Netherplay Games
[[ Main Server Hub ]]

A man looked down to the office area below where a hundred different tech workers were monitoring Netherplay's new virtual reality gaming network. Seventy two hours since the system had gone operational worldwide and it was working like a charm. The various VR arcades were established, the home consoles were running and even the projected difficulties with maintaining the online connection and relay of data between players in networked multiplayer seemed to have vanished. This was going to be the most profitable venture this company had ever made. What could possibly go wrong now?

The answer to that question felt the need to present itself at precisely that moment as the man was just starting to feel confident that this entire system might actually hold up. "Sir!" Somebody yelled from across the work floor. An employee ran up the steps to the man's office with a panicked expression on his face. "Sir we seem to be experiencing a network event."

The man looked at his employee unsure what he was referring to. "What do you mean by 'a network event'"

"Some sort of malignant base code is rewriting software over multiple systems."

"How fast is it spreading? Can we shut down the network?"

"That's the problem sir it's not spreading."

"What do you mean? How is it infecting systems if it's not spreading?"

"It seems it was buried in the source code of ever single system we sold. Now its coming alive and linking with itself over and over and over again cross connecting ever system, every game and... every player."

"Every player?"

"You remember their was a parental rights group that was worried the neural link we used could be used to upload or download information directly from the brain?"

"It was taken care of. The hardware is untamperable and the firmware unhackable. I programmed the firewalls and safety precautions myself."

"It doesn't matter. Because it was already in the system at a base level the virus is circumventing the firewalls with ease. It's imprinting on the brain's of the players. We don't know exactly what it's doing but this cannot be good."

"Cannot be good? CANNOT BE GOOD! This is a disaster of biblical proportions. Our company is finished."

Final Fantasy VI - Terra Branford

The girl playing Terra stood at the top of the Floating Continent starring at Emperor Gestahl and his general Kefka as they stood in front of the Warring Triad. She was so glad her mother had bought her and her friends nearly eight uninterrupted hours at the local VR arcade. They were just getting to the good part. She did her best to play the part of Terra trying to look serious. This was the end of the world after all.

The great statues of Demon, Fiend, and Goddess, the ancient gods of Final Fantasy VI pulsed with power, they glowed, shards of light seeming to break off them, to be absorbed by Emperor Gestahl. He breathed deeply as the power flowed through his body. "What Power! What magic! My body hums with it." He stretched forth his hand and Terra, Locke and Strago all froze in place falling to their knees motionless leaving only Celes free to speak.

"Emperor Gestahl! Please, stop this madness!" She begged him but the Emperor only smiled.

"Celes, child... Of them all you alone are special. You could have a place in my new world. The mother of a new race of people to populate my Magitek Empire. You could belong with us." The Emperor was power hungry and mad to use the ancient gods but when he spoke his voice was velvet and everything he said seemed to make so much sense.

Kefka, Gestahl's right hand general (though he looked like a court fool) stepped towards Celes and drew his sword. He took it by the blade offering the handle to Celes. "Kill the others Celes. Kill them and we will forgive your treachery." he said it was a steady voice but his eyes and face spoke of barely contained mirth as he watched her squirm. "Take this sword, Celes. Kill them all."

Celes grasped the handle with both her hands and turned on her friends. She approached Locke with the blade raised high and set it over his heart.

"That's it Celes. Together we can rule the world." said the Emperor.

Celes looked at the blade in her hands. "Power only breeds corruption and war." She said almost to herself. "It's something we’d all be better off without." In one movement so swift it was barely visible Celes spun round and stabbed the sword into Kefka's chest. He fell backwards into the center of the Warring Triad, his face as pale as death.

The foolish man screamed as he looked at the blade in his chest. "B-blood... Blood! My Blood! You vicious brat! You stupid, vicious, arrogant, whiny, pampered, backstabbing, worthless... LITTLE BRAT!" He screamed before he collapsed.

Even the Emperor believed him dead when the impossible happened. Kefka stood up. Shakily but he pulled himself to his feet and wrenched his own sword from his chest. Then her turned to look at each statue in the Warring Triad in turn. "Gods, you were born to fight! Now is the time! I implore you... show me your power!" As he said these words more light broke away from the statue and converged on Kefka, his wound sealed itself, all the blood returned to his body leaving his shirt torn. Yet he seemed unsatisfied. "Heed my words!" He screamed at the statues. "I command you... Show me your power!"

Gestahl seemed to realize what was planning before he did it. "Kefka, stop! If you revive them, they'll destroy the very world we want to rule! There's no value in that!"

"Shut up!" The general screamed like a child who's favorite toy was being threatened.

"Kefka! Are you mad!?" yelled the Emperor looking suddenly nervous for the first time since Terra had seen him.

"I'm thinking clearer than I ever have Gestahl. This is the perfect chance to show them the power of the Warring Triad! To show you!"

"Kefka... You poor, hopeless thing! You leave me no choice!"

Far from being intimidated by this Kefka burst into insane maniacal laughter

"What's so funny!?"

But Kefka didn't respond. He couldn't respond he was laughing so hard.

"I suppose it’s only fitting that you die laughing. Goodbye Kefka."

Gestahl raised his hands skyward and they began to glow with the light of an intense inferno. Yet despite this Kefka continued to laugh. Gestahl thrust his hands outward and the light shot straight at Kefka, aiming to kill but the last moment that spell which had burned legions and destroyed mountains faded into nothing. The Emperor looked shocked. "K-kefka? H-how...?"

Kefka looked more than amused. He looked insane in his revelry. "I am standing at the center of the Warring Triad fool! They are the gods of magic, they absorb all of it cast in their presence. Or hadn’t you noticed?" Then Kefka put his hands out and light started to emanate from the Gods of magic. It blasted away from them and struck Gestahl knocking him to the ground at the edge of the Floating Continent overlooking the world.

Gestahl looked up at Celes standing a few feet from him. "This is not what I wanted Celes. The world is about the learn, the meaning, of fear..." He choked out.

Kefka looked down at Gestahl's broken body. "It most certainly will." Then he kicked the Emperor hard in the stomach sending the limp body cascading to the earth below. Done with his former lord Kefka turned back towards the statues still unsatisfied with the power he had taken.

Celes was the only one left who could stop him. She ran towards him attempting to block his path as Terra watched helplessly from the sidelines. "Kefka! NO! Don't do this!" Kefka struck her with the back of his hand and the newfound power he hand taken from the gods sent her careening towards the edge of the Continent. She fell off the edge only just managing to clutch a hand hole to prolong falling to her death seconds longer. "Kefka, you mustn’t! If you disturb the balance... their power will run wild!" Either he didn't hear her or he didn't care for Kefka started to drag each statue, one after the other further away from each other. As he did the sky turned black, storm cloud filled the heavens and the earth below darkened.

When all hope seemed lost Terra, Celes, Locke and Strago heard a sound that made them think maybe they might still survive this. A shrill whistle off to their right, just out of sight. "Who's that?" Kefka demanded starring into the darkness.

A shadow came hurling out of the dark from the next island over. It grabbed Celes and hauled her back onto land before it slammed into the statue of Goddess, pushing it over till it toppled onto Kefka who couldn't get out of the way of such a massive falling object. As it fell the magic that held Terra, Locke and Strago released as Kefka lost focus and the Triad lost cohesion.

Terra looked to their savior and as expected it was Shadow the thief. He looked at her through his mask. "GO!" he shouted. Both Celes and Terra made to move forward, to help contain Kefka, to replace to Triad in their rightful places but Shadow stopped them with his hand. "Forget about me! Run! There’s no stopping this now! I’ll find my way back! Trust me!"

From underneath the statue Kefka yelled in anger. "You can’t escape me!" Lighting from the Triad started to rain down everywhere, sending rocks flying as the Floating Continent started to crumble. They each looked at one another knowing what had to be done. "Jump!" Terra shouted as the lightning started to home in. Everyone ran for the edge and leapt for their lives hoping that the Blackjack was close enough to catch them.

As Terra was falling however something strange happened. Green swirling lines of ones and zeroes started to unfurl before her eyes, clouding her vision, her hearing, her mind became foggy and unfocused and she seemed to forget she was falling. As it slipped from her memory suddenly she wasn't falling.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
[[ Hyrule Fields ]]

Terra was standing in the middle of an great empty field that seemed to stretch on for eternity despite the fact that she could see its edges. The grass was green but yellowing in some places. A dirt path had been worn into the ground where she stood next to a little fence. Suddenly feeling very tired Terra collapsed next to the fence and looked around her. Their seemed to be something like a walled up farm or ranch not far off though the path disappeared into a grove of trees and she could hear a river running nearby. Terra sat there and though it couldn't have been for more than ten minutes day seemed to shift to night abnormally quickly. She didn't have the presence of mind to time it but one could assume that you could not walk the breath of the field without at least one day/night cycle passing by.

As darkness fell Terra heard a wolf howl in the distance. Almost on cue bony hands reached up out of the ground and grabbed at Terra's skin. Surprised and alarmed by the presence of undead creatures Terra's skin burst into flames and her magic ignited. It was a defensive reaction. The fires were so hot that the bones clutching her arms cracked and boiled and the undead drew away from her.

Suddenly feeling as though staying put in this place would not be the wisest decision Terra pulled herself to her feet and started to run. Though their were several paths that led out of this field the entire thing seemed to be boxed in by large natural cliffs. In the distance she could see grass give way to red dirt and clay. Perhaps a desert lay in that direction.

