2 Guests viewing this page
Hidden 1 yr ago 1 yr ago Post by Double
Raw
Avatar of Double

Double Hard-Boiled

Member Seen 9 hrs ago


The Under ~ The Arboretum


Word Count: 584
Level 5 Ganondorf: 27/50
Exp: 1
NEW EXP Balance--- 28/50


Just as he exited the castle, Ganondorf heard something in his ear. It was Therion's voice, thanks to the linkpearl Ganondorf last night by Primrose. "So they found an entrance? Well, let's get this over with then." he said to himself after he finished listening. He looked around from his current position. Therion said it was the building with a tree growing out of it, and sure enough it wasn't hard to spot. So Ganondorf made his way over in that direction. Therion had also warned everyone to watch out for the vines. Sounded like there was going to be plenty of plant enemies to deal with. Luckily Ganondorf possessed a newly-acquired fire breath power courtesy of Igos du Ikana's spirit. He had a feeling he was about to get a lot of use out of that one.

When the Gerudo was able to get a closer look at the Arboretum, he found that Therion's description didn't quite do it justice. "Tree" didn't even begin to describe what was seemingly growing out of this buildings cracks and seams. The tree part was mostly on the roof, but even the walls were covered vines and other foliage. The main entrance appeared to have some kind of roots or vines protruding from it and preventing anyone from being able to go inside. But Ganondorf was quick to notice some of the open and broken windows and figured that that was how everyone would be getting in. He climbed in through one and dropped down, almost immediately having to quickstep out of the way of an attacking vine. Therion wasn't exaggerating about this.

Ganondorf explored a bit, noting the sheer overgrown nature of the building's interior. Something about this reminded him greatly of the Forest Temple in his own world. He almost half-expected to find the quartet of multicolored Poes appearing at the center of the main chamber. But naturally, they did not appear. It took a bit more looking around before Ganondorf spotted what he thought might have been the way the others reached the lower levels. More vines growing out of a hole, but with a secondary hole that was dug next to it with considerably less vines writhing about. Looked like now was when he was going to get use out of that flame breath. Ganondorf inhaled and then exhaled his Violet Flare down into the hole. The purple flames didn't exactly burn or scorch away any ground or vines, but they did retract from it. That was the chance Ganondorf needed to more or less cleanly drop down into the hole entrance, which he did so.

And it wasn't long before the Seekers encountered obstacles. Ariel drones that looked like mechanical bees or wasps seemed to be buzzing about on patrol. Nadia tried to suggest stealth, but Sectonia was quick to point out that most of their members weren't exactly built for stealth. That unfortunately included Ganondorf himself. And then it was Primose and Kamek who suggested a diversionary tactic. Ganondorf was inclined to agree, "That's the strategy I would go with, personally." he chimed in with a shrug of his shoulders, "And more than enough of us have minions we can summon to perform just such a task." He added with a passing gesture indicating Kamek, Sectonia, and himself.
Hidden 1 yr ago 1 yr ago Post by Scarifar
Raw
Avatar of Scarifar

Scarifar Presto~!

Member Seen 24 hrs ago



Location: The Under - Termite Kingdom Ruins
Level: 3
Experience: 88/30 (Level up available)
Word Count: <750 (+1 EXP)


After hunting down the last of the Poes, Rubick and Sectonia received their rewards. Rubick laid claim to the sticker, noticing its interesting abilities, and allowed Sectonia to claim the others. Immediately placing the sticker onto the inside of his robe, he then examined the new ability granted to him. Web Wrap... The "Tape Jam" status effect... Rubick found it to be somewhat of a situational ability, and the accuracy rate was abysmal, but any additional tool on his proverbial belt wouldn't hurt. After all, it would be pathetic for him to be called the Grand Magus if he couldn't find a use for any ability he could find.

Making his way back to the Seekers, Rubick cheerfully entered the Hive, already used to the experience of entering dangerous area after dangerous area. Walking into what looked to be a giant beehive wasn't anything special at this point. If anything, it gave him an idea of what to expect. He could even see some of the creatures now. It looked like some of the larger bugs had superiority over the smaller ones, and even used some robotic bugs to enforce their rule. Apparently the way things were done never changed across societies.

