Dio Brando, Yoshida Batting Centre
That put the fire in him, of course. I'd say it pained me to extinguish them, but in all honestly he looked as though he were about to start drooling. Something about his teeth.
"I am," I said, "but I'm afraid I had someone else in mind. You shouldn't take offence."
If you are reading this, I can assume that either you are interested or you have no other option, and so will not digress; I'd put some thought into my selection. Majima thought he was to fight me, of course, and of course he was wrong. I'd lost altogether too much blood. Likely I could still have prospered, but not in any way he'd have found entertaining - too crushing a loss or too simple a victory, and his disappointment would set us back to square one. Besides. Between the Soviet base and our grand robbery, I'd sated that urge quite thoroughly. Stab wounds quickly lose their appeal.
Remilia was out for much the same reason, save she would have had a fun with the man all of her own. Desco would have killed him where he stood, and made any further operation impossible. Worse still, we would have had to explain to her the nature of her wrongdoing, which could take days.
I'd seen Medusa, from twenty paces, crush a man's throat beneath her heel in the blink of an eye and three languid movements. And that was why. I'd seen her.
"Veronica," I said, gesturing with one hand, "come here. Bring your knives. There's one last thing I need you to do."
Sabrina, Theater Square
"Yeah, we need 10 million yen roughly," Sabrina agreed with Baron, not really having any other option. "Can you help us with that?"
Wizard Needs Food BadlyTheater Square - Koishi, possibly qualified for highly specific employment
"Well, I'm good at sneaking around, but there probably aren't a lot of honest jobs for that." Koishi thinks aloud. She's chewing her bottom lip thoughtfully, possibly hoping the answer she's looking for will be revealed this way.
"And I've helped my sister work the furnaces back home before. I'm pretty good at that, too. It looks like you guys've got your heating covered, though, so you probably don't need me to do any of that." Adolescent as she may be, she has not indulged in any real jobs that she can think of. Even though working a furnace in Hell is sweaty work, Koishi is not yet entitled to the sweat of her brow.
Koishi ponders for another few seconds, her arms crossing under her chest. She looks quite a sight, tapping her foot and deep in consideration in front of the much taller Kiryu. Finally, she remembers a few things she'd disregarded before. Maybe some of these might work.
"Oh! I know! I'm good at making maps! Really good, actually. If you need one, I can make one, no problem at all." Koishi proudly announces. Tracing back to the first time she slipped her way inside Remilia's mansion, Koishi was fascinated by some of the old maps the dour librarian, Patchouli, had filed away. Patchouli allowed her to look at them, more as a way to keep her from touching everything, and after a few intrigued questions, Koishi had figured out most everything there is to know about rudimentary cartography.
Soon, she was making maps of her own, back home. They started out small and unimpressive, but after a few months, Koishi had drawn up a complete and very detailed map of her own home, which her sister proudly displayed in the foyer for the rare visitor to see. This was several years ago, of course, and Koishi still finds her map-making a relaxing time wasting exercise. Maybe she can make some money that way. If not, there was always her other talent.
"Or, if that doesn't work, I'm really good at fighting; really good. I can do a lot more than just fly. Is that an honest job, though? Probably more honest than stealing, but now I'm not sure. What do you think?" Koishi questions, hopeful that at least one of her talents will allow the group to make some real cash.
Yang - A Continuation of the Quest for Glory and Riches on the Stairs of Legend
"Ya don't say...." Yang stated curiously as they kept walking down the stairs, thinking about things for a few moments. "So that makes you like... like a queen? I've never met anybody who's royalty before, let alone a queen. Well, except maybe Weiss, but that's more just that her dad is really rich, she's not actually a snow queen. More like a snow... heiress? But if you've got to be strong to be queen like that, does that mean people keep on trying to duel you for the throne? That's super badass, I wish that was how we could get jobs at home. I would be the Achieve Men's manager in no time!"edited 27th Aug '17 12:32:28 AM by nman
The old man walked over to the suddenly very happy oni, and sat down, extending his hand.
"Yes, well, my name is Koda Kozue, I was born on May 22."