Deciding her safest bet would be the walled in ranch Terra started to run. It made sense that they would have some defense against these skeletal creatures and being in what seemed to be a commonly traversed area based on the worn path Terra now walked they were likely used to giving shelter to travelers. Even if it was only use of the barn.

The skeletons chased Terra all the way to the ranch. As she outpaced old ones new skeletons rose out the ground to meet her causing her to either have to scald them with fire or run around them. When she arrived at the ranch walls she noticed their was no gate to keep the undead out. Even so some shelter was better than none. Terra ran up the path. It took her a minute to realize the skeletons did not follow her nor did more rise up. She turned to look and saw several of them grounded at the path's beginning but none willing to take another step. Perhaps this was some kind of holy ground. Terra needed to figure out where she was.

As bizarre as it might seem to Henry, he expected that not a single person who lived in this Valmese port appreciated the magnificence of the nearby ocean, or the unique atmosphere of brisk wind and salty air. Of course, this went doubly for a harbor engulfed by times of war. Yet for Henry, who lived most of his life in the barren desert nation of Plegia or the scrubby forests bordering it, this seaside town came across as a never-ending source of fascination. Seated on the sandy beach with his robes splayed out across the sand, he watched the seabirds wheeling overhead with the smattering of crows that had accompanied him all this time. Like chess pieces, or perhaps dancers engaged in some complicated routine, they circled through the sky. Some, he knew, flew aloft to search for food. Others may have been up there for company. More than that, though, Henry assumed that some -birds after his own heart- simply hovered up there for the sake of flying, and the unmatchable freedom and fun that defined that elusive act.

The sound of sand shifting to his left tore his attention away from the heavens and toward a girl approaching. Her long, pink hair blew cheekily in the wind, huge ponytail and braids both, forcing her to restrain it with a hand. One look at her made Henry smile even wider than usual. Small wonder he so quickly imagined the birds above to be dancers in black and white when he thought of an earthbound dancer in black veil and white silk so often. At the moment, her pretty face was screwed up in horror, and it took him a second to figure out why. Oh yeah. The beach was littered with unburied corpses. After all, the army led by Chrom called the Shepards, of which both Henry and the newcomer were part, landed here and engaged the Valmese warriors in battle less than two hours ago. In the end, the swordswoman Say’ri had been saved and the enemy commander Farber slain, routing the enemy. Henry distinctly remembered the thrill of the fight. He had fought with reckless abandon, stewing any enemies that came close enough alive in curses, but all the same he felt and appreciated whatever unknown presence covered him as he slung spells. Since then, not enough time had passed to bury the dead even if Chrom wanted to. War did not permit such pleasantries. Perhaps the townsfolk would do it—though personally, Henry liked it this way. To him, the bloodstained sand seemed an immaculate and profound work of art.

By the time this thought passed, the girl was close. Her name was Olivia, and it was with a tremulous voice that she opened the conversation with, “Um, Henry? What are those red stains on your clothes?”

Henry looked down. His robes and sweater appeared to be drenched in a brownish-yellow substance. ”Oh, will you look at that? It’s blood! …Wonder where it came from?” Without any hesitation he stuck a finger in a large globule beneath his left arm and then licked it. His eyebrows shot up as he laughed. ”...Oh, hey! It's MY blood! Nya ha! I must have been wounded in battle! Oh man, good times.”

Blanching, Olivia exclaimed, ”Gross! ...And also really creepy. And why are you laughing about it?! That wound needs to be dressed immediately!”
The dark mage shrugged, his pearly white smile unperturbed. ”You wanna help? It's kind of out of the way, so I can't reach it.”

“...Oh, gods, look how deep this is! How could you not notice?”
Oh, I've got a high pain threshold. It's a genetic thing. Nerve damage. I've had a lot worse than this!
You've had WORSE? Where? And how?!
”When I was a kid, my parents put me in this exclusive wizard school. Well, as you can imagine, some of the experiments got a biiit out of hand. Once, I almost set my face on fire! Nya ha! Those were the days...”
”Your teachers were negligent. Why didn't your parents pull you out of there?”
”Meh, my parents didn't care what I did as long as I wasn't expelled. Heck, the whole reason they sent me to wizard school was to get rid of me. But hey, no worries! I turned out fine!”
”I see now... Your cheerful demeanor is just a mask you use to hide your pain. You use it as cover to tamp down your deep-seated resentment and anger...”
”That's what all my psychiatrists said. But nope! Not true. I'm just a happy guy.”
”No, no... You can't fool me. I've never seen a real smile from you, one from the heart. I'm a performer, you know! I can tell as faker when I see one. Shhh... It's all okay now. You never need to visit that terrible school again. Now come on, let down your guard. Show me the real Henry!”
”Wow. You really ARE a crazy lady!”
”I am not crazy! I'm trying to help, so you could at least be polite! *Sigh* All right, your wound is bandaged. But this isn't over, you hear? I want you to come see me again so I can help you get over these emotional issues.”
”Hey, sure. I got time.”

Henry got to his feet, followed by Olivia, who’d been crouching. Overhead, the crows peeled off from the flock of birds to follow him. The Dancer, still frightened by her ally’s wound and his attitude toward it, offered to help him back as he seemed to be struggling. Though he didn’t think he needed any help walking because of a torso wound, Henry shrugged and accepted the help. For once, he fell silent. This close to Olivia, he could feel the warmth of her body, and smell the scent of her hair. Though completely removed from the odor of viscera, he could not help but like it all the same. A quick peek at Olivia’s face led to a strange finding: her cheeks were just a little bit red, and her mouth a slight and elegant smile. Henry closed his eyes for just a moment, and mused, death, destruction, friends, and happiness. I must be the luckiest guy in the world!

At this, the player couldn’t help but smile. He’d decided just yesterday to pair up Olivia and Henry because both seemed like oddballs, sweet but socially awkward, and they both needed leveling up. The C-support, where Henry and Olivia met over a wounded puppy, had been nice, but what really made this one indicative of a good bond was their nonverbal interaction, as opposed to verbal. Following that, the player’s mind wandered. Though Henry was getting stronger, Tharja still outclassed him as a Dark Knight. The nation of Valm fielded a lot of knight units so far, making them easy pickings for the both of them, but the player knew that he’d encounter archers soon. Against his wishes, he thought about dumping Henry to focus on leveling Tharja.

He then fell sideways, his vision a medley of code that made his head swim.

This occurred so suddenly and out of the blue that he involuntarily yelped, though an impact with the hard dirt cut it off. Henry moaned and opened his eyes, blinking again and again. What he saw baffled him completely: the scenery had totally changed. Where there should have been sand, there was dirt, and in every direction but one stood trees. A sparkling blue lake stretched out behind him, with a pier and a weird building that said ‘BOAT RENTALS’. In another direction was a flat grass pavilion with a few wooden planks and a couple more small, strangely-designed buildings. Though his smile never wavered, he felt confused and frightened. ”Uh…what the hex? Olivia…? Where…where are you?” His mind raced. Had he been hit by some sort of teleportation curse? If so, he could be in deep trouble. The pain coming from the wound in his side worsened the problem substantially. ”Haha, good one guys. Guys…?”

As the fallen Spider Mastermind growls in a bloody defeat, Doomguy wastes no opportunity then to smash open her lower jaw with his mighty boot and lifts the top of her maw with his massive hand. Then, he violently shoves the BFG-9000 down her throat as he begins to activate the weapon with it's sheer plasmetic power. The powerless monster who was once known as Oliva Pierce is forced to look upon in horror as she accepts the fate bestowed on her as the weapon fires with a crackling release. The gun was so powerful as to literally punch a massive rift through her head, leaving nothing more but a gory mesh of brain matter in it's wake. The demon monstrosity was finally taken down, the one who unleashed the demons back at the UAC facility on Mars, the one that Samuel Hayden, the head of the UAC, had ordered Doomguy to take down. He then suddenly feels himself being pulled upwards as the tether system begins to drag him back from this hell dimension and back into the real world...

When he arrives however, he is greeted in a rather dark room, with a narrow, open passage way in front of him, with sparks of blue light and smoke covering what was left of the UAC facility. Yellow streaks of light illuminated the path as the giant robot, Samuel Hayden, slowly walks down it, it's blue streak of light coming down from his head getting closer and closer, bit by bit.

"You've won -" he states nonchalantly as he continues walking forward, "It's over. You've stopped the invasion and closed the portal."

He then issues a quick pause, as if he was regretting something.

"But it's come at a price - Argent, VEGA. This entire operation."

Dr. Hayden then looks ominously down at the Doomguy, as he towers over him.

"You see, I've watched your work - come to understand your motivation. You think the only way is to kill them all - leave nothing behind - and you may be right. But we can't just shut it all down. Without Argent Energy it will be worse. I don't expect you to agree."

Hayden then opens his right hand and gravitates to crucible from Doomguy's hand right into his, crackling with red electricity, a feat Doomguy hasn't seen from him.

"But with this..." he states as his hand points to it's direction, "We can continue our work."

The massive robot then looks back at Doomguy.

"I am not the villain in this story." he explains, "I do what I do because there is no choice."

Just then, a female robotic voice can be heard announcing something.

'Re-rotuing tether coordinates... complete.'

