"One black and one with cream, half and half; that should be fine," the waitress responded to Shotaro before nodding yes to his question.
"I assume that Satori girl was with you, then? She seemed a bit too... I dunno, sheltered to be walking around like that. Who doesn't know how coffee shops work these days, am I right?"

While that barista attempted to make some small talk as she sent the order through, another walked behind the display and gave a wide grin to Saber.

"Is there anything that catches your eye?" he asked, smiling.

While all this was going on, Satori had continued to dig through the wave of information, but without much luck. Much of it was the usual: complaints, gripes, and the occasional childish whining.

"No matter where you go, people always stay the same, I guess..." she sighed, shaking her head as she waited for the rest of the group to order.

---

The knives shot by the assailant were scattered all over the place, and a few even shattered under the force. However, this didn't seem to stop them completely; though thrown off-course by a thoughoughly unexpected attack, the blades quickly repositioned themselves to fire at Akuma.

The blades abruptly stopped, though, once Alex jumped into the fray. The shockwave, as predicted, stunned the woman for a moment, causing the blades to waver and clatter onto the ground before disappearing.

"Alright, cool, we've got countermeasures now. Good work!" Kagura shouted before rushing in once more. "Seriously, though... This is new from Tsubaki..."

Tsubaki quickly moved to recover, barely ducking away as Kagura grazed the edge of her shield as he swung. A flurry of attacks followed, which was probably surprising considering the size of his weapon.

"Let's go! No more holding back if you're willing to go that far!" he shouted, swinging his blade to try and push Tsubaki back... Or, at the very least, towards those helping him.


The white samurai barely registered the presence of the two girls who had come before him. Though the fact that they had come from deeper in might have been noteworthy, it was of no matter now.

"...Down that hallway." he stated, motioning behind him as he stepped forwards, past Miku and Hibiki. "Exit soon; this place shall be in ruins soon enough."

With that ominous statement, he continued forward, his white figure slowly fading into the darkness of the hallway.



"Nya-nyah!?"

The sudden shift in the red-haired girl's attitude shocked Taokaka, who proceeded to barely slip forward and past her opponent as she swung with all her might. The splinters, however, were a different story. Though her clothing was durable, it wasn't something that would cover everything. And so...

"Nyeow! That hurt!" Taokaka shouted before attempting to grab onto Tailred's nearest arm. "But Tao's food deserves vengeance! NYAAAAH!"

---

The reactions from both Goldibanne and Artorias were... Strange to Claire, to say the least. This... Thing... Had almost killed a member of the team, but... Well, that member was neither injured nor was there any active conflict.

...

"This is why we don't try to give surviving civilians military training..." she sighed, shaking her head before turning to look at Sol. Who was, well, smoking.

"...Mercenaries. Well, can't say he gained any diplomacy points for that one..."

With the issue settled, Claire deactivated the alert and sighed, walking back to the command center. Those guys had their job, and she was fairly certain that the others in the facility wouldn't take kindly to a hot-tempered... Thing... Walking around. There were only so many people here, after all...

Mithias began to follow Claire in, wondering if he was ever going to find out what they all were doing here. So far, he heard Artorius mention some kind of terrorist group. It was probably better to stay silent and listen for any new information. There was a lot to discover about how these humans here were surviving and what the several "heroes" sent by Lydia were doing for them. Mithias passed the others, a bullet hole glistening with blood could be seen in the back of his jacket.

Saber opened her mouth. Then shut it. Then opened it again... and then shut it. Oh, there were so many different pastries... many of which she had not previously seen before. They had not yet had a chance to visit any sort of shop that sold this array of pastries back in her home universe. She would very much have liked to, however, if this was any indication. The shopkeeper's question was proving a rather unmanageable one for the blonde girl. Exactly how should she narrow it down?

Before she could manage a response, she realized Shotaro had questioned her armor.

"Ah... I suppose it is not, currently," Saber replied. After all, there was no combat here and no-one would have been particularly shocked in such a world if she changed her clothing... there was a flash of light as prana dissipated off her body, allowing her previous outfit to reform. It was a blue skirt and white shirt, an outfit Rin had given her when she first required modern clothing.

Conveniently, her change of clothing allowed her to make her answer to the shopkeeper, as well.

"All of it."

Even if she couldn't buy it all, she sure was interested in it all.

---

Oh, he'd been shot. How quaint.