As he said this, another man
◊ walked over, approaching Kashira as he pulled out a police badge.
"Hi, my name is Tanimura, I'm a detective with the Tokyo Police Department. I'm investigating a crime that recently took place not too far from here, need to ask you a few questions. Got a minute?"
The man chuckled at the display. "Really getting into your little cosplay act over there, ain't ya? It's an impressive looking sword, I won't lie. But we'll see if it holds up in a real fight. This is an arena. You don't win points for acting ability here."
Then the announcer spoke.
"And let the fight begin!"
Suddenly, the man moved, switching to a one handed grip on his bat as he swung the thing in quick, large arcs in front of him, attempting to pound his opponent with it and make getting past it to counterattack difficult while delivering blows with one arm that were stronger then most men could deliver with two.
The makeup woman shrugged. "You know how writers are. You ask them to make even the smallest alterations, and they get all prissy and go on strike for a month. Let the directors worry about that, I don't get paid enough to do their job too."
Gaige then reappeared.
"Ok guys, so I got us up to 1.5 million. He wants you on set so we can get started, so come on and follow me!"
When they followed, they would find themselves in a warehouse type setting, with lots of large shelves that rose up to the ceiling and lots of random, seemingly pointless cardboard boxes lying around. In the middle of the room stood a group of young adult dressed as teenagers, presumably the other actors. The director motioned for them to get into position.
"Ok, let me set the scene. Our group of teenagers has retreated to an abandoned warhouse to attempt to hide from the man in the suit tracking them, that's you." He said as he pointed at Claw. "Little do they know they've been followed. And in addition, an actual monster who lurks in the nearby forest has also caught whiff of them. Now the stage is set for an epic confrontation between a man in a cat suit and beast!"
The director moved everyone so that Claw stood on one side of the room, facing the teenagers, while Asgore was directed to wait behind a cardboard box, and spring out once the scene had begun and the teenagers reacted to Claw. Beyond this, there was no provided script.
"AND ACTION!"
One male teenager, who was the apparent leader of their group, playing a high school jock, pointed at Claw as the cameras started rolling. "Damn it! That....thing, it's followed us here!"
"What the hell's wrong with you, why do you keep trying to kill us!?" A female clinging to said jock, clearly playing his cheerleader girlfriend, said.
Meanwhile, Gaige took Alphys to the side. "Ok, so what kind of effects do you wanna go for? We can make just about anything work, so go nuts, don't hold back!"
Akiyama put a hand up to his chin as he thought about this.
"Hmmmm.....with a group this large, I'll need to get creative about how I do this test....."
He gave the Baron a long look, and then snapped his fingers.
"I've got it! You look like you've been in the club business before, am I right? You see, I own a hostess club not far from here, and I was going to have a couple of your friends work a shift there for their test. But I have another idea now. I'm going to have you run the club for a shift, and give my workers the day off. Your group here can be your staff. I'll keep my girls around to keep it fair, very few of you look to be native to Japan and it'd be unfair to expect you to be familiar with all the cultural ins and outs of what customers expect from hostesses. Of course, if you want to add a couple females from your group as hostesses, that's fine too. So you run a shift, and at the end, I'll evaluate your performance and decide if you pass or not."
Meanwhile, Kiryu had his own idea. "Hmmm....good at fighting, you say? I think I may have just the thing appropriate for someone your age, but we'll need to go somewhere else to do it. You should say goodbye to your other friends over there before you leave, see if any of them prefer to come with you or not. Where they're going isn't appropriate for children, you see."
"A queen is... well something I guess you could say I am, yes. I prefer 'Ruler' though, that lends a bit more authoritative might to the title." Chuckling and feeling a bit more at odd now that they weren't the only ones involved in the hair-brained scheme and that she was being praised by Yang, Lucifer felt good enough to actually smile. After all, one doesn't feel as bad when there were others around to share the pain. "I've been challenged for my throne plenty of times before by the other local powers and I've managed to keep hold over my dominion for a long while."