Doomguy's fists began to clench, already knowing what's going on, and while he'd love to punch Hayden in the face, he simply couldn't move, as if a telekinetic force was holding him back.

"Our time is up." Hayden says, looking at Doomguy, "I can't kill you - but I won't have you standing in our way."

With that, the crucible then ignites what appears to be a sinister looking weapon, a sword and double pick-axe hybrid, made of a red forcefield, with lines of demonic text and red electrical lightning covering the weapon.

"Until we see each other again..." was the last thing Doomguy heard until he was pulled away by the tether, separating he and Hayden dimensions apart.

---

---

The next thing Doomguy knows, he lands in what appears to be on the muddy shores of a lake to his left, with a forest to the right. He was completely expecting to land right back in Hell, simply to rot or once again roam the plains killing demons left and right, not in some place like this. Then again, it was rather peaceful, with birds chirping nearby, the sounds of water coming from the lake, it was rather peaceful.... yet so familiar at the same time. Regardless, now it wasn't the time to sight see. He was already pissed off at Samuel Hayden for backstabbing him in the back, even though he figured this would happen. He needs to find a way out of here and to head back to his dimension and fulfill his ravenous hatred.

First things first, what does he have currently? What weapons, supplies, etc. Doomguy checks the equipment stash from his helmet's dossier, hoping all of his weapons are still around. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Most of his weapons had seemingly vanished after being tethered to this location. However, there were still some items left with him. His trusty plasma pistol was there, his combat shotgun that he loves to use, a Heavy Assault Rifle, his chainsaw (surprisingly), a few frag grenades, and some med kits. He wasn't that bad off after all. Regardless, he needs to keep moving. He looks around the far edges on the opposite side of the lake and happens to see a clearing that has a camp, a road, and a small building with a dock. Perhaps Doomguy can get some more supplies from there, hopefully some new weapons, but also medkits and maybe some food. He hasn't eaten for god knows how long...

---

---

A flash of blue light can be seen from the sky as a streak of light flies with blinding speed above the plains of Hyrule. The light would zip in a loop until eventually loose speed and eventually crashes into the grassy plains below. But hidden from within the aura, a female figure emerges as she grinds herself to a halt, kicking up dirt and dust in the process. It was none other then a famous umbra witch known as Bayonetta. And what could she possibly be doing here now? In fact, how the hell did she get here?

"Awww," the witch sighs to herself as she dusts off her clothes, "Did playtime have to end so soon? Bully for them, I was just getting started..."

She then takes a good look at her surroundings.

"But where am I...?" she asks herself, "This doesn't look like Paradiso at all... let alone Inferno or anywhere on Earth. Where the bloody hell did that Lumen Sage teleport me to?"

Indeed, before she was teleported here, Bayonetta was simply going on another hunting quench, killing and slaying Angels with glee. Of course, this couldn't be said that she needs to kill angels everyday or otherwise Inferno will drag her down to hell and fulfill the contract with her and her fellow demons. So she was killing these Angels in a New York church, when suddenly she was confronted by a Lumen Sage. The two fought fought lightning fast speed and precision, until suddenly, while she was leaping towards it, Bayonetta got hit with an energy blast to her side and found herself teleported to his place in a mere instant.

The witch simply shrugs at this predicament, as if this was a regular Monday morning, and begins walking amongst the luscious plains of Hyrule. She then sees a small town or castle in the distance.

"Maybe that town over there can provide me with some answers..." she wonders as she continues heading towards its direction.

She seems to be unaware that a certain someone had a worse crash-landing than her's several tens of meters away...

"Alright guys, you ready?"

"Ready."

"Good to go."

"Can we just play already?"

"Alright, let's do this!"

Four avatars materialized just outside the town of Oasis on Pandora. Four players, four friends, playing together in a group. Among them was Maya, the Siren; Axton, the Commando; Zer0, the Assassin, and Gaige, the Mechromancer. They had banded together to create a badass party to take down raiders and monsters for the best loot possible in the very first expanded content story of Borderlands 2, Captain Scarlett and her Pirate's Booty. The group sat through the introductory cutscene and narration, Gaige's player in particular bored with it all. Goooood, when did they get to kill stuff?

"Is it over?" Gaige's player could hear through the headset. The voice belonged to his friend that had chosen to play Axton. The avatar of Axton stood unmoving, while the other three had already begun heading down toward their first mission.

"What's it look like, Jamie?" came the sarcasm of the player controlling Maya. "What were you doing, anyway?"

"It took too long, I got hungry. What, I just put a burrito in the microwave."

"Enemies inbound!" shouted the player of Gaige, perhaps a little more loud than was needed. He was correct though, for at that moment a group of raiders emerged and began firing wildly at the group of Vault Hunters.

The team split up to take on this threat. Axton and Gaige each jumped behind the cover of a land-ship that had been grounded, while Axton tossed out his Sabre turret. Maya immediately put the biggest, baddest bandit into a phase lock so that they could mow down the smaller support units before focusing on the big boy. Zer0 vanished from sight, his holographic decoy appearing on the field of battle while the player snuck into the bandits' comfort zone and began stabbing them to death.

"DIIIIIIIE!" Gaige's player cried out, firing with his Maliwan lightning SMG into the crowd. Despite his aiming reticule perfectly targeting the enemies he wanted, none were hit. "Dammit, gotta reload, cover me!"

"Why do you use that shitty-ass Anarchy build with Gaige? I swear, I spend half my time covering you!" complained Axton, meleeing a bandit to death that had wandered just a little too closely.

"You could always branch your skill out, put some points into 'close enough' so that when you miss there's a chance they bounce and hit enemies anyway," suggested the Maya player.

"Psht, yeah, for 25% reduced damage," Gaige shot back, taking aim with the SMG and firing once again. "Besides, that's cheating. All or nothing, baby! BOOYAH! THAT is why I use this 'shitty' anarchy build, Jamie!"

Even though Gaige's gun had not been aiming even remotely close to the phase-locked "badass bandit," a single bullet somehow found its way toward the powerful enemy. That one bullet had somehow been enough to completely decimate the bandit's shock-resistant shield, and straight up kill him. The entire team would normally have had to focus all their firepower on an enemy like that to take them down, maybe even resort to rocket launchers.

"Alright, alright, so you killed the badass bandit," Zer0's player began. "Don't act like your play style doesn't have proble-What's going on?"

The game began to glitch around them. The environment started clipping through itself over and over again. One by one each of the player's avatars fell through the floor, and though they shouted in the comfort of their own homes, Gaige's player never heard them as his headset filled up with a head-splitting static. Finally, Gaige too fell through the scenery, into a sea of ones and zeros.

...

"Ugh... What happened?" Gaige stood up, rubbing her head with her mechanical arm, an act not nearly as uncomfortable as it sounded. What was uncomfortable was the feeling of vertigo from standing up too quickly. Gaige stumbled for a moment, then found her balance, and took a look around. Where was she? She was in some kind of large, open field, that much she could tell. It appeared to be approaching evening, and all she could see around her were a few trees sparsely populating hte field here and there, and some kind of walled structure off in the distance.

"Let's see... Last I remember, I was with Maya, Axton, and Zer0, and we were looking for some pirate chick named Captain Scarlett. There was a fight against some bandits, and then... Could they have knocked me out?" She seemed to consider the possibility for a moment, crinkling her chin while resting her thumb against her cheek. Then suddenly she declared, "Naaaaaw!" With a shrug, Gaige figured that it was better to get a move on to the only place she could see than to sit there doing nothing. No point in hanging out after dark (even if she was a grown woman and able to do what she wanted at any hour of the day, suck it adult authority figures!).

So began Gaige's long hike toward the... Farm? Ranch? Whatever it was, hopefully they had a map or global ECHO positioning, because Gaige didn't recognize the landscape that was being displayed on her HUD. At the very least she expected that they'd have a tractor. Something to tinker with to deal with the nerves. Yeah, they'd _at least_ have that. Boy, it sure was getting dark quickly. Oh hey, the sun was down already? It was then that Gaige heard the howling of some beast off in the distance, and it gave her pause. Howling? There weren't any creatures on Pandora that howled, were there? She must have imagined it. Must be homesick. Eden 6 had plenty of dogs, so she must have imagined it to give herself some more familiar emotions.

Just then something grabbed Gaige's ankle from the ground. Eyes open wide, the young woman looked down, her Jakobs pistol digistructing in her right hand. It was a hand. A skeletal hand. Thankfully she needn't have shot the thing, as her Maliwan Fiery Spike Shield (TM) took care of it for her, bursting the thing into an explosion of flames. The bad news was that it wasn't alone. Skeletons began unearthing themselves all around her.

"Huh. That's new. Well then let me introduce you all to a little friend of mine. His name is EAT HIGH-VELOCITY COMBUSTION PROPELLED SHRAPNEL!" Opening fire on them with her Jakobs pistol, she found them quickly and easily dispatch, a single shot took them down without problem. Within the span of two seconds, six skeletons had been felled by her bullets. Gaige smiled, blowing the smoke from the barrel as she reloaded. "If it took more than one shot, you weren't using a Jakobs!"

Another six skeletons immediately sprawled up from the ground, converging on Gaige. Taking in a quick breath, the young woman dodged to the side to avoid being boxed in and began firing at them. Again, each one was easily destroyed in a single shot, only for another to rise and take its place, much closer to Gaige. She kept firing, pulling the trigger like a madwoman, killing skeleton after skeleton, all the while running toward the ranch. It didn't take too long before her aim began to suffer.