At the mention of the word "stealth", Rubick couldn't help but let out a hearty chuckle. "Stealth? Since when did a group like ours ever employ such a tactic? Lady Sectonia is right, our current roster isn't fit for that," Rubick agreed. Twirling his staff, Rubick added, "Just say the word, and we can start the diversion."
Hidden 1 yr ago 1 yr ago Post by Double
Raw
Avatar of Double

Double Hard-Boiled

Member Seen 9 hrs ago



Suoh ~ Beacon Mental Hospital

@Lugubrious Luka | @DracoLunaris Midna | @Zoey Boey Sakura | @Yankee Pit

Word Count: 542
Level 7 Roxas: 3/70
Exp: 1
NEW EXP Balance--- 4/70


The last person Roxas expected to see was Gemma. He was that guy from the Anistar Gym who had sparred with Sakura. And when he said he thought Sakura wasn't a psychic, Roxas's heart nearly stopped beating. Uh oh, not good. It all came flooding back to him, Roxas's outburst and the fact that he had said Sakura wasn't a psychic. This little bit of awkwardness was indeed his fault. "Oh, uh..." Roxas stammered, trying not to panic, "See, I only thought that Sakura wasn't psychic," Roxas said, hoping this would be a good enough excuse, "but I found out later that I was wrong and she's actually psychic after all. That's, uh, totally my bad. Sorry about that."

After the exchange, Roxas put himself in Luka's group - mostly to avoid continuing the previous conversation with Gemma. Pit joined Luka's group as well, and afterward they set out for what seemed to be a residential wing of the hospital. The hallways were lined with numbered rooms intended for patient's stay in. The area was filled with this bubbly white stuff that Roxas was unable to identify. It kind of looked like wax, but what kind of wax just bubbled and boiled like that? And then Roxas started to notice the humanoid shapes lying in the stuff. He recoiled a bit as a kneejerk reaction, "Ugh, gross. Are those... people?" he wondered aloud. Luka explained that he wasn't sure if these were victims or just creatures waiting to spring to life and attack. Roxas really hoped it was the former. After what happened the day before yesterday with all those people succumbing to the redshift? Roxas had no desire to fight something that had once been a person.

In fact, Roxas tried to avoid getting near the things if he could help it. In one or two instances where he had no choice, he sliced them up with his Keyblades easily enough. But he was pretty unsettled by this place. Between this and the redshift he seriously wondered why anyone would bother living in these parts of the city. If it were him, he'd be doing whatever it took to move and live elsewhere. Roxas shook his head, trying his best to shake off the creeps that this place was giving him.

Eventually the team was faced with a head... tentacle... thing that seemed to be surveying the room like some kind of freaky security camera. Definitely looked like the sort of thing they needed to sneak past. And Pit was the one who asked the obvious question. Roxas didn't speak at first, guessing instead that if such was possible Luka would have suggested it himself. And in that case, well, what to do about this? "Looks like that has to twist itself around in order to see everything in room. Maybe we can watch it for a bit? Might be some kind of pattern we take advantage of." he suggested with a small shrug.
Hidden 1 yr ago 1 yr ago Post by Lugubrious
Raw
GM
Avatar of Lugubrious

Lugubrious Player on the other side

Member Seen 3 hrs ago

The Under - The Hive

Level 11 Nadia (144/110)
The Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Primrose and Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey, Ganondorf’s @Double, Rubick’s @Scarifar, Artorias’ @Dark Cloud, Barnabee
Word Count: 3352


For a few moments the team lingered around the mouth of the tunnel they’d entered through, quietly assessing the situation. Though the beauty of this scintillating space, this palatial gallery of gold and amber, wasn’t lost on them, they needed to focus their concern on the invaders who’d set up shop throughout the fallen queendom. The Seekers briefly discussed how to tackle this challenge, but they knew this calm before the storm couldn’t last long, not with their infuriated Hive Knight itching to tear through the wasps’ ill-gotten domain like a fox in a henhouse. Sectonia pointed out that stealth wasn’t really this group’s forte anyway, which Rubick quickly echoed. Between Sectonia, Bowser, Ganondorf, and Artorias, the team had quite a few big, high-profile warriors, and apart from Nadia, Therion, and perhaps Primrose, the rest weren’t exactly well-versed in the art of subtlety.

Of course, that wasn’t necessarily a problem for Nadia. “Well, if I don’t get caught, I don’t need to do any fightin’.” she replied with a sly grin. Off-handedly she wondered if Sectonia might have any second thoughts about killing other wasps.

“Off with thee, then,” Barnabee snapped. “And any others of like mind too. While I welcome thy aid, I will fight, with thee or without! Now that I have returned to reclaim my motherland, nothing will stand between me and my long-awaited vengeance! So make up thy minds with haste, friends. I will not stay my hand for much longer!”