Smirking at the memories of such bouts, the angel came to a stop near the reunion of a few others in the group. "Though it's not all fun and games being in charge- one has to learn how to delegate, order, organize, account, and play politics to ensure a mostly smooth ruling. With great power comes great responsibility after all, and I have to ensure that things run at a good enough pace that I could laze about during my free time."
A gemini, and an old one at that...that right there was enough to give a reading off of, but she continued to ply at his creases. She traced a line that extended across horizontally, and noted how it just seemed to be one thick crease. Hmm, hmm, interesting, interesting. His Mount of Venus...or, you know, the base of his thumb for normal people, was rough, but it yielded good news.
"You're healthy, I can tell you that. You might be getting along in your years, but I don't think sickness is going to be a worry for you," she confidently said as she wiggled her finger around another line in his hand. She slowly moved from there to another crease moving vertically, and it was a little bit wavy.
"I can tell you about your past right now...you've gotten through a lot to get to this point, and you've had some very hard times, but you're very dedicated to a single cause in your life...what is it? Marriage? Your work? Something else?" Sumireko paused to look up at the man.
Kashira Lavellan - Shrine - Passing Notes
Moving around so she could still keep one eye on the proceedings at the shrine, Kashira nodded politely to the watchman. In a city like this, the odds of him or at least his organization being corrupt were quite high. This might even be an opening to asking for money to permit them to continue operating here. Still, a crime was a crime and if that part was real, no matter what else was going on, she intended to investigate when time permitted.
"Of course," she replied, meeting his eyes squarely. "Pleased to meet you. My name is Kashira Lavellan and I'll gladly answer any questions you may have. I doubt that I can help much, my friends and I only recently arrived in the city, but I'll do the best I can."
She'd have to save her own questions for afterwards, if watchmen here were anything like those on Thedas, they'd want to see if they could catch her in a lie before volunteering information on the crime itself.
A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving. -Lao Tzu2B - Stands
"Your reason to fight can be real simple, could be anything. Just as long as you stay focused on it and never look back."
2B ran Gut's words over in her mind for a long moment. It made sense. Even if it had taken some time for her to realise it herself, her reason for fighting certainly seemed much simpler now that it had when she first awoke. Especially now she'd been pulled away and trapped by the Ruler.
Eventually, she gave the black swordsman a stoic nod.
"Good advice."
Yang - Theater Square
"Hey Big Guy, you know Mr. Moneybags over here?" Yang asked the Baron after he and Akiyama started talking like they knew each other. Man, if they kept adding people but didn't make the payment - err, loan, because they were definitely not planning on just getting the hell out as soon as they had ten million - any bigger, they might as well just get a minimum wage job somewhere. And maybe have more dignity while they were at it. Wait, what did he say about keeping the hostesses? "Hey!" she added to Akiyama. "If you're keeping the girls workings, guess that means I can take over being a bouncer instead, huh?"Setting down her motorcycle on the ground now that they were at street level, she realized she had lost track of Weiss. Well, the snow queen could handle herself. If anything happened to Weiss her scroll would have beeped, at the very least. And she hadn't seen uncle Qrow in a while too.... Nah, he was probably just fine. Maybe.
"Aww man, that sucks, having to spend all that time managing crap," she said to Lucifer. "I'm glad I don't have to deal with that stuff. A Hunter team is already a big pain in the butt to manage and that's just four people, a whole country must be even worse. My sister's in charge of our team so I can focus on beating stuff up and don't have to worry about organizing anything. Except prom with Weiss that one time, but she handled all the boring stuff, I just got to play with the subs and put the speakers in place. They were really heavy."
Guts, Stands
2B seemed to think well of his words. Whether she took it to heart, that couldn't be known. But Guts just settled for nodding back to her, matching her own stoicism.
Meanwhile, Qrow had put up a decent show, felling his first few opponents without trouble. As he did battle with his final opponent, Guts lost interest. He stood up from his seat and returned to the betting booths.
"Here to claim my bet on the girl."
"Shake the dust." - Anis MojganiTower Time
"Rulers, chosen, and alternate worlds," he finally said. "This exceeds the physical understanding of my current programming. Adjusting." KITT remained silent for nearly five seconds. "Adjusted. Proceeding."