"It's taking more than one shot! DAMN YOU CORPORATE MARKETING ASSHOLES!" Deciding it was better to cuther losses and run, Gaige booked it full sprint. She didn't even pay attention to how the creatures that couldn't keep pace just vanished, while new ones popped up in front of her. It wasn't worth the effort to pay that sort of attention.

After running for several minutes, Gaige came to the entrance of the ranch and happened upon a... Most interesting sight. Someone was in the ground. Like, stuck in the ground. Head first. Wow. Epic fail? Looking back at the oncoming undead, Gaige shrugged in that exasperated way that only she could, and muttered, "You owe me."

"Alright DT, you pull this guy out of the ground while I hold them off!" Gaige waved her mechanical hand in front of her, blue energy surged through the wiring, and... Nothing happened. "... What? Ser... Seriously? ARE YOU EFFING KIDDING ME?!" Gaige rushed to yank the man up from the ground herself, but found the task most difficult. She pulled, she forced, but he seemed to be content in the ground. Meanwhile, a skeleton hand clawed at her backside, and had been combusted for its efforts. She saw a small portion of her shield's power deplete. It was less damage than she anticipated, but the idea of getting swarmed while focusing on Stucky McStuckerson here wasn't the most appetizing, y'know?

That's when Gaige had an idea. "Aha!" Doy Gaige! Why are you pulling on this guy with your real hand? You have a friggin' robot arm that's way stronger and so much cooler! So she switched arms up and grabbed the man, more forcefully than she needed too, and gave a mighty pull, plopping him right with significantly less effort than she had been using before.

"Hi-I'm-Gaige-no-time-to-talk-run-now-ok-let's-catch-up-sometime-bye!" With that the teenage girl darted off directly into the ranch, where the skeletons, curiously enough, refused to follow...

Bravely Second - Kaiser Oblivion

"So Nikolai, too, has died..."

The player tried her best to replicate the lines she remembered, but the most recent of Yew's empowered speeches had brought a tear to her eye and a smile on her face in that corny way. That was the game in a nutshell really, kinda corny, kinda silly, but still managing to bring a tear to your eye.

"But think of what we had gained, sire!" Spoke Anne, the cryst-fairy. On this run through, the player was trying to see if any of her lines had any sort of hints to her villainy. She did seem to be trying to push Denys towards guiltlessness and reinforcing that he's doing the right thing by killing tons of people. "All for crystals running wild! Their power spilling forth to tear open the boundaries between worlds!" The girl continued, gesturing enthusiastically for effect. "Everything you wished for... All of your wishes are about to come true!" The fairy said, pulling herself closer to the kaiser and holding onto him.

"Yes, here we are... at the end of our journey." The player recited, though she knew that was not true. She still had a few fights before Diamante, which was apparently super hard, but gave a glimpse at the next game's protagonist if beaten. Or so she heard from a friend. "Yet all of our companions are lost. Only we may celebrate today."

"Alas, this is true." Said Anne, and overdramatic frown gracing her face. "But they gave their lives for your noble cause!" She suddenly exclaimed, a saccharine smile now plastered onto it. "Your dream was the dream we all shared. If we make it come true, their sacrifice will not be in vain!"

"Indeed." Was all the player said. Being this close to Anne, she could see how Denys fell to her. Constantly praising him and pushing him forward. She was worried even she would fall to the dark side! "Shall we, then? The boundary of worlds awaits..." Anne said. She was moving towards the Skyhold's control panel when...

"N-not so fast... Don't you... count me out...!" Demanded Janne, bloodied and beaten, he came limping in. His hair was frayed, his fencer's suit was torn, and he was covered in many slash wounds, bruises, and scorch marks. It was a marvel the man could still walk, and why the player considered him the premium husbando.

"Janne!? You still live!" Anne said, though it was clear she was more confused than happy. "A little banged up, but yeah, looks that way." The man replied cockily. "You've done well to return Janne! Truly. I'm happy. Let us set forth together, to the boundary of worlds!" Said the player. Janne responded in kind. "Yeah, let's do it!"

"We shall deny the mockery that Luxendarc has become, and build a glorious new world in it's place!" The player exclaimed. God, she always wanted to do that! With that final line, the cutscene ended, and gameplay resumed. In this version of the game, the Kaiser and Anne fought together in the throne room, before Denys hops into the Holy Pillar, so she'd need to outfit the both of them. But as she returned to the throne room, it did not sport the crystal throne that was centerpiece for many a conversation, and the window to Luxendarc was a pitch black.

Suddenly, the Kaiser fell through the floor, a cacophony of ones and zeroes in green swirling around him. The player caught a brief glance of Anne simply floating there, completely still, before everything seemed to fade.



A grunt escaped the King as he fell onto hard dirt. He blinked heavily at the direct sunlight he was being shown, and quickly got himself up and dusted himself off. After that, he took a quick review of what he had on his person in case he was in danger. It seemed all he had on him was his Claymore, and of course his Asterisk. Though he had no potions, as long as he didn't run out of magical power, Spring Awakening would keep him healthy.

After this, he surveyed his surroundings. The scenic and beautiful lake betrayed the dead trees surrounding it, and the yellowish, half dead grass. There was a telescope, and odd looking device he was going to guess was some sort of magical camera, and a laid out picnic. He also saw a few oddly designed buildings, one that said 'BOAT RENTAL' with a couple of canoes near it, and some more odd buildings along with some tables directly opposite it.

How did he get here? Last thing he remembered was preparing to use the compass to travel back in time. Damn! Could Yew and his friends have gotten the jump on him? After all this time and sacrifice, could he have lost? No, he would figure out wherever he was, reclaim the compass, and right the wrongs of the past. Until or unless Anne, Janne, or Revenant came for him, he would have to find a way back to...

There was no Holy Pillar.

Looking at the skyline, the easily seen Holy Pillar was nowhere to be found. Had he succeeded in his mission? Was this the past, 200 years ago? There were so many possibilities his head began to spin, but he stayed calm. He would need to gather some information first before leaping to conclusions. He made his way over to the first man he saw, judging by his robes he was a magus. Though the man was smiling, something about him felt off, and he had sustained a wound. Denys quickly cast Spring Awakening with a domineering flick of the hand. The man's wounds would heal in a few moments. For now, the Kaiser would introduce himself, though if Yew truly had succeeded, than he doubted introductions would be necessary.

"Hello, I am Denys. Do you happen to know where this is?"

Terra was about to test the boundaries of where the skeletons could enter when a shooting star seemed to crash land right in the midst of the skeletons, shattering all of them with an almighty boom. Terra lit her hands up with fire just in case and approached the impact sight. As the dust and smoke cleared she realized it was not in fact a meteor but a man that had come crashing into the ground. The idea brought something back in Terra's memories. Falling... crashing... flying...? Floating! She had been on the Floating Continent. Kefka had broken the alignment of the Warring Triad and Terra, Locke, Strago and Celes had been forced to jump for be struck by divine lightning.

But how had she gotten here? She had been falling through the air, searching the sky for their airship The Blackjack when suddenly... she was just here. It hadn't felt like teleporation and besides she didn't have that much range on her own skills. Had some mystic force plucked her from the air? More importantly where had they been delivered to? This land seemed with the exception of the nocturnal skeleton creatures fairly benign. Kefka would have simple warped them somewhere lethal so how had she ended up here. More importantly where was Locke, Strago and Celes. They hadn't arrived with her. Maybe they'd landed in some other area of this new world.

Terra was so deep in thought over what was going on that she'd completely neglected to give any thought to the man half trapped in the ground. Though he looked thoroughly comical he'd be eaten by skeletons if he wasn't saved. Eaten? Did skeletons eat people? Regardless she should help him.

Before she had the chance however a strange girl came running up and plucked him out of the ground with what looked like magitek technology in place of one of her arms. She yelled something really fast before charging past Terra presumably in pursuit of some shelter. Terra glanced back at the other guy as the skeletons were starting to emerge again. He looked like he could handle himself.

Terra turned and ran off after the girl. She kept her fire in her hands just in case this girl proved to be a threat. "Hey you! Stop! Who are you?!" she shouted after the girl hoping to get her to stop running. "The skeletons won't come in here. You can stop running!"
@Happy Go Lucky@ProPro

@Prince of Seraphs@Happy Go Lucky@ProPro

"Aw yeah, an 18-killstreak!" the girl playing Scout said as she blasted another Soldier in the face, showing her 18th kill in the killfeed. "This is it, going for a Godlike!" She ran around the map of Badwater, searching for another enemy to kill. Fortunately, it seemed like she didn't have to travel very far; an Engineer was busy building up a sentry and was too distracted to notice his impending death. Thinking she found some easy prey, Scout rushed forward to shoot down the poor guy. Unfortunately, from around the corner came a Pyro, and Scout was too late to backpedal away before getting a face full of fire. At this point, the Engineer also turned around and began firing at Scout with his shotgun. Scout ran off to find a health kit, but the Engineer and Pyro were still firing away with shotguns. Before long, Scout ran out of health and died. "Dammit!" the girl playing Scout said, annoyed over losing her 18-killstreak. Unfortunately for her, there was nothing she could do about it now, except wait for the respawn and try again.