Goldibanne had seen vastly worse before. And caused vastly worse not that long ago. The animate dead and skinless things she had killed were in a much more... deconstructed state then a simple hole in this guy's back. He'd been acting like an idiot and it clearly didn't bother him, so there wasn't exactly a reason to care, now, was there? Instead, the living doll cheerfully skipped and twirled along. They had a job to do, after all. They couldn't simply leave these people to fend for themselves even if this wasn't the task they had been assigned anyway.

"Fufufu~" she gave a little giggle, "Isn't this better then being all threatening and standoffish? Goldibanne certainly thinks so~"

Shotaro cleared his throat and chuckled a little at the Barista’s remarks, ”Heh, yeah. She’s holed up inside all the time, so she doesn’t really have a lot of experience with coffee shops.” That excuse oughta clear things up. He had no idea what expectations the group had to meet in this world, but he was very determined to keep blending into it. Well, with everyone that didn’t matter at least since their first try with it was busted wide open.

He pointed over at Saber and continued, ”That girl there is with us too, so you only need her order next ri— Eh?” Shotaro stopped mid-question as he overheard Saber’s order.

”All of it?” Philip quirked his eyebrows curiously after hearing Saber’s order. ”I’ve heard of sweet tooths before, but this may literally be taking the cake.” He tapped his chin, smiling now. ”How thrilling. But I’m sorry, I don’t think we can afford to take even one of everything.”

Heading inwards along with the rest, Artorias made sure to act as a bulwark beween the strangely sadistic artifice and the injured man that had, with some difficulty, joined the rest of them. There seemed to be little point in returning except to ask for one piece of information: "Doth thou know where our search shall begin? Or is our strategy merely to search for humans amongst the wasteland?"

---

Well, that was... helpful, Miku supposed? They had a way out now and whilst the Laboratory behind them was probably not going to be around much longer, it wasn't the sort of place that she would shed tears for. Even without her prior bad experiences, the only person in the entire thing seemed to have decided to kidnap her and Hibiki for experiments of one kind or another and she had no desire to stick around to find out what they were.

So the girl took Hibiki's armoured hand and started towards the exit.

Hibiki's eyes followed the armored swordsman as he walked away. He'd helped them! ... Maybe he needed help too? It seemed like he was doing something important, and yet he'd told them where the exit was and walked off like that. It didn't really feel right to the girl to just leave after he'd helped them out... and so she took a step after him.

At least until Miku grabbed her hand and started pulling her out.

"Ah? Miku? But... what if he needs help too!"

"Ah, really? well, I guess it's a good thing she's getting some fresh air, then. Though, you know, I really gotta wonder if it'd be smarter to go somewhere a bit less... Well, hectic," the barista laughed before stopping abruptly at Saber's comment. The second, of course, was just as struck dumb by it.

"...All of it?!"

It took a moment for the two to realize that she wasn't actually going to BUY one of everything, but she was certainly staring at the food like a kid in a candy store. Hrm.

"...Well, uh... I'm fairly certain we're not allowed to let you sample EVERYTHING, but... I can recommend a few things. It's still fairly early, so how about a bear claw? A cinnamon roll around this time of day is pretty good, too," the one in front of Saber said, trying to help Philip help the girl make a somewhat-restrained decision. "They'll keep you until lunch. Trust me on this."

With that problem settled, the barista in front of Shotaro nodded to his colleague and nodded.

"...Right. Anyways... It's as you think. Once everyone's done and your order is ready, just come back up with the money and we'll hand it off. No problems there."

---

Claire overheard Artorias on her way back and stopped for a moment, thinking about the problem herself and about the best way to make use of the new helpers she had suddenly gotten to know.

"Hm... Well, I'll tell you right now that we're holed up here for a reason. Honestly, if you want to go searching for the ones at fault, I'd also like it if you could try making contact with the rest of our colleagues. I've got a map back there, so one moment."

With that, Claire disappeared for a moment behind the doors of the command center before re-emerging, this time with a map with a few areas circled on it.

"This is a copy, so don't worry about it too much... Unless you have a habit of destroying things, in which case I'm not making another one. We're in the midwest over here, and north is that way, so you can go here, here, or here," she said, pointing to each successive item before handing off the map to Artorias. "You seem like the most level-headed, so I'll trust you on this, all right?"