Yen. The currency of Japan. Unfortunately, it was a rather insular automobile market. His current form would draw too much attention. Even more so, any form of his was likely to draw attention. The Locksmith had mentioned criminals and law, though. Perhaps the solution would be to embrace drawing attention, in a way that would cause most individuals to stay clear. KITT's chassis began to quickly morph as he shifted into the form of a classic Japanese Ford pursuit car
◊.
That was one issue solved. Or mitigated, at least. At the moment, the strangest thing, and greatest concern, was the girl in the wheelchair making her way to the gateway.
Rolling up towards Togo, KITT came to a stop near the girl and opened the passenger door. "Hello," he said, the red lights of his sensor bar lighting up in the front of the vehicle as he spoke. "I am the Knight Industries Three Thousand. Please get in before venturing into unknown areas. You will find that I am far superior to a mere wheelchair."
Qrow - Cheap Shot; Arena
Fun Fact: Scythes had really long handles. Qrow's was as long as he was tall, which was a good six foot and change.
So he decided to use that six feet of pole.
Stepping back to avoid the first few swings, Qrow shifted his grip on his scythe, taking hold of it near the base of the blade. Using the pole's length, he swung it up and under Taiga's brutal swings, to strike at him from below.
Specifically, to swing the scythe's pommel right between Saejima's legs.
edited 31st Aug '17 3:44:18 PM by GeekCodeRed
Along with the cat, girl, and car, a man also arrived at the Tower, though he was more horizontal and using his pack as a pillow. When the change of scenery registered, he quickly leaped onto his feet, his hand flashing to his sword. However, when he realized that these people didn't mean him harm, he relaxed.
The Analander stayed silent throughout the conversation. An impossible tower to climb, a mysterious Ruler who controls it, doors and locks and keys and worlds. He didn't understand a lot of what this old man said, but the Analander understood one thing: Getting to the top means he would claim the King of Crowns and be done with his quest. He wandered over the the door with the symbol on it. A DOP spell would probably be useless, seeing as the door was likely of a special nature.
"There is still a lot left to earn," he said aloud, reading the number. "Extra hands should help, but I doubt one could obtain this much through conventional means."
As he talked to himself, the group he had entered with began to leave through the other door. He decided to follow them, seeing as there was little reason to stick around.
He watched as the strange armored beast approached the young girl, another impossible sight to take in. It talked, yet possessed no mouth from what he could see. It looked similar to a wagon of some kind, but obviously it couldn't be something as simple as that. While the group talked among each other in front of the gate, Analander took a moment to look to the stars. He noticed that their power was a lot different than normal - somehow stronger yet more absent than they usually were - before lifting his pack and checking its contents. Everything where it was when he was taken, at least.
"It will be tough," he said to the group, though mostly to the girl, seeing as she was the only other human. The cat might have been at some point, but he couldn't be sure. "I've never seen that much gold, myself, and I've traveled the world."
edited 31st Aug '17 7:39:31 PM by TruthHurts22
Having tucked the small stack of money away in his bag, The Kid stepped forward to join the conversation. Approaching Akiyama, the young soldier gave the man a wary once over. He didn't know what a hostess club was, but asking for women specifically to serve customers didn't put many good ideas into his mind. "What's a hostess club?" He asked, staring at the man with a look just shy of being hard, "It's not a brothel, is it?"
Baron, Whoa, Theater Square
"Whoa whoa, m'man, hold da phone. Ya sure dis wise? Baron's a businessman, but he neva run anythin' quite dis big." To be frank, he was quite apprehensive of the idea of being put in charge. The first time he tried to lead that kind of operation before, they all nearly got swarmed by an angry mob.
Also, running a hostess club sounded like a real tough job. "Still, challenge's a challenge. If ya keepin' ya girls, the Baron can work with dat." The Kid had a question to Akiyama and this time the magnificent opulence that was the Blacker Baron knew enough to correct him. "Naw, dog. In a hostess club ya go when ya need a more casual company. Ya get a lady and ya spend da night on havin' a good time; drinks, conversation, karaoke. Dere ain't no touchin' included."