Some time passed, and Scout did not respawn even when the timer reached 0. At first, Scout was confused. Then she came to the realization that there seemed to be a bug of sorts going on with the game. A few questions came up in a chat bar, showing that it wasn't just happening to her. Before Scout could make heads or tails out of it, though, everything suddenly became fuzzy and faded to black.

Scout eventually respawned, though, something was.... different. "What the... where the hell am I?" Scout said after a moment of confusion. For one thing, Scout was definitely not in the spawn room. In fact, it looked like he was outside, though it was not any place he was familiar with. Looking down, Scout noticed that he still had his scattergun, which was a good thing. Another thing was that he was on a roof of a building. Confused, Scout turned his head left and right to try to understand the situation. Scout turned around to look over the other side of the roof, just in time to see someone running over to the place. Specifically, a red-haired girl with a gun of her own. There was also another green-haired girl nearby, who had already begun talking to them.

With no time to waste, Scout knew what to do. Jumping off the roof he was on, then double jumping as he neared to ground to avoid injury and do a cool front flip, Scout made the landing and went over to greet/flirt with the group. "Hey there, ya beautiful ladies," Scout said to Gaige and Terra. "Name's Scout. Fastest man in the world right here. I could cave someone's skull before he'd even say, 'That handsome guy's too beautiful to look away from.' I also have no idea where I am right now, any of you know?"

---

@Lmpkio

The guy playing Spy was busy sidestepping over to an unaware Medic, quickly backstabbing him and moving on to the Heavy that he had been healing, backstabbing him as well. All in all, it was a good session. Spy also noticed that his team was making good progress on the point capturing, and his team would soon win the round if they were not stopped. Spy went back to see if the enemy were building any defenses, and soon came upon a couple of Engineers building sentries. Spy began messaging his team with team chat about the upcoming obstacle, then got to work doing what he could to take out the Engineers and the sentries. Putting on a Sniper disguise, Spy went over to the sentries and placed a couple sappers on them, then quickly ran off to cloak and hide nearby. Of course, this alerted the Engineers, who ran back and quickly as possible. As the Engineers began smacking off the sappers, Spy uncloaked and backstabbed one Engineer. The other one, however, had removed his sapper, causing the sentry to begin targeting Spy. Spy tried to cloak again, but did not have enough energy in his Inviswatch to do so for very long.

Before Spy died, though, everything began to freeze. The sentry kept spinning around on its pivot, and neither Spy nor the Engineer could not move. People were asking questions in chat, wondering what was going on. Before any conclusion could be drawn, though, everything became fuzzy, then faded to black.

When Spy awoke, he found that he was no longer on the battlefield. Instead, he found himself in a forest full of dead trees. Needless to say, Spy was very confused. He had no idea what was going on, but he knew for sure that this place was no battlefield. Spy took the cigarette in his mouth out and flicked it away, then he reached into a fold in his suit and pulled out a small container, taking out a fresh cigarette and lighting it before placing it in his mouth. Spy then walked along the path, attempting to determine his location. When he emerged from the forest, there was a sparkling blue lake, and a number of other things nearby, including a camera, a tent, and a tarp on the ground. To Spy, that looked like a place for a stakeout. Why that would be there, Spy had no idea. Looking around some more, Spy also spotted a man wearing what looked like a very high tech suit of armor. Spy could only deduce two things: either this was a top-secret government experiment of some sorts, or he was no longer in his own universe. To Spy, even with all the events in his job he had been through, this was undoubtedly the weirdest event he was in.

Looking around further, though, Spy could see no other people, or even living creatures, around. With that, if he wanted to get information, Spy had little option but to talk to the armored man. Spy placed a hand in his pocket, readying his Dead Ringer, and went over to Doomguy. "Pardon me, but would you happen to know where I am? I seem to have gotten lost on the way," Spy asked Doomguy.

"Red..."

The red haired woman let a small inquisitive moan in response to the voice. It sounded like her partner. She turned towards the voice, only to be greeted by a blade stuck into the ground. For a brief moment she was confused, but her memory returned to her fairly quickly. So that night wasn't all just a dream like she had hoped. She slowly pulled herself up, and fixed her hair, before pulling the Transistor out of the terrain.

She began to ask Blu what was going on but her voice didn't seem to want to come out, all that sounded was a hoarse wheeze. It seemed her losing her voice wasn't a dream either.

"Still mute, Red?" the man in the Transistor sighed. "Well, let's see where we are." Blu suggested. Red looked around. She was in the middle of a large, grass field quickly becoming night. There were many hills, and a few landmarks in the distance. A mountain, a river, and, closest, a castle. As Red surveyed her surroundings, she tried to focus on how she got here. Those two men with the Camerata, they told her with the Transistor she could control the Process. She was trying to reach someone. Royce. But she never made it there, did she?

"This doesn't seem like Cloudbank, unless we missed a renaissance fair." Blu commented. He was going to speak again, but the shifting the ground interrupted them. "The process?" He asked. It seemed he was wrong though. Some form of skeleton rose from the ground. Instinctively, Red slammed the blade into the ground, Crashing the undead and shattering him back into a pile of bones. "No, no definitely not... Red, look!" Blu said, alerting Red to the two that had popped up in it's place. Again, Red Crashed them, but another pair popped up. Red was about to go into turn, see if maybe these were processes, just with cloaked Cells. But Blu pitched in. "More'll just pop up if you kill them Red. Run." He told her. She relented, and began fleeing towards the castle.

As she made her way their, occasionally Jaunting to dodge the swipe of a skeleton or destroying one per Blu's advice, the man in the Transistor seemed to notice something. "Red, it looks like when we outpace one, another one just pops up ahead of us. We'd better reach shelter soon." He told her. Luckily, sanctuary seemed imminent. Red could see a woman in the distance, and she seemed to be holding guns. The Transistor didn't seem to hold any power over these things so help would be appreicated.

As Red reached the woman, Blu spoke to her in Red's place. "Hey, lady, mind helping us out here?" He asked the woman. Red gave the lady a look over as she answered. The woman was wielding guns on both her hands, and feet, and her clothing seemed to be made of some kind of hair-like material. Red hadn't been keeping up with stuff outside of Cloudbank, was this what avant garde fashion was in another part of the world? She didn't like this style as much as Darzi's. Still, this woman would be much needed help, and maybe she could give them an idea of where they were.

At this moment, Doomguy was simply holding his energy pistol, for he didn't want to waste too much ammo just yet. Besides, his pistol had pretty much unlimited ammo since it fires plasma bolts, but were rather weak, even if it was charged. As he walks alongside a camp ground, he suddenly sensed the presence of someone else within the area, notably coming from his right. He looks at that direction and clenches his pistol, ready to fire if he needs to. What he sees though, isn't a demon, but a regular male human. He was wearing a red business suit, with a white under shirt, a tie, and seemed to be wearing an old fashioned "burglar" mask. Doomguy wouldn't know this though, but still keeps a watchful eye as the figure approaches him.

"Pardon me, but would you happen to know where I am? I seem to have gotten lost on the way, the man says in a heavy french accent.

Doomguy wasn't much of a talker, but he simply shakes his head slowly. He was just as lost as this guy was. The man seems a little suspicious to him, but judging on what he looks like, he didn't seem to be much of a threat anyways. After all, he can simply rip him limb and limb, rip and tear into him with simply his bare hands. He then looks around towards the lake and sees what appears to be a wooden sign that was planted into the muddy shore. Curious, the marine slowly walks towards it, still holding his pistol in his right hand. Using his left hand, he violently rips the sign from the ground and reads at what it says.

"Gourd Lake", the sign read in big black letters.

Perhaps this was where they are now. He then signals Spy to come with an arm gesture and shows him the sign.

---

---

Suddenly, the Umbra Witch hears a call of help to her left.

"Hey, lady, mind helping us out here?" a masculine voice calls out.

Bayonetta stops dead in her tracks as she looks around, seeing what appears to be a female figure. The lady had scarlet hair, with blue eyes, and quite a mighty sword. She didn't quite match the description of a male, unless this was some sort of transgender person, but she heavily doubted that fact. She also happened to be in some trouble, with skeleton creatures bursting out of the ground. With little hesitation and no words added, the witch runs towards them, wielding her guns, Love Is Blue, as she fires upon the incoming skeletons, hitting them all with her shots. This will simply be too easy to deal with them, even with the possibility of more being on the way.

A confounded and agitated preoccupation with discerning his surroundings did not mean that Henry missed the lone figure drawing near. As soon as he spotted the Kaiser, he turned his full attention toward him. Relief washed over Henry to discover human life in this place. Against all odds, he would have rather not been transported to some sort of barren astral plane or the afterlife. He had many more things to do and people to kill, after all. A normal person might have been wary of the newcomer, but Henry carried along with his indelible merriment a sort of casual arrogance that only befitted individuals so sure of their own strength that they didn’t care to flaunt it.

Denys did not strike him as terribly unusual. His fanciful longcoat reminded Henry of Robin’s, and his mask obviously recalled images of Gerome, Cherche’s son from the future. In his right hand he held a blade of immediately recognizable quality, simple as it was. When the newcomer raised his hand in a move Henry instinctively -and correctly- assumed to be in preparation for magic, the dark mage instantly prepared to cast a countercurse, but as he could not detect any sort of foul sorcery at work, he kept his spell hand at bay. In only a moment the potential problem passed, and Nero felt the lance wound in his side disappearing. Smiling pleasantly at the stroke of good luck and its giver’s positive manner, he replied, ”Not a darn clue! One minute I’m walking along a lovely beach, then I’m in this boring place. Talk about anti-climactic. My name’s Henry. That healing magic is awesome! I wish I could do it. Imagine: make a cut in someone, bleed ‘em silly, then heal the cut and do it all again! Hey, d’you mind giving me a hand with something? I want to run a little test.” He couldn’t imagine why this guy would say ‘no’ to such an innocuous request. Maybe Denys wanted to fret about where they were a bit more, but Henry didn’t care as much. Whoever brought him here would surely explain sooner or later, and afterward, he could pay that individual back for messing in his business.