Artorias took the map, holding the paper as if it would fall apart at any moment in his massive hands. There seemed no way to make an efficient path through even two of the areas without backtracking and that meant tackling the closest area first--especially if it made their sole point of contact in this world safer and less at risk. "I shall endeavour to return thy comrades if we should encounter them."

The knight scanned the map, working out the direction they would need to head for the closest area, and folded the map up. With the map carefully stashed inside the cowl of his armour, he turned around and walked towards the entrance.

---

Sometimes, Hibiki's desire to help everyone could be quite frustrating. Such as, in this case, wanting to help someone destroy a lab that plainly abducted people despite having no idea what was going on. "But Hibiki, we don't know if he should be doing something like this."

Though after saying this, the schoolgirl realised that telling Hibiki that someone might be up to no good probably wasn't the best way to lead her outside. At least she wouldn't be helping to destroy a lab if she went in again...?

Saber nodded, slowly, at Philip's comment. She knew she couldn't actually take all of it, but... she wished she could. It all looked so good. If only she had more money with which to purchase all this... even if Rin had been present, though, it was unlikely she could convince her Master to purchase every single food item available. Extremely, extremely unlikely.

"... I understand," she said, somewhat morosely, "But every baked good looks delicious. It is... difficult to make a decision."

When the man behind the counter made his own suggestion, the blonde girl thought it over for a few moments. It was quite unlikely that a bear claw was, in this context, an actual bear's claw. That did not make sense to be among the arrangement of pastries.

"... Very well, I would like a bear claw."

---

"But what if there's other people here who got taken like us?" asked Hibiki, looking back at her friend, a look of concern on her face. What if there were other people trapped here who needed to be rescued? And he'd helped them on their way out... but if this place really wasn't bad... for a few moments the girl was silent. Either was... didn't following him make sense? If there were people in need, then they could help them. And if he was just causing trouble...

"And if he shouldn't be doing it, doesn't that mean we should stop him?"

"Food can be consumed at any time in the future... But twintails takes a long while to grow and groom and stylize! It is a culmination of effort and art! The enemies of twintails such as you..." Speaking with far more zeal in her heated voice, the magical girl allowed herself to be grabbed while launching herself at the same time, attempting to use the split second of going along with the flow to accelerate her momentum to perform a classical kick that certain Riders would be proud of. Though thin and small the girl was, she packed one hell of a wallop.

----------------------------------------------------------

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Alex had managed to throw the woman, apparently named Tsubaki, off enough for Kagura to get close. Still, the fight between the two locals was even. The virus could only raise an eyebrow at how easily Kagura swung his giant sword. He resigned that to just being part of this world's laws of nature. Laws that were radically different from the laws he had studied back in Earth.

Soon Kagura swung his blade hard enough to push Tsubaki towards a direction. An idea crossed the Alex's mind and he quickly placed himself in the redhead woman's way. He then caught her in a tight hold, his arms wrapped around her body and arms, and slightly raised her up to prevent her from using the ground to try and escape hold. As the Blacklight virus, his strength should be enough to keep Tsubaki from breaking free by her own strength. Tsubaki could hit her head at his but again, he was the Blacklight virus, he had received far more painful trauma than that.

However, Alex knew this Tsubaki girl had some tricks hidden in her sleeve and expected Kagura or Akuma to take her down before she could pull out any of them. "Knock her out! Now!"

Mithias watched Artorius fold up his map and begin to walk back out the entrance. Apparently, he was just going to get started, no muss, no further questions. It seemed about as good a plan as any, and at least someone was taking action. Mithias turned as well and went with him. He was more of a likable type to the immortal.

Together, then started down the road in the dark. Any zombies they encountered would be humanely put down, but most of the world looked like urban wasteland.

”…Alright.” Shotaro nodded as well, a bit relieved that odd moment passed as quickly as it came. He stepped off to the side next to Satori and crossed his arms, commenting to her, ”Who would’ve thought King Arthur had a big sweet tooth?” He paused for a moment to remember who his company was and added, ”…Ah, hang on, you’re not familiar with that legend are you?”

Back with Philip, he just nodded at her decision. ”Good choice. I’ve read that cinnamon rolls can last someone just as long as well.” As those words spilled out, he folded his arms and raised his hand to his chin in thought. ”Although,” he continued, ”I can’t say I’ve had the chance to see if that’s true for myself…” He turned to the barista and raised one finger up at him, ”I’d like one bear claw as well.