"And whatchu talkin' bout, baby?" Now he turned his attention to Yang. "I'm seein' dis playa for da first time in my life. Anyway, who here's up for dis?"
Claw, Action...?, Horror Movie
It seemed that the artists of the future were as mercurial as the ones Claw knew of.
In any case, they were introduced to a script. The bare necessities of it. Apparently Alphys was not participating and Asgore's role was "an actual monster" as opposed to his "madman in a possessed suit". He could work with that. His role was to be crazy, but that clashed with the whole "don't make a sound" thing Gaige advised him to go for. Perhaps it was the right time to trust his gut feeling.
Probably a good thing, considering their directions were vague at best.
The movie started rolling. Somehow Claw could feel himself get a little more relaxed even as everybody's attention was on him. He began slowly, steadily stepping towards the actors as they said their quotes, and slowly there was a wicked grin on his face as he drew the cutlass prop and presented it. "Ye bilge rats invoked your captain's ire." He spoke with a voice that balanced on a line between angry and unhinged.
"That kind of mutiny is punishable by death!" The cat pirate cackled, steadily approaching the "teenagers". He had heard stories of pirate crews where the only reason a notorious captain still had any crew was the sheer fear they induced. He would first smack himself with a bottle of rum before he tried to captain his ship like that... but nobody here knew that. Thus, the performance didn't seem too artificial.
And, despite everything, he was still a pirate. Pirates could be scary if they tried, and now Claw was trying quite hard.
Sabrina, Theater Square
"It sounds acceptable to me," Sabrina nodded to Akiyama as other members of their group showed up, and she helped to clarify. "Oh, those two are a part of our group."
Wizard Needs Food Badly"It is true that we all have our roles to play. I just enjoy being able to pick what I want said role to be rather than having it picked for me. That is why I chose to be a leader instead of a follower myself, freedom of choice is a rather important thing to me." Gazing up at the sky silently as if there was something beyond the veils of heaven that only she could see, Lucifer stopped the sightseeing as she quirked an eyebrow at the mention of hostess clubs.
"Ah, those establishments are rather dense in the sins of Greed and Lust. I would like to volunteer to be either the bouncer or the musician since I doubt any 'customer' is going to find me appealing." Folding her arms, the tall hoodie wearing Monster voiced her opinion succinctly on the matter as she sought to go for the roles that would make the most sense for someone like her. After all, she represented Pride itself.
Veronica, Batting Centre
So, that was Dio's plan? She was to fight Majima in order to provide him with suitable entertainment? Finally, something she was actually suited for. Even though she'd have preferred to just kill him she knew that wasn't an option, otherwise this would all have been a total waste of time.
She looked Majima up and down, sizing him up. Perhaps she'd have to hold back. She was fairly confident she could defeat any ordinary human, no matter how scary he thought he was. Of course, she had no way of knowing if he was ordinary, so it wouldn't pay to underestimate him. Veronica stepped forward at Dio's beckoning, standing in front of Majima and bowed politely towards him with a small smile.
"That sounds fine to me."
Togo was about to roll out into whatever world awaited her, but before she could do that she was approached by... an empty vehicle. It introduced itself as the Knight Industries Three Thousand, and vehicularly volunteered to drive her around by itself. While that would probably make her at least feel safer in such a troublesome territory of Japan, it did not come without drawbacks. First of all, this seemed to be a rather old fashioned automobile (a policecar at that) without any driver, and that would most definitely draw some attention, specially if it was seen rolling around on its own with a middle-shcooler on the passenger seat. Then there was the issue with convenience: while driving around in a car would certainly require less effort than being in her wheelchair, it was far more restrictive in terms of what she could actually do. Things such as "entering buildings" and "being on the sidewalk" would be far more difficult in a car than in a wheelchair.
And then there was the other person that she had somehow failed to notice. He looked like he came straight out of a fairytale book... and his speech matched that notion, seeing that he referred to Yen as gold. They were just destined to be noticed by everyone, weren't they?