The player cracked his knuckles, not exactly sure what awaited him in the game Street Fighter 5 but nevertheless a bit nervous. Everyone he knew who understood a thing about this game, or fighting games in general, told him that even if Street Fighter was one of the simplest fighting games available, one would need to put in countless hours of practice to even have a chance at beating other people. Getting destroyed again and again without the chance to learn anything did not exactly appeal to this player, but he thought he would try nonetheless. First things first: he needed to pick one of the characters in the game to act as his in-game ‘skin’. He scrolled through the list, counting off twenty or so. Some of the ladies caught his eye, but he decided that with how immersive these games were, he would feel dirty if he picked one as his playermodel. The man called F.A.N.G. caused him to raise an eyebrow just at how odd he looked, but that man paled in comparison to one of the last characters on the list.

One look at Birdie made the decision clear. He was a huge, fat man -over 500 pounds, in fact- with a giant yellow Mohawk, axelike sideburns, a British punk outfit complete with ridiculous collar and tattered jeans, and even yellow body hair. To some he might have looked like a repulsive slob—actually, he seemed that way to this player, but the player also thought it so incredibly comical that he could pick nothing else. He chortled under his breath as he made his selection. A menu popped up, and the player steered himself toward training mode. Alright, time to see what fighting games are all about. He poked the training mode button with a sausagelike finger and the world went away, replaced by a darkness wreathed in effulgent code.

When the world appeared again, it was something entirely different. The first thing Birdie saw was a cow, only a few feet away and halted momentarily in its grazing to look at him with big, brown eyes. All Birdie saw was a fatally undercooked hamburger, however, so he leered at the beast. ”Wot are yew lookin’ at?” He pulled himself ponderously to his feet, scratching a backside made itchy by contact with grass. In fact, the wisps of pollen in the air penetrated his nose, eliciting a wet sneeze from him. With a grimace and the back of his hand he wiped away its residue before looking around. Compared to urban London, this place looked like the boonies. To be honest, he couldn’t see very far due to encroaching nighttime, but the hills, grass, and bits of farm he saw were enough to convince him. A second look around turned up definitive signs of life in the form of several individuals not too far away from the cows’ pen in which he currently stood. At this distance, he couldn’t quite make heads or tails of what a couple of them were wearing. Between the one man and two women, there was no consistency in dress or style. As best he could make out, they simply stood around talking. ”Blimey! Wot sorry git sent me 'ere when all I wanted to do was sneak in some practice for miss Karin?” Shrugging his shoulders, he started toward them, easily stepping over the cow fence as he did.

The Kaiser smiled in a melancholy manner at the dark mage rambled a small amount. The man was certainly happy even though, apparently he was lost. He also had a morbid sense of humor, if one could call gleeful talk of murder humor. It almost reminded him of the late Exorcist, broken by his own guilt. He hoped something similar had not befallen his new acquaintance. He certainly seemed unhinged. But fulfilling the man's request couldn't hurt, yes? Well, it certainly may hurt, but with Spring Awakening, he was sure the both of them would be fine. Hopefully.

"No, I don't mind at all." Denys said, sheathing his blade. Though, he was almost certain he would need to take it out in a bit. "Though if it's about my Spring Awakening then I can answer any questions." He explained. Then the Kaiser decided he had better give the Magus a more thorough once over. Geist was quite dangerous when he and Denys first met. The man didn't seem to be in possession of any weaponry, but something that did catch his eye was that Henry didn't seem to be from any academy Denys knew of. The closest guess he could make was Al-Khampis, the flowing robes being good at deflecting the desert's sun.

"So, what is this 'experiment' you want to perform?"

---

The woman who Red and Blu accosted stopped dead in her tracks as Blu spoke to her. Mr. Nobody's breath hitched, and Red tensed up, the possibility that this woman wasn't friendly growing ever more evident as each millisecond passed. The black-haired woman turned to face them, a blank look on her face. Red could have even sworn they had locked eyes for a bit, before the woman charged ahead. The man in the Transistor began to scream out to Red, but the singer had already activated turn, and made her way behind Bayonetta, before realizing the pattern of the bullets. Unless she was the world's worst shot, she was aiming at the skeletons. With a sigh of relief, Red deactivated Turn, allowing Blu to finish his shout, and the gun gal to destroy all of her targets.

Blu quickly regained composure, and told the woman of the current situation. "They'll keep popping up no matter how many you kill. We need your help getting to a safe place." He explained. While he was doing this, Red dodged around some more skeletons, who had popped shortly after Bayonetta had dispatched the ones behind them. "That castle seems like a good idea." He suggested to the woman. "Though, if you know where to go, we're all ears."

Rumble Roses Arena:

The crowd were screaming and cheering as they watched the two fighters enter the ring. Cardboard signs were held with various text on it such as "I love the Diva", "I am here with my girlfriend", "Where is Lady X?", "Dixie is the best", etc. The arena was packed and so it would be with the champion fighting tonight, having to defend her title which she only had for the last three days which gained her superstar status among other things. The arena was lit up by various coloured lighting which was located all over the place, the entrance to the ring had a big stage with a wide plasma on it so those far back in the stands could see everything. Metal frames were located on each side of the stage and over the ring as well which also had plasma screens on it. The frames were also used to support the whole arena.

Candycane aka Becky Welsh was already in the ring wearing her superstar outfit. The design of her outfit was a much more extreme version of her regular outfit. She still retained her red ponytails, but with black hair ties instead of her standard ones. A spiked "dog collar" was present and had a silver padlock on it, instead of her usual choker. Two black leather straps that begin at the collar run down to the top fringe of the tight shoulder-less white logo shirt. Her top sleeves were transparent and made of a different material. Her thin top stops just below her bust where one could see her stomach. Candy Cane had four leather straps on her arms and over her elbows. She also wears a black fingerless glove on her right hand which also had a metal-spiked wristband. She also had a longer black glove on the left that comes up to cover her forearm, with a metal-studded bracelet on her wrist.

A silver chain runs from the lock, down along her chest and stomach and disappears behind the largely black, metal-studded, glam rock-style belt she wears around her waist. She also wore a red tartan skirt but with sections of black leather and metal stitched onto it. She also wears pink and black "Gothic Lolita" style striped stockings, that come up past her knees, and a pink garter belt-like ribbon tied around her left thigh. She wears a pair of 'industrial' boots with very high platform heels and pink laces. The boots also have metal buckles on them with adjusting straps. Leather leg guards, complete with straps and metal buckles, come up to cover her lower legs in the front and stop just below her knees. She was ready to fight as she also had her cherry red guitar on her, she had carried it from the stage after her performance and having smashed her other guitar to pieces.

Her opponent was Miss Spencer who was also from Canada as well and was probably the only person who did not think she was a waste of time. However, Candy Cane was not going to show any signs of her caring as she never broke character before. Candy Cane was 18 and Miss Spencer was 28 and so were a decade apart yet they were intertwined with one another. Spencer is tall and fair-skinned, with bright green eyes and shoulder-length blond hair. She's also fairly busty, with ample hips. Notably, she has a small 'beauty-mark' to the left of her lips, as well as somewhat pronounced cheekbones. Her hair was blonde which pulled into a loose bun at the back and parted over her right eye, letting the rest fall in a long wave to the left. Miss Spencer wear a pair of red oval reading glasses, while also wears fairly subdued makeup: including dark eyeliner and eyeshadow, along with pale pink lipstick and blusher.

Miss Spencer's costume includes an off-white ruffled dress shirt with the sleeves folded up past her elbows and the collar upturned. The front of the dress is open about midway down her cleavage- which she keeps covered with a bright red ascot around her neck. She wears thin black pads over both elbows and red and black fingerless grappling gloves. Around her waist is a red leather belt with metal hoops in it, and both the belt and the back of her gloves feature the golden emblem of (presumably) a company called Aphrodite Paris. She has a short reddish-brown skirt, that's split in the front of both thighs, with a pair of black workout shorts underneath. She wears dark stockings and red and black knee pads (also with the same logo), and high-heeled wrestling boots that come up to her knees. She was also in the ring with Miss Welsh, she never did call her Candy Cane even if that was her stage name.

"Miss Welsh, go back to school!" said Miss Spencer with a strong tone. "Teach, what are you doing here? And why the hell would I do that?" Candy Cane replied. "I will not allow you to continue doing these dangerous things, you must return back to school where you will be safe Miss Welsh," Miss Spencer said answering the young punks question. "Screw that, I am champion now and so I am staying, besides no one really cares anyway?" Candy Cane said back in a somewhat angry tone. "If you won't listen to reason then I will defeat you here in front of everyone, once I win you will be returning to school young lady," Miss Spencer said calmly. Candy Cane did not take that very well as she said one final thing "C'mon! I'm gonna kick your ass!"

