duck and weave, the Sorceress dodged the swing.

Curly's sword appeared in her hand, and she charged towards the Sorceress, coming in from her flanking angle. The Sorceress turned and tried to dodge at the last moment, but it proved just a little too late and Curly got a solid slash right across the Sorceress' stomach.

"We conclude the turn with movement actions" Tester concluded, though his screen showed one more bit of info again:

Sans body moved on its own to casually walk a bit away from where Lewis had left him alone with the Rogue. The Fighter then moved over to where the Sorceress, Lewis, and Curly were.

The Rogue looked back towards the Sorceress and the Fighter, one glowing red eye a little wider than the other. The Sorceress just shook her head, and the Fighter turned his attention from the Sorceress towards the Rogue, and pointed his sword at Sans. The Rogue turned back towards Sans and readied his dagger, while bracing his legs to charge.

The Fighter then banged his sword against his shield a couple times, before stepping himself closer to the Sorceress. The Sorceress raised her staff up into the air, with the orb at the end glowing again.

edited 13th Sep '17 5:11:23 AM by FirockFinion

Mindscape

This was pretty fun! Caboose was starting to wish that Simmons hadn't been shut down by everyone when he had suggested playing a game like this. As disappointing as his failure to finish off the rogue was, Caboose was sure next time he'd do the job. And afterwards they could both sit down and drink hot chocolate while talking about that time he killed him.

"See, you got him!" Caboose said to Two excitedly. "I knew the dice would be in a good mood! Now we just need to do it to the other ones."

Finally, he turned to the rogue and said with a voice that suggested a big smile on his face and no malice whatsoever "OK, I'm doing it again. Hope you're ready." He sounded sincere, and that was probably the terrifying part.

Things were going very well, the Sorceress was almost dead and so was the Rogue. Caboose could probably finish off the latter on his own and the Sorceress was about to put her barrier back up so...

"tester, i want to forcefully pull the sorceress away from the fighter with telekinesis in a way that puts her in range of everybody and also do a perception check on the fighter," he said, then beginning to raise his voice a little, "everybody except caboose, dogpile the sorceress. lewis charge and punch her; rick and arcade shoot at her, yuna try to use the gauntlet and curly, rex and two charge and try slashing her. she's gonna put up a barrier again and that one has +10 defense. the fighter is gonna have +20 defense this turn so attack him is not worth it."

He then began addressing Two in particular.

"see, told you just to trust me." He let out a chuckle. "you might end up attacking rex or yuna in this turn, but don't worry about it 'k? at worst you might take yuna out of her hero mode."

edited 13th Sep '17 2:29:19 PM by FullMoon

"I'm not an everpony," he said, a little matter-of-factly, before reluctantly reaching out for an apple slice, sighing with somewhat exaggerated dramatics as he took a bite and chewed, wrinkling his nose. "I never have seen a pony. We had horses in the stables, and cattle, and dracolisks, sometimes. The halla were my favorite. They were very loud but very kind."

Cole let out another little sigh as he swallowed his bite of apple, looking a little bit down for a moment. "I...I am going to miss the halla. And...and the stable, and...Skyhold. It was almost like a home for a while."

"I'll shoot at her," Arcade repeated.

edited 13th Sep '17 7:35:27 AM by Skooter910

Gon, still there

Gon spotted Garrett. It was good to see a familiar face. He carefully walked around the ants, avoiding them completely when he approached him.

"Never mind."

The turn proper started without me getting a reply, and the cleric actually did die. And I didn't even land that hit, but at least everything else worked.

I sighed.

"'Kay," I muttered, still facing the sorceress who we were all dogpiling now apparently.

"You did it!" Yuna exclaimed with great enthusiasm when she saw Two defeat the Cleric where she'd failed so thoroughly. "See? I told you you'd help out a lot! I didn't expect you to beat it in one hit, but that's even more amazing!"

With the arrival of the new turn, came new orders from Sans. Their in particular were "go after the sorceress all at once... except Caboose". And also... there seemed to be a chance of Two turning to hurt either her or Rex... well that wasn't good, but it didn't have to be as bad as it sounded.

"Okay!" she exclaimed in response to the tactician skeleton, but before she got into position, she turned her attention towards t blue-haired woman next to her. "Hey, Two? Don't think too much about it. I'm sure everything's gonna go well, okay? And if it doesn't, then we'll make it better. I promise."

Two, o: , Mindscape

She nodded to herself when she managed to pass the check. The soothing feeling of her hit points returning to her by means other than her innate regeneration was also nice.

She charged forward when her turn came. For a moment it seemed that the Cleric would escape death, but then her blade went right through his guard - and through him, too. When Rex showed up, she couldn't help but beam at him. "I did it!" Then she beamed at Caboose, then at Yuna. "I did it! Ah, I'd hug you if I could!"

Sans' comment brought her back from her high though. "Ah... w-well, if you say so, Mr. Sans." She didn't sound like she liked the idea of hitting them in the first place, but if the skeleton planner said that she won't be killing them, that was somewhat reassuring. Then, however, Yuna came with another reassurance.

"Thank you." The bluenette smiled earnestly at the magical girl. "Please, remind me to cook you - all of you - the best dish you can think of as thanks." Then, Two took a deep breath and rolled her shoulders. "I will be charging the Sorceress, then."

edited 13th Sep '17 2:02:25 PM by FergardStratoavis

Sunset Shimmer| Buffet| "FOOD GLORIOUS FOOOOOOOOOOD"

Sunset took another bite of the apple. "Well of course not, you're a human," she replied, noticing how Cole didn't like the taste of the apple. Apparently he had never seen a pony. "Remind me to introduce you to Princess Twilight and her friends sometime. What's a halla?" Sunset asked curiously. She looked at the saddened Cole, still angry at his treatment, and smiled. "You'll find a home, Cole. Everybody has one somewhere."

edited 13th Sep '17 2:13:36 PM by secretlyasuperhero

Mindscape

Figuring out how to occupy his time during the brief periods between turns was stretching the limits of Caboose's creativity. He had already drawn a pretty childish drawing of himself in the dirt where he stood using his fingers last turn. Seeing as he hadn't moved from that spot, he sat back down and added on more to the drawing.

"Yeah OK," he said to Two. "I'll eat anything! Plants, stew, gasoline, rations, Griff's stuff, anything!"

The drawing was starting to take form. He added a sketch of a smaller version of himself, meant to be Church, hovering over his shoulder, before starting to work on a similarly childish Two and Yuna.

At the mention of food, Arcade perked up. Unless someone was paying very close attention to the before and after, he looked exactly the same as before.

Once again he struggled to speak, stuttering and barely audible enough to be heard by the others. "I... I-I don't... I don't know much... that's actually... good," he called.