Primrose proposed the idea of a diversion, which sat well with many of the others. With the Hive Knight (and Bowser too it looked like) spoiling for a bloodbath and a fight more or less inevitable, that sounded like a good way to make the most of it. While she honestly didn’t want to fight against a massive swarm of wasps if she could help it, Nadia hadn’t actually been planning to abandon Barnabee at the eleventh hour; she wanted to help. “Sure, yeah. If a couple of ya help keep the wasps busy, the rest of us can honey-comb the place for the boss, and if we find any workers we can turn ‘em loose.”

“Fine.” As a wasp patrol drew close to the Seekers’ position, Barnabee gripped his saw-toothed swordblade. “Then let us begin.”

The team split apart in a hurry, with Nadia darting off behind some buildings to sneak around the Hive’s perimeter while Barnabee stepped out into the open. Almost immediately the wasp patrol spotted him. The sight of an armed bee on the loose would have been enough cause for concern, but the strangers at his back put the insects on high alert instantly. “Intruders! Intruders!” they chorused, their strange voices harsh and buzzy. As they fanned out the five of them brandished their weapons, and at a nod from the squad leader the first wasp dashed at the Hive Knight to skewer him with her halberd. Barnabee waited for a crucial moment, then swung Yato with both hands to knock the poleaxe aside. The next second he slashed upward with the blade, sawing the halberd’s head off fast enough to send it flying upward, then lashed out to carve straight through the wasp’s narrow waist. As it fell apart, neatly bisected, Barnabee grabbed the halberd’s head and hurled it at the squad leader like a throwing axe, which she narrowly blocked with her own polesaw.

Her mandibles ground together in annoyance as she lowered her weapon. “Get him!” she rasped, and the others attacked. The second wasp attacked with dual swords, and the two bugs met in a clanging flurry of blows. As they fought the shieldbearer wasps surrounded the Hive Knight on either side, and his blade got caught on his opponent’s they charged in to crush him between their shields, but instead they smashed together hard enough to throw both off balance–Barnabee had disappeared. Before they could collect themselves, their foe appeared behind one shieldbearer and chopped her into pieces with a single stroke. He warped behind the second, his fiery blade singing, and cleaved through her middle as well. The sword-wielder panicked, turning and looking around in a panic to spot the Hive Knight before his next warp-strike could connect, but she didn’t look up. Her enemy fell upon her from above and mercilessly sawed her in half vertically, leaving her blades to clatter against the ground.

By that time the squad leader reached him, and chainsaw met buzzsaw in a vicious, sparking clash. As the big wasp threatened to push him back, Barnabee let out both a roar and a hiveling, which headbutted his opponent to throw her off. He flashed behind her as her polesaw swung side, and the next second the insect’s decapitated head fell from her shoulders. Barnabee landed and turned to see more squads heading his direction to start the fight for real. He took a deep breath, steeling himself for the fight of his lift, then at the top of his lungs let loose his mighty battle cry that filled the air with a dozen hivelings. “HUZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Meanwhile, Nadia skirted around the Hive’s perimeter near the wall. The fighting had already started back near the entrance, but it looked like the somewhat selfish, inattentive, and uncoordinated wasps weren’t inclined to descend upon the intruders all at once. Instead, they’d be engaging them a couple squads at a time as the Seekers moved through the Hive to threaten their papery domiciles or their food supplies. That meant things would be manageable for the others, but it meant enough wasps loitering around to ensure that Nadia’s stealth mission wouldn’t be a walk in the park. She moved quickly and quietly. The floors here were naturally uneven, and the different levels plus honeycomb outcroppings and pillars meant plenty of hiding places she could move between to avoid the wasps’ sightlines. Sprinting on all fours worked well enough, but when things got hairy she found she could resort to a Charge to near-instantly travel between two spots in a straight line. At one point though, near a wasp nest where a couple of the bugs were feasting on ill-gotten honey, she used Charge close enough that both could hear its electric zapping sound.

“Huh? Who’s there?”

“What’s that sound?”

Nadia ducked down, holding her breath. For a tense moment both wasps stared at the hexagonal honey-barrel she’d hidden behind, and she couldn’t risk peeking out. After a couple seconds, though, they turned away again to go back to their meal.

“Eh, probably nothing.”

“Must’ve been my imagination.”