Unless...
"Very well," she replied to KITT while she transferred herself from her wheelchair to the passenger's seat, after which she focused her attention on the hooded man. "It may take some time, but I think it should be doable... hopefully. Either way, mister, would you mind fitting my wheelchair in the back compartment before we leave, please?"
The Baron's answer left The Kid bemused, looking between the larger man and the owner of the hostess club. Men here paid to have a girl talk to them and drink with them? Why didn't they just talk to them normally? He was sure that wasn't a thing in Caelondia, and the young soldier was pretty sure that most would laugh at the idea. But, it was apparently a thing here and it was going to get them the money they needed to move on so he had no reason to doubt it. The Kid nodded slowly, still looking faintly bemused. "Alright then. Which of us would you want to work there? And what would you want them to do?"
Yang - Theater Square
"Yeah, whatever," Yang told the Baron. "We're stuck doing this crap unless you managed to have another way to get ten million of those yen things in one day.""Musician?" she asked Lucifer. "You play something? Like what, drums? Oh! Guitar, guitars are badass! Can you play a guitar?"
KITT - Tower
"Excellent," KITT said to Togo, popping open the trunk. He also locked his glovebox for now, just in case. "While it is unfortunate that a minor has been put into this situation, I will ensure your safety from the undesirable elements that may lurk in the city. Japan has a low crime rate, low firearm ownership, low emission requirements, and strict regulation of its automotive industry. I should be able to easily mitigate and remove any threat to your person. I have not been given your name, however. You may call me KITT.""I play the bass in my band, the 'Wicked Pistols'. Fitting for someone like me really. Cousin Satan plays the guitar because he loves being flashy and Ibaraki-doji plays the drums." Being Lucifer and all, she was expected to be a very good at subtle ministrations as well as overt shows of force when it calls for such.
The bass instrument in question would be capable of providing the backbone of any good band given its unique anchoring capabilities that while subtle and non-flashy, established the beat of the song and music. "...Also I can be a vocalist as well but I'd rather not sing in front of... beings that don't deserve it." Voice of an angel and all that, wouldn't want to waste it in a hostess club of all places to be sure.
edited 4th Sep '17 9:56:09 AM by Makaioh
Yang - Theater Square
"Satan sounds pretty cool!" Yang said to Lucifer. "You guys have the Achieve Men where you're from? Oh man, what am I saying, if you're not from Remnant then you don't. This is great!"She reached around into her pants pocket, pulling out her scroll. Fiddling around some more in there, she yanked out her earbuds as well. "You should listen to this while we're waiting for these guys do all the boring stuff," she said, popping the cable into her scroll and putting one of the buds into her left ear. She started to rock her head to whatever music she was playing.
Should Lucifer dare risk using the other earbud, it would be the sounds of a teen dance-pop abomination with male vocals.

Togo wasn't exactly sure of whether or not her friends not noticing her gone in the slightest was a good or a bad thing. Well, it was a good thing that they didn't need to worry... maybe... but how was she even going to explain what she had gone through? Well, just sitting there would not solve anything.
"Okay, I will be going now."
She stopped by the portal for a moment and stared at it in silence. If they were meant to gather Yen, then they would probably be heading for Japan, which was a good thing, since that would be mostly familiar... unless it was in the past. What if it was in the past? What if she got sent to the Japan of the Meiji Period? Or the Imperial Japan from mid-twentieth century? The opportunity to learn more about Japan's history first-hand had her already shaking with excitement.
The Judge's proposal to work together managed to bring her back to her senses. She still had a bit of trouble adjusting herself to the notion of a talking cat, but he did have a fair point. It would be better for them to work together rather than try to get money separately. A talking cat surely would bring in some money, and she was good enough with finances and Japanese culture to ensure they woulnd't look too out of place. It could take some work, but surely it would be doable.
"Okay," she finally replied with a nod. "I think I may know a thing or two about this world, so if I'm right, we shouldn't have much trouble blending in. As for the challenge... I have an idea or two."
edited 23rd Aug '17 2:04:27 PM by Katarsus