Mentioned: @VitaVitaAR @Raineh Daze @PKMNB0Y@Wraithblade6

---

Sol was finishing up a cigarette with Queen blasting in his ears when he noticed Claire handing the giant one a map that he didn’t look at all interested in sharing with anyone else. Popping an earbud out of his ear, the mercenary narrowed his eyes at the knight and then blinked at what Claire had declared:

You seem like the most level-headed, so I’ll trust you on this, all right?

“And what are the rest of us supposed to do? Do you have missions for all of us or just him?” Sol asked.

Holy crap, he should have been paid for putting up with this incompetence.

"Fufufu, well, that's that~"

With a giggle, the living Doll followed the huge knight. After all, where else was there to go but in the indicated direction? Aimless wandering simply got them no-where, you would have to be dumb to simply walk off and do nothing useful in this situation. And so, the dark-haired girl headed along with the knight and the vampiric man(who seemed to have calmed down for now, at least). Any animate dead they'd come across, well...

Goldibanne grinned slightly as she twirled along with the others. There was nothing here that would be a threat.

The martial artist's technique served to disperse the knives, only for them to swiftly correct their course and continue closing in. As Akuma prepared to defend himself, the warrior was suddenly treated to the sight of the knives unceremoniously halting, falling, and disappearing entirely. A quick assessment revealed that his comrades were responsible for this, having broken the foe's concentration. Not only that, but one of them had managed to ensnare the swordswoman in a hold, leaving her wide open.

Not one to let an opportunity go to waste, Akuma rushed towards his opponent. Once he drew near, the warrior allowed momentum to do the rest of the work, and shifted his attention to aiming his fist at the woman's midsection. Akuma needed to end the fight in one blow whilst keeping them alive, so a strike to the vitals was ill-advised. Instead, he went for the solar plexus, a nerve cluster with minimal muscular protection. A strike there would wind even the most resilient of men, and knock lesser ones unconscious. Most definitely painful, but rarely lethal.

"Two bear claws, then? I'll add them to the order. Please wait a moment as we prepare your order," the barista said, quickly jotting something down on a notepad before beginning to assemble everything. His counterpart at the desk nodded and sent off the second order to another person behind them before returning to her job with the next incoming customer.

As that was happening, Satori turned to Shotaro, who had come to wait by the table as their meals (or, rather, drinks with snacks) were being prepared. She paused for a second before shaking her head at the detective's comment.

"Ah... No, I've never heard of any person by the name of 'King Arthur.' Though... Given your reaction and the situation, I assume that Saber over there is quite famous in your home as well? Or is it possible that there are as many versions of a character as there are worlds? That would be... Quite the dilemma."

As she finished, one of the people at the counter rang a call bell before calling out the order that had been put forth by Shotaro for the rest of them.

"Oh, done already? I would think that steeping tea would usually take a while longer..."

---

Kagura stopped his barrage of attacks as the two other fighters managed to grab Tsubaki and land a clean hit in her midsection. Wincing as he watched Tsubaki's body go stiff from the impact before falling limp, the fighter calmly walked up to Akuma and Alex before bowing.

"Ah, geez... Thanks for the help. Saved me a lot of headache there. So, as promised, I'll answer any questions you've got, since you're already tangled up in this mess with me."

As he sad that, though, Tsubaki's body twitched before the eye on her shield began to glow. Kagura glanced at it and cursed under his breath. as he began to move back to prepare himself for a fight.

"Damn, I didn't think it'd actually activate like this..."

Just as the light reached its peak, though, a young man with a strange blue-and-white outfit walked up to the group. Kagura let out a sigh of relief, his body losing most of its tension as he looked at the new arrival.

"You're late, Jin. What kept you?"
"Dealing with the side effects of this mess. Did Tsubaki activate Izayoi?"
"Nah, but she's certainly on the verge of doing so."
"Then let me put a stop to that."

After that little back-and-forth, Jin quietly walked up to Tsubaki's body and gripped the hilt of his katana.

"Yukianesa."

With a cold (if not somewhat pained) face, Jin drew his katan and pointed it at Tsubaki's shield. A layer of ice immediately encased it, causing the blooming light to fade away almost immediately. Letting out a sigh of relief, Jin quickly sheathed his weapon and turned back towards Kagura.

"So. Mind explaining who these two are?"

"Right, right. Well, the one who looks like a monk is named Akuma, as far as I can recall, and... Well, I actually don't recall the other's name right now. My bad. But either way, they helped restrain Tsubaki while I was trying to stall her.