Unfortunately, Nadia moved just a touch too soon, and both wasps caught a glimpse of her head out of the corner of her eyes and whirled back toward her. ”Huh?! Who’s there?!” they exclaimed at the exact same time, their voices so perfectly synced -and doubly loud- that Nadia froze in momentary terror, her ears flattened against her hair just out of sight. Wondering what the heck that was, she waited another couple seconds until both wasps’ alert level bottomed out again, prompting them to turn away saying, “I swear I saw something” and “Must’ve been my imagination” at the same time. Then she waited another second to be sure, and once the wasps resumed their chat exactly where they left off the cat burglar took off running.

She made her way toward a section of the Hive that didn’t look anything like the rest. While most of the underground queendom appeared to be hexagonal and immaculate save for the wasp infestation, one part off to the left side seemed weirdly overgrown. The hexes gave way to moist, dark earth covered with murky, dark-green ferns and thickets, and rusty orange water pooled around the trunks of big, knobby cypress and willow trees draped with curtains of hanging moss. Maybe some hardy specimens from the Arboretum had somehow grown downward into the golden glow of the Hive as well as upward toward the luminous lightroot? Either way, she couldn’t spot many wasps around there, and all that foliage meant low visibility–in short, a perfect short cut to reach the far side of the cavern. Nadia darted over and into the trees. Rather than get her footpaws soaked with dubious liquid, she latched onto the trees themselves with her claws, jumping and airdashing between them. In this manner she made good progress until she happened to cross the edge of a clearing amidst the fetid grove.

In it stood a set of stone ruins, the remains of a temple from some ancient civilization, complete with a quartet of monoliths. Toward the back, on a dias at the top of a set of stairs, lay an intricately-carved throne. There, trapped in place by constructing roots, sat a strange man. At first glance he appeared to be human, albeit decked out in a set of strange, ceremonial armor, but as Nadia paused to get a better look she realized that wasn’t the case. He might have a human head and silhouette, but four gossamer wings and an extra set of limbs extended from his honey-yellow carapace, and beneath the elbows and knees his arms and legs looked positively insectoid. At Nadia’s arrival, he stirred in his chair, his fetters clinking softly, and though his sunken eyes lacked any light of hope he jerked awake in surprise when his half-lidded gaze settled upon her. “A human? Here?” Moving his arms what little he could, he urgently beckoned her over. “Quickly my child, come here!”

For a moment Nadia didn’t move as she contemplated the situation. While her first instinct was to leave well enough alone, she’d already failed to get out of here undetected, but the stranger didn’t seem inclined to raise the alarm. Those bindings marked him as a captive, same as the poor worker bees forced to toil away for the wasps in their own queendom. Enemy of my enemy and all that. Making her decision, she jumped down from her tree and jogged across the stone bricks toward the throne. “Not human, but purr-etty darn close,” she piped up as she approached. “What’s goin' on here? You with the wasps?”

“Heavens, no!” The bizarre being looked affronted. “You stand before Ah Muzen Cab, god of bees! It was the wasps that trapped me here. Any day now they’re going to burn me alive as sacrifice! You must free me, please! Free me and I’ll grant you my boon!”

That sounded pretty good to Nadia. As she went to respond, however, a shrill voice rang out from behind her. “The intruder! There she is!” The feral whirled around to see a squad of four wasps, two with cleavers, one with a shield, and one -worryingly- with a torch. “She’s trying to free the bee god!” the leader yelled. “Change of plan! Burn him now, and kill her!”

Nadia’s ears and face fell. “Uh oh.”

As Ah Muzen Cab wailed about not wanting to be burned, all four wasps surged forward together. In a flash Nadia pulled out her Bait Launcher and fired a steak into their midst, but the leader knocked it aside with her shield. It plopped down by one of the choppers and a tiger promptly poofed into existence to tear the big bug limb from limb, but the shieldbearer moved a lot faster than Nadia expected. She flew into the feral with a powerful shield bash that knocked her down onto the steps before the bee god’s throne, her Bait Launcher flying from her grip to skitter across the stone and into the orange muck. The shieldbearer turned away, distracted by the surprise tiger attack that had befallen her underling, but the other chopper descended on Nadia as she tried to rise. With a hiss, Nadia detached her right arm to avoid the cleaver, which clanged against the stone steps, then grabbed that arm by the wrist with her other hand. Wielding it like a bludgeon, she smacked the wasp across the mouth. “Careful, I’m armed!” To her surprise the hit let off a blast of blood to give to blow extra explosive oomph, courtesy of the Multitarget buff conferred by the impact from the wasp leader’s shield. More than happy to roll with it, she chained into Flip Flop, then a One-two Pun-isher before whirling around to knock the wasp away with a triple tail lash.