Soon the match began and Candy Cane went for a dirty strike first which did in fact work against Miss Spencer which caused her to be stunned for a moment allowing Candy Cane to put her in a headlock. The head lock itself was not very complicated but it did cause a bit of stress in the neck and head area. As she did it the young punk started to notice something was wrong. Things became somewhat distorted before lines of green code could be seen. Just like that, she was no longer in the arena, the ring was no longer visible yet she was still on something. "What the, teach what is going on?" she asked. Miss Spencer was not present either, she was holding a wireframe which soon disappeared from sight. As Becky stood up to gain her bearing the invisible floor below her suddenly disappeared. She could feel herself falling yet she could not see it well as all she saw was a tonne of code. She did not scream as she was a bit too confused for that.

The player was somewhat confused when the glitch happened but they also felt something strange as if they were being downloaded or merged ith something. All they could say was "What the hell?" before going completely silent.

Gourd Lake:

The punk was soon in some strange unknown place or she would see if her eyes were open. She refused to open them but over time began to become curious. As she opened her eyes she noticed the sudden change in environment, she could see a shack of some kind. It had a red roof and a sign but she could not see what it said from where she was. One of the windows was open as Becky stayed completely still trying gather herself from what just happened. She could see a wooden deck, the sound of water was heard as well. "Water, where the hell am I?" she asked herself. By this time the punk tried to stand up but her legs felt like jelly and so it took her a moment before she managed to stand right.

She soon walked towards the shack wondering if anyone was in there. She had no idea where she was or where this place was. It seemed completely odd to her, it seemed she was still trying to gather her bearings it seemed. Once at the shack, she began to look around but it was empty as far as she could tell but someone had been here as she saw a can of something open. She did not decide to stay as nothing here was going to help her but something did catch her eye. She had seen a map which had a name of the place on it. "Gourd Lake......" Candycane said to herself. At least she knew the areas name but other than that not much, the map gave her some clues, however. Once outside again she walked towards the docks where she viewed the vast lake, it was massive and she could barely see the other spots dotted around the edges of the lake itself.

"I wonder if anyone else is here? I might as well as well look," she said to herself sounding like a right nut. From this point, she began to walk around the edge of the lake hoping to at least someone. This place was somewhat creepy as no living soul had been seen yet. The young punk soon found a forest based area, they looked somewhat lifeless as she looked them over for a moment before continuing on. Eventually, she spotted a few figures, hopefully, people who could help her making her run over to them. "Hey if you can hear me do any of you have any idea where this lake is or how I even got here?" she shouted sounding somewhat crazy as she ran towards the figures.

Once Gaige had plucked the strange man out of the earth and booked it for the inside of the ranch, she managed to sprint right by another woman. This other girl was dressed interestingly, for sure. She looked like she had stepped right out from one of those fantasy ECHO books that Gaige's dad used to play for her when she was growing up (though she quickly lost interest in them in favor of the scientific non-fiction ECHO books). With green hair, a red dress, pink waist sash, and all manner of colorful beads, Gaige couldn't help but stop when the girl called out to her, saying that the skeletons don't step foot onto the ranch.

Skidding to a stop, Gaige turned back around and approached the other woman, who looked prepared for a fight, but otherwise harmless and hesitant. Good thing I'm here. Gaige thought to herself, Krieg or Salvador wouldn't waste a second in taking this as a threat. Even Zer0 might start something just to see if she'd be a challenge. Pfft, what are you thinking, Gaige? Those three never would have run away from the skeletons! Duuuuh! She sauntered right on up to Terra, hands on her hips and not the least bit winded from her run. "Hiya! The name is Gaige. Glad to meet ya, and even gladder that your ranch wards off those things! So how do you accomplish it? An underground network of wires that power beacons projecting radio waves at the vibrational frequency matching sufficiently degraded calcium phosphate?"

The young mechanical genius didn't get much of a chance to continue her conversation with the other woman. At that point she had noticed two other figures appearing on her ECHO heads up display. One seemed to be deeper into the ranch and slowly working its way toward the, but the other made his presence known immediately. The man completely defied all laws of physics by somehow jumping while still in the air, adding a little flip for flair, then running up to them very fast. The man spoke quickly too, introducing himself as Scout. Another thing he was quick to do was flirt with Gaige and the other woman, but the young mechanic hardly even took notice. Even as the especially flamboyant and hammy Hildibrand made his introduction, Gaige could only focus on one thing. She quickly closed the gap between herself and Scout, deeply invading his personal space by examining his body head to toe, front to back, all while speaking at a million miles an hours.

"Oh my god how did you propel yourself in the middle of the air, I mean theoretically you could have used an O2 OZ kit but clearly you're not wearing one and besides those only work in an atmosphere denser than oxygen and this clearly is a normal atmosphere plus gravity isn't all out of whack so that's normal too, so how did you pull that off I mean are your shoes special, do they have hidden anti-grav propulsers, are you a cyborg OH MY GOD if you're a cyborg then we should totally be besties and we can exchange all of our technological specs oh that would be so cool so what about this bat, does it do anything special because it doesn't feel special but looks can be deceiving, since you know a lot of people see me and just think 'oh she's just a teenage girl' but I'm clearly a mature and sophisticated young woman of great intellect as you can see by my arm which I built all by myself single handedly and I actually mean that literally because I only had one hand at the time, hence the need to build a replacement arm."

Gaige stood back, finally breathing, and glanced out toward the ranch where the other individual was moving toward them. He was a large man, very large in fact, with a yellow mohawk looking like some kind of punk. In other words, he looked like a bandit. Buuuut you can never be sure until they start shooting at you. Still, better safe than sorry, right? Gaige digistructed her TORGUE shotgun, the weapon materializing in her hands in a pulse of blue 1s and 0s, and pointed it in the general direction of Birdie. It was then that she noted that her ECHO HUD hadn't marked the large, punk brutish looking man as a hostile. Realizing her mistake, and musing over how the ECHO net always seemed to know the difference, she lowered her gun but kept it at the ready. "So uh, any of you guys happen to know just where on Pandora are we?"

@Happy Go Lucky@Lugubrious@Scarifar@Prince of Seraphs

The glee that filled Henry when Denys didn't immediately deny his request for assistance was positively childlike, though not in the sense of childish purity. Instead, the short burst of laughter that issued from him carried the connotation of someone having found a new toy—or perhaps that was simply Denys' imagination, building on his suspicions. ”Excellent! It's really quite simple. I want to make sure that nothing's been messed up by whatever brought me here, so I was thinking that I'd smack ya with a spell, and then have you try and cast that healing spell on me again for me to deflect back atcha. There's really no downside. If I've lost my mojo, you probably won't get hurt anyway, but if it's good, you'll be right as rain in just a sec. Sound alright? Too late to back down, now!” From his robe he suddenly produced a grimoire bound in dark red leather. It fell open, and at his touch, arcane symbols flared to life across the pages.

At that moment, however, a strangely-dressed woman about his age appeared in his peripheral vision. Candy Cane's yelling while running struck Henry as exactly how a ruffian or marauder might attack, and in his distraction he turned from Denys toward her. From his outstretched, empty left hand a fireball materialized along with a wave of heat, though its creator didn't seem affected by the sudden increase in temperature. In the split second before the spell fired, Henry got a better look at the woman, determining that she didn't appear to be armed or really threatening...just crazy. Expertly he diverted the fireball, and it exploded on the ground a couple meters away instead of raging toward her. Considering that her arrival changed the situation somewhat, Henry snapped the Elfire tome shut and held it by his side. ”Hey there! It's not very smart to interrupt a Plegian dark mage while he's working, you know. Almost toastied ya!” He ignored her question, since he didn't have an answer. For that matter, after his little greeting, he ignored her completely. Turning back to Denys, he retained his warm smile. ”Well, that coulda been nasty. Wanna try again?” Evidently the thought of severely burning either Candy Cane or the Kaiser didn't bother him unduly.



As he approached the little group, Birdie saw with satisfaction that he appeared to be at least a foot taller than the next tallest person, the Scout. Looks like a buncha shorties, he thought smugly. Given the baffling and alarming situation in which the huge man found himself, he would not have hesitated one instant to floor someone else if he thought they might try and hurt him. Being substantially taller and way, way heavier than anyone else present would only make it that much easier. At least, Birdie thought this until the less-weird looking girl turned his way with a hard look and produced a shotgun from thin air to wave in his direction. Birdie froze, even the word “Wuh-!” cutting off in his throat. No matter how big the man, all it took was a single bullet to a choice spot to take him down. Having been on the receiving end of several barrels before, he knew the correct course of action, and slowly started to raise his hands.

Then, very abruptly, the girl stopped pointing the gun at him. Birdie's brow furrowed and his mouth hung open slightly. What?! First she threatens his life with a firearm -a potentially lethal act even someone like Birdie would take deadly serious- and then she just stopped? First off, where did this little stain get off thinking she could wave a shotgun at him? Anger welled up inside him. With as much discretion as he could muster, he allowed the chain around his right forearm to unwind while the girl asked the others a question. Then, with obvious skill from experience he lobbed the chain straight at her. While a chaingrab like this could be dodged or blocked, he felt sure that since her attention was elsewhere he would be able to ensnare her. Following that, he planned to reel her in and give him a piece of his mind. ”Oi! Wotcha doin' pointin' a gun at me, ya little git? Ya don't threaten someone like that unless ya think yer gonna die! Ya think I'm some kinda 'oodlum? Is that it?” he rehearsed in his head as his chain snaked through the air, ready to coil. No way she would be able to come up with a good response to that. This thought made him grin goofily, though the expression could easily be seen as a leer.