"So are you saying you couldn't handle her on your own?"

"Well, it's more like I think that she probably would've activated Izayoi sooner if I went all out..."

"Whatever. If she's unconscious now, we can give her treatment and maybe figure out what caused this in the first place. We've got medical equipment in NOL HQ that we can use to keep her under for a while. Come on; we don't have all day."

Nodding, Kagura watched as Jin carefully took the limp Tsubaki from Alex's arms and carried her instead.

"...So yeah. You're a bit deep in this mess now, so I'll keep my end of the bargain and answer any question you might have here."


"MUNYAAA!"
Taokaka's cries as she was launched straight into a wall were met with a large amount of bricks tumbling down around them. Luckily, none of the bricks had hit Tao, who was now thoroughly exhausted, but... Well, it certainly hurt a great deal to be lying among the debris.

"Nyeow... What's the big deal, crazy hair lady?! You destroy Tao's food, then blame it on Tao! That's nyeot fair!" she complained, weakly trying to roll herself away from the pile of rubble that she was now lying on. "Tao hasn't had any breakfast today, and that was all the food Tao had..."

---

Claire stared back at Sol as if he was an idiot. Even if her comment had been a thinly-veiled insult at how crazy most of them were, this was--!

"...You don't think that I wouldn't have said if there was more to do? You're with the big guy over there! You know, like the rest of your buddies are? Look, see? They're all going with him to look already! Geez, and I thought regular people were bad..." Claire sighed, shaking her head as she brought a hand up to massage her forehead. "Whatever. Your job's with him. He's got the map, so have a blast."

With that, the now mentally-exhausted Claire walked back into the command center, leaving Sol to catch up with the others that had left.

Mentioned: Claire, @VitaVitaAR @Raineh Daze @PKMNB0Y@Wraithblade6

---

Sol stuck a pinky in his ear and pretended to clean it while Claire yelled at him. He stared aimlessly upwards, drawing his pinky out of his ear to flick some crust away. Shrugging his shoulders, Sol turned, shouldering his sword and sauntered after the group. He wasn’t going to argue with the girl. If the map had been a copy, then she could have easily made one for all of them and as far as he was concerned, he came alone and didn’t even know who all of those jokers were.

Says the bitch who sent an army to attempt to kill one guy, Sol mused.

His free hand dipped into his pants pocket as he lazily followed the group.

I should have went through the other doors. I bet there’s more action happening elsewhere than here. Hell, I might have actually been paid if I went elsewhere. Everyone can’t be broke.

----------------------------------------------------------

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Alex tensed up once more when Tsubaki's book-shield flared up. He figured his hold on her wasn't going to be enough for what was about to happen. However, a young man in a blue and white outfit appeared and put an end to whatever magical bull the unconscious Tsubaki was about to pull off, encasing the book-shield in a block of ice with only a Far Eastern sword. Clearly the sword was not normal. At least not in Alex's standards.

Kagura apparently knew the new guy, who was named Jin. After Jin took Tsubaki off Alex's hands, Kagura was again with the two offworlders.

"...So yeah. You're a bit deep in this mess now, so I'll keep my end of the bargain and answer any question you might have here."

Alex hesitated. He did not know what to ask this Kagura who was probably not aware of the the problems his world harbored. However, the virus thought it was still worth a shot.

"Is there anything... wrong in this place?" He asked. "Is there anything you feel or suspect that isn't right." Realizing that this world was more extraordinary than his, he added. "You know, besides the usual things going wrong. I mean, is our little exchange over here normal or is it..." Alex was not sure if he was making sense. He could only hope Kagura could follow what he meant and what he was trying to ask.

”Oh, well that’s because we got machines that can take care of it a bunch faster,” Shotaro informed Satori, ”I bet they keep a good amount stored up for busy hours, though.” With that bit of modern trivia out of the way, he headed over to the counter to pay up and get their order.

Philip had made his way over to the table after their order was taken and came into the conversation overhearing something about Saber. Aha, some leeway for explaining time! If they were taking a break now, Philip figured he may as well have his curiosity sated and asked Satori, ”Did you say something about many versions of other people?”

He took a seat opposite of her and continued, ”Well, if multiverse theory is true in regards to all of us, I imagine it might be the same for different iterations of the same person. I don’t believe it should matter too much for us, however.” His glanced curiously to Saber, ”Not unless we find ourselves in the fifth century…”