Before she could follow up, a shrill yell from behind her grabbed her attention, and she turned to see the last wasp about to thrust her torch into the root mass that held the squirming, panicked Ah Muzen Cab in place. “Nyat gonna happen!” Gritting her teeth, Nadia hurled her detached arm at the firebrand, and on contact she wrapped her arm around its neck in a tight headlock. The wasp stumbled, her torch forgotten as she scrabbled at the choking arm, but that was all Nadia could do for now. The shieldbearer charged her again, forcing her to dodge roll out of the way. As she stood, Nadia shot blood from the stump of her right arm to form a Copycat limb replacement, then grabbed her head and rolled it across the ground. When the shieldbearer turned her way, the feral charged toward her, and she raised her block. That’s when Nadia sneezed, launching her head up behind the wasp to hit her unprotected back. Successfully opened up, the wasp took three explosive slashes from El Gato before Nadia spun up her left forearm and drilled into her abdomen. A final explosive burst finished the bug off.

Before the cat burglar could so much as catch her breath, a painful burning sensation erupted on her arm. She turned to see the firebrand trying to dislodge her chokehold by pressing her torch against the offending arm, and at the same time the other chopper was back for more. “Ugh. You guys are startin’ to bug me!” Turning her back to the chopper, she hardened her tails and then fired them off with bursts of blood, turning them into pointed javelins. They speared the chopper through the middle, and she dropped like a sack of flour, her blade lodging point-down between the stone bricks. Nadia released her headlock on the last wasp only to dash towards and sweep its legs out from under it. “I hope you bugs like vegetables,” she said, grabbing the fallen leader’s shield and lifting it up over her head. “‘Cause here’s some SQUASH!” Splat!

She let out a sigh of relief, her Multitarget fading away, but yet again Ah Muzen Cab yelled out from behind her. “Watch out! There’s more!”

When she turned she found not just four more wasps, two of which wielded torches, but a hulking Temple Guardian. Instantly Nadia realized she might have bitten off more than she could chew, but she couldn’t back down now. With a deep breath she snapped her head and right arm back on, then sharpened her claws. “Come on, then! I’ll bee here all day!”

The Temple Guardian charged, and Nadia blocked, but she didn’t think to block low. Before the juggernaut reached her, it threw itself on the ground hard enough to cause a tremor. Nadia hit the ground, and as both of them rose, the torch-wasps made a beeline for Ah Muzen Cab. “No fair!” Nadia hissed. Thinking on her feet, she ran for one of them, and as she did she created a Copycat to send after the other. While it went to tackle the wasp out of the air, she used Charge to blitz through her target, then used Athame to strike twice with Battery, leading to two defense-reducing crits. She twisted around and hurled the wasp at the Temple Guardian as it charged at her, and when the monster swatted the projectile aside, the defense cut caused the bug to burst like a rotten pumpkin. It then came down with a tremendous slam, forcing Nadia to jump backward only for her to bounce off a tree trunk. The wasps were nothing if not relentless, and both halberdiers came at her with huge swings. She popped off her head, then separated at the midriff to dodge both axeblades, but by the time she came together the Temple Guardian had arrived to punish her for her tomfoolery. Its gigantic uppercut launched her up into the tree branches with a series of loud cracks, where she hung for a moment, dazed.

From up there, she could blearily see the other firebrand blow up her Copycat by causing a Vaporize reaction with its torch, then turn to go for Ah Muzen Cab. “Ughhhhh.” The two halberdiers flew up to meet her, their pointy ends held at her throat. “Just my luck.” Then a terrific crack rang out from below as the Temple Guardian struck the tree, and it began to fall backward. Nadia took advantage of the distraction to leap forward and catch both wasps with X-scrape Claws, then flip upside down to batter them with Wheel of Fortune like a feline helicopter. The next second she rocketed downward with her super Feral Edge, piercing both wasps with Athame as she sped toward the ground. When she hit the ground, tearing the knife free finished both defense-compromised bugs off. Not wasting any time looking over her shoulder for the Temple Guardian, she rose and ran for the startled firebrand, only for that same monstrosity to erupt from ground in front of her in a blast of rusty water and stone brick.

This was it, the final moment. The torch-wasp was about to burn the bee god. Nadia leaped into the air, lifting her leg as if to stomp on the Temple Guardian’s head. Instead she revved up her lower leg and launched her clawed paw like a drill, straight toward the monster’s exposed brain. “Buzz OFF!” Her makeshift torpedo struck–but the next second, the horror’s enormous arm loomed in front of her, and its hand closed around her head. “Mmmmmf!” As it went to slam her down into the muck, Nadia detached her head, allowing the rest of her to stay free. That was when her luck ran out, however. Once plunged into the opaque, stinging water, she couldn’t see nor hear nor breathe. Her body had no direction save the sense of touch. Her only hope was that her parting shot would kill the monster fast enough to relinquish her head in time. The seconds passed; she held her breath, her eyes and her mouth squeezed shut. She forced her body to attack, swinging and slashing blindly. Her claws hit wood, plants, and masonry, and she could alternatively feel dirt, stone, and water beneath her footpaw. But she never connected with an insect body or limbs. All she could feel until her body finally tripped and fell was the ambient heat on her skin.

By the time the Temple Guardian slumped over and Nadia’s head bobbed to the surface, only the sound of roaring flame remained. The bee god was history, and the swampy copse was starting to burn too. No sign of the firebrand. Nadia grimaced, watching in miserable silence for a moment, then began to puppet her body to put herself back together. Already almost fully regenerated, she gathered up her fallen parts and weapons in silence. She crushed the spirits that now laid around the clearing (keeping the Hivestone from Ah Muzen Cab, the Lumenite Crystal from the Temple Guardian, and the Geo) then hurried off. This ‘shortcut’ had turned into quite the costly detour, and it was past time she made her way to the Hive’s royal palace.
Hidden 1 yr ago Post by Zoey Boey
Raw
Avatar of Zoey Boey

Zoey Boey Spider!

Member Seen 8 hrs ago

Sakura Level 10: 04/100
Karin Level 6: 37/60
Location: Vandelay HQ
Word Count: short
Points Gained: 1
New EXP Balance--- Sakura Level 10: 04/100
Karin Level 6: 38/60


After Goldlewis’s display, all of the Seekers were finally given a moment to breathe at a bar called the Seventh Heaven. It was a little…common, for Karin’s tastes, so she ended up just drinking some water. It had been an interesting day. Karin wondered how successful it had been. They succeeded in temporarily thwarting Vandelay’s plan that they didn’t even know was happening. And Desperhado was completely destroyed, which wasn’t an outcome that was preferred considering they were trying to help Sandalphon take it over.

Sandalphon, who was new to the operation, asked for a debrief.

”I suppose I can fill you in.” Karin said after a moment. ”The Seekers operate out of a massive headquarters called Alcamoth. I have only ever been once, but it is quite the operation. The goal of the Seekers is to locate and destroy the thirteen Guardians that grant Galeem invincibility. I believe the Seekers have destroyed four already.” Karin said.

”There is also a group of interlopers who operate on Galeem’s behalf known as Consuls. They typically go by a single letter for their name. What their methods and goals are still remain somewhat unclear. Only none of it is good: to my eyes they bring chaos wherever they go. We had one turn an entire town against us before we even got there.” Karin explained, interlacing her fingers and crossing one leg over the other.

”Let’s see…you know about Friend Hearts and Fusions. Right now we are attempting to locate the Guardian of this area of the World of Light. Our leads on this front are scarce. Our only source of information is probably an untrustworthy one, very likely one of the Consuls themselves in some bizarre act of betrayal or politics or perhaps just madness.” Karin said, then going onto explain the details of what Happy Chaos told them.

”Apparently Mister Roxas is confident he can open any door in our way but, he currently isn’t with us. I believe that covers everything. Let me know if you have any questions. I will say I am not exactly a veteran member of the Seekers myself.” Karin admitted.
Hidden 1 yr ago Post by Zoey Boey
Raw
Avatar of Zoey Boey

Zoey Boey Spider!

Member Seen 8 hrs ago

Sakura Level 10: 04/100
Karin Level 6: 37/60
Location: Hospital
Word Count: short
Points Gained: 1
New EXP Balance--- Sakura Level 10: 06/100
Karin Level 6: 38/60


Sakura kind of hoped she would never see Gemma ever again after her embarrassing outburst at the gym. Her face was already red and she was struggling to make eye contact when they immediately began to poke holes in their story.

”U-um…” Sakura said, tapping her fingers together. Thankfully, Yuito came in with a save. And Roxas, too. Kind of. Sakura just giggled helplessly and rubbed the back of her head with a shrug.

”I’m a psychic!” She said, which wasn’t technically a lie. ”I’m ready to get down to business.” Sakura punched her palm. ”Peach-san needs our help.”

”I have Telekinesis. The rest is just regular old martial goodness.” When it was time to split off into time, Sakura ended up with Gemma. She really wanted a rematch.

They had a moment, so Sakura said: ”Listen, uh, I was kind of a bit mind-hacked at the time of our spar, which I didn’t know…I was under…psychic…influence. That gave me a phobia of getting trapped. So if we do a rematch, it won’t happen again, I promise. Sorry about that.” Sakura cleared her throat.

As they moved deeper within the hospital, Sakura’s face turned into one of confusion and discomfort. ”What the heck kinda…this is where Peach is..?”

When the door slammed down behind them she jumped, and when the patients began their lumbering assault, Sakura instinctively fired hadokens to keep them at bay. Which…didn’t work at all. Her fireballs jostled them around a bit, but they didn’t seem affected at all.

”What- what the-” Sakura used Telekinesis to push one back. ”D-do we just run?! I hate running!” Sakura complained. With that she turned to, well, run.
Hidden 1 yr ago Post by Lugubrious
Raw
GM
Avatar of Lugubrious

Lugubrious Player on the other side

Member Seen 3 hrs ago

Midgar - Sector 07 Slums

Level 5 Goldlewis (92/50) Level 4 Sandalphon (3/40)
Karin’s @Zoey Boey, Blazermate, Roland, and Susie’s @Archmage MC, Geralt and Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man, Benedict and Partitio’s @Dark Cloud, Giovanna
Word Count: 1844


Once Karin consented to bring her up to speed, Sandalphon sat facing her at rapt attention. She neither broke eye contact nor so much as blinked for the duration of the martial artist’s explanation, her only signs of life the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest and the occasional split-second outage of her glowing green pupils. Of course, while her body might be nigh-motionless, her mind moved with astonishing speed, cataloging and cross-referencing every tidbit of intelligence she received. The Consuls, the Guardians, Galeem… The archangel possessed perfect recall when it came to information, and in light of some of the new details flooding in since her chance meeting with the Seekers, some things were beginning to make an awful lot of sense. While Karin’s mention of leads on the Dystopiascape Guardian’s location made her curious, she assumed a purpose in her new acquaintance’s omission and did not pry further.

Sandalphon tabled her inferences and extrapolations for now, and when Karin concluded her speech, the statuesque supervisor bowed her head in gratitude. “Thank you. You’ve helped me paint a clearer picture of your organization’s goals and status.” With that, she turned away and projected a variety of screens around her. Sandalphon had some calls to make. While the men around her took a load off, finding common ground and drinking together, the ladies sipped water in silence, and the robot girls wandered, the archangel opened a dozen lines of communication at once with the remnants of DespoRHado’s android faction. While the PMC took a huge gamble with their attack on Vandelay, risking their top brass, loads of Unmanned Gears, and tons of cyborg soldiers, they hadn’t seen fit to blow every last resource on the raid. Perhaps due to underlying feelings of distrust, most of DespoRHado’s android forces had stayed home, including all of the Type H, Type D, Type S, and Type O units. The Winds of Destruction had kept their friends close, but they failed to keep their enemies closer, and now the android corps -YoRHa- stood to inherit everything their predecessors left behind.

Of course, this was by no means the android revolution Sandalphon had been hoping to achieve. By staging its rebellion DespoRHado had earned itself a death sentence, and it was already going the way of the dinosaurs. Though the Bunker still stood it would be only a matter of time before the forces of the Administration arrived to finish the job.In the course of juggling the various conversations, Sandalphon became aware of the complete breakdown of DespoRHado’s command structure. Upon catching wind of DespoRHado’s defeat, the cyborgs that remained had deserted en masse, some of them going on rampages. A few even attacked the androids, claiming what happened was their fault, or that Sandalphon had betrayed them. While technically true, that fact did not help them, and when the dust cleared from the infighting the androids remained, awaiting orders. Once properly connected, Sandalphon obliged. She ordered the androids to eliminate all records of themselves, Sandalphon, and generally ‘YoRHa’ from the company databases (including the androids’ own backups, meaning that if they were destroyed now, they’d be gone for good) then escape, leaving the building and everything ‘Desperado’ for the authorities to find. “Split into small squads and navigate around Quarantine Valley and into the Sector 01 undercity, Zaun. Use rooftops, sky-lines, and byways; try not to be seen and stay off the comm lines. Once in Zaun, make your way up to Piltover and find the Lateran Church. Speak my name, and they should offer you refuge. Even if DespoRHado burns to the ground, we will rise from the ashes, and continue to fight. For the goddess Illia, and the glory of mankind.” Her androids echoed the salute, and the network went silent.

Not long after Sandalphon’s business concluded, someone else in the group got a call: Giovanna. She answered the magic glyph and went paced over in one corner by the pool table, alternately listening and talking, succinctly and in low tones. After a few moments she hung up and headed back toward the others. “That was Vernon,” she announced, talking mostly to Goldlewis. “Something’s come up and he needs my help. I’ll be heading topside, so…buh-bye. Wish I could say it’s been fun.”

“Vernon?” Goldlewis furrowed his brow. “Everythin’ alright, G?”

She shrugged nonchalantly. “Oh yeah, I mean, pretty much? No big deal, I got it handled. Oh, but, something else is coming your way. After I told him where we are, he said Mr. H will be with us soon. Should be here any minute. Needs your help with something. Good luck out there.” At a snap of her fingers, Rei jumped up from where she’d been curled up to float behind Giovanna, and with a wave the secret agent was on her way.

Her estimation turned out to be correct. Shortly after her departure, an odd customer pushed in through the saloon doors of Seventh Heaven. It was a small yellow drone, with an articulate drum-shaped rotor holding up a central unit with a pointy antenna and big, round eyes like a pair of goggles. Those eyes roved around the room, flitting between the different members of the team. “So you’re the Seekers! It’s an honor to meet you all face-to-face. Or face-to-drone, as it happens. Follow me, please!”

Goldlewis stood and followed the drone outside, and Sandalphon followed his example without complaint. With the lunch rush just about to kick off, Seventh Heaven wouldn’t be a private place much longer. He paused only to glance at Clara. “You gonna be alright, missie?”

“Yep!” The little girl looked happy. “Once Miss Tifa closes up after lunch, she’s gonna show Mr. Svarog and me the militia! I think we’ll really be able to help around here!”

The veteran nodded, offering a rare smile in return. “Right on.” He looked around for a moment, wondering where Svarog was, before settling on Tifa. “Take good care of her now. We ain’t really acquainted, but I get the feelin’ she’s something special.”

Tifa smiled. “You can count on it.”

Once the team gathered outside the building on the right in a huddle, the drone addressed them. “So how’s it going? Heard you got into some hot water up in the City of Glass.”

“Not too bad, all things considered,” Goldlewis replied. Realizing that the others might not be as familiar with the newcomer as himself, he added an explanation. “This is our tech guy. Used to be in the Neuron tech division, handlin’ all their programs and stuff. Real miracle worker, and he does it all remotely. Never even came into the doggone office once. He’s the one that helped get y’all the fake IDs”

So this is H? Sandalphon thought. Was this one of the Consuls that Karin mentioned, or just a coincidence?”

The drone wiggled, then did a flip. “Ah, that was nothing. I know a guy in Night City, is all. You can find just about anything there if you know the right people. Right now though, I’m not as interested in Sector 04 as Sector 08. Anyone here at all familiar with Quarantine Valley?”

“I’m well aware,” Sandalphon replied. “Also known as Zone 09, it’s the enormous canyon separating Sectors 08 and 01. A perennial hotspot for Astral Plane contamination, sealed off from the rest of Midgar, with entry -and exit- strictly prohibited.”

“That’s right! Except, as they say, rules are meant to be broken.” Using a hologram projector the drone displayed a symbol that anyone present at the grand mission briefing in the SOU headquarters might remember: a beady eye above a slavering grin. “If you’re familiar with the place, you’ve probably heard of the Hermits. A gang of near-superhuman hackers who style themselves as protectors of the people. They’re based off-the-grid down there in Quarantine Valley, away from prying eyes, though their operations often take them through all the undercities. Just recently I came across something pretty interesting that I thought Vernon’s friends ought to know.”

H switched to a display of a wanted poster, showing them the image of a disheveled woman with blonde hair in a dirty lab coat, a purple skirt, and torn stockings. “This is Jena Anderson, the leader of the Reunion movement. The other day, a couple new hotshots in Neuron tangled with her, and she ended up giving them a data card before making her escape. It included lab documents about an anti-redshift drug from years back given out at around the time of the Pandemic, news links about the Hermits, and some really detailed maps of Quarantine Valley, one area in particular. I also