Scout moved his head back slightly as the redhead moved in very close and began speaking just as fast as he did, if not even faster. Although they were both speaking English, Scout did not understand a single thing she had said. One thing he did understand, however, was that the girl was clearly interested in him. For Scout, he took that the wrong way and was about to brag some more about himself when she pulled out a shotgun to point at someone. Scout went wide-eyed, not at how she pulled a gun out of nowhere, but at how awesome the gun looked. Then he realized that Gauge was actually pointing that shotgun at someone, and turned to see the large guy with a blonde mohawk that was now looking very annoyed.

When Scout the drain being unraveled, he thought, Ohhh, this ain't good. Scout had been in enough fights to know when someone wanted a fight, and that guy certainly looked like he was gonna pick a fight. When Birdie launched the chain, Scout saw that it was not being aimed at him, but at Gaige. Seeing that, he wasted no more time and reached toward Gaige pull her out of the way. Once he did that, he'd pull out his pistol and fire away at Birdie.

[/hr]

Spy became thoughtful as Doomguy shook his head. It made sense that he wouldn't know either; the guy didn't seem to belong around here any more then he did. With that out of the way, the only option for him was to look elsewhere for information then. Spy began to walk off and search for any bit of info that way uld tell him where he was. However, it seemed that Doomguy already found something, indicated by an uprooted sign. Spy raised an eyebrow as he looked at the sign with the words, "Gourd Lake." "Hmm..." Spy wondered. Gourd Lake was not a location he was familiar with. While it wasn't like he was aware every single named place in the world, Spy doubted this was an actual place in his world. This was another indication that he was no longer in his own country. Truth be told, it wasn't the first time he had been sent to another country, or even another world, against his will, but it was still an annoying event to occur.

Upon hearing that the skeletons would not follow her here the strange girl stopped and turned back towards Terra. Now that she was not moving at high speeds Terra had the chance to look at her properly. She was certainly dressed strangely. Her brown hair was cropped short and what was left of it was tied out of her face in two tufts that stood straight out against her head. She had a pair of goggles pulled above her eyes as they were not in use as well as a grin on her face that seemed to be saying "Show me what you got". Stranger than her appearance those was the clothing she dressed in. She wore black and white horizontal leggings and heavy duty boots made for running. She had purple pants that seemed to have been cut off showing most of her legs from the thigh down. Her shorts were held up by a belt that supported a great number of strange gizmos and gadgets as well as a tight blue sleeveless jacket with a surprisingly low cut purple top.

Her strange dress however interested Terra less than what she could now confirm was indeed a prosthetic arm made of shining metal. Terra had seen the most advance technology the Gestahlian Empire had been able to create and though the arm was not dissimilar to those used in some of their war machines their was no way to make such a thing obey the will of the user like a normal arm would, not without the a power source that could be bent to achieve almost any result. This girl had to be wielding Magicite technology which meant she was one of Gestahl's Magitek Elites.

Why then was she acting so normal? Perhaps she had no idea who Terra was, or maybe with the death of the Emperor she was no longer bound to do his bidding. More than likely though she was attempting to lure Terra into a trap. The esper decided to go along with it just to see how far this Gaige would take things.

The Megitek girl seemed to have mistaken Terra's comment the skeletons to mean that she owned the ranch and had set up some sort of protection around it. She then launched very quickly into a question with a good number of words that Terra likely wouldn't have understood if spoken to her at a normal speed much less the automatic crossbow bolt conversation that was being launched at her. "You misunderstand. This isn't my property. I took shelter here and noticed the skeletons seem unwilling to cross the threshold. I would guess that the ground is consecrated."

This Gaige girl however was not the only person it seemed to take cover in this place. A man dressed in red jumped from farmhouse roof and doing an impossible second jump in midair landed before them with a flourish. He was of course showing off and the shameless way in which he flirted with both Terra and Gaige rather reminded her of Edgar back in Figaro. She prayed he had survived the destruction of the Floating Continent and whatever ruin the unaligned Warring Triad would wreck upon the land. This place seemed protected whether from divine spell or simply lucky geography but Figaro might not be so fortunate.

Seconds later another fellow showed up. In fact he was the one that had crash landed outside the Ranch moments ago. He had a formal air to him but everything that came out of his mouth seemed to be completely idiot. He talked about the skeletons like they were friends despite the fact that one had been nibbling on his shoulder a moment before.

Terra decided to ignore him as she watched Gaige approach the new member inquiring about his ability to augment his jumps. Either he had magic or possessed some steam technology. It was not the strangest thing that Terra had ever seen. Perhaps he was descended from one of the Magi, left with limited arcane ability as their lines diluted and their powers waned.

Terra didn't have time to think about this however as a second later Gaige summoned some form of weapon from the ether and pointed it at an approaching figure. She stowed it after a moment perhaps realizing that the figure may not be hostile but unknown to her the act of drawing her weapon had clearly inspired the newcomer to attack. Gaige was facing the wrong way to see it but the rather large and thuggish man whipped a chain at her, looking to inflict some pain. Before Terra could respond the fast man, Scout, pushed Gaige out of the way of the incoming weapon but that didn't guarantee he wouldn't attack again.

She took a step forward and raised her right hand. "Firaga Ingenium!" She shouted summoning up a small but very powerful wall of fire that blocked the thug from Scout, Gaige and Terra. Firage was the hottest type of fire Terra could summon and when the chain made contact with it the metal became pliant and melded to itself. Now unable to extend to its full length for the dozen links fused at the end the chain clattered harmlessly to the ground.
@Happy Go Lucky@Lugubrious@Scarifar@ProPro

As Doomguy holds the sign for the Spy to read, he tries to check around for some sort of building for the two to take refuge in. At least the place wasn't crawling with demons or some other hell abomination... or maybe a little disappointing really. Regardless, there was a blanket of peace that surrounds this place. Eventually, he manages to locate a shack off in the distance, along with a dock and some boats as well. There should be some shelter and supplies waiting to be looted... if no one happens to be there. Doomguy taps Spy on the soldier and points to the location, giving a jerk of the head towards the location as he begins walking over there. It seems as if he wanted the Spy to follow him to there....

---

---

As Bayonetta fires at the skeletons, the sword the girl carries begins to address the situation to her.

"They'll keep popping up no matter how many you kill. We need your help getting to a safe place." it says.

Just then, a few more skeletons appeared behind the two, with the Witch quickly dispersing of them with a quick twirl of her waist. They seemed to be much more fragile then the Angels back in her world.

"Though, if you know where to go, we're all ears."

Bayo then points at the castle in the distance with one of her guns, firing on a skeleton with her other gun.

"Well it seems you two are just in luck." she announces, "I was heading over to that castle to the east before you both called me. We should be able to get some shelter there. Follow me."

And with a signal mentioning Red to come, the witch runs off towards the castle, firing upon any other skeletons that get in her way.

Denys frowned a tad at the sharp, almost evil little laugh Henry produced. That bode bad things for a man kind and gullible enough to accept the prompt. As Henry listed his idea, Denys wanted to interrupt him and tell him that the idea wouldn't work. His Spring Awakening was still active, and also affected all parties, so there would be no way of telling if the spell had been properly reflected. Unfortunately, the man had already taken out some kind of Tome, which was odd. Wherever he had learned spell casting, the Kaiser hadn't conquered it.

Right before Denys had a chance to command the mage to stop, he heard a woman behind him, in the distance. Both he and his acquaintance turned towards the woman for a split second, but Denys turned back to the magus too, seeing that the man was about to fire off a spell at her. Denys, thinking fast, quickly placed himself in between the two of them, but Henry skillfully threw his spell away from the woman. Denys sighed in relief as Henry shut his spellbook and changed gears. Though he still had a smile on his face, he reprimanded the woman for interrupting and ignored her question. He also mentioned Plegia. So that was where the mage was from.

"I don't believe that will be necessary." Denys explained to Henry. "My Spring Awakening effects everyone, friend or foe. We would not be able to tell if it were reflected or not. We'll have to find you another magic user to reflect on." Then he turned to face the oddly dressed woman. Her outfit was like nothing he had ever seen, a mix of leather belts and salmon. It was also quite skimpy. He had trouble believing she was even from Luxendarc. Still, she deserved a proper introduction. "Hello, Miss. I am the Kaiser, but you may call me Denys. This is Henry. We don't seem to know where we are either." He said. He quickly focused back on Henry for small bit to confirm something with him. "So, Plegia, you said? That is in the Harena region, yes?"

---

Red nodded at the witch, who was also making her way to the castle. It seemed the two truly were in luck. As the Transistor came off turn recovery, Red immediately used Turn again to catch up to the witch and dispatch some skeletons along the way. Once there, Red allowed Bayonetta to do most of the shooting, since all she could do in turn recovery was dodge and swipe with the massive blade.

"So," Mr. Nobody began with a clear of his throat. "Are you from around here? We're kinda lost." Blu asked. Red was wondering the same thing, but there was also something important he had forgotten to ask. Red shook the blade a tiny bit and made a small grunt. Blu quickly realized his rudeness and introduced Red. "Hey, this is Red. We're from Cloudbank. Who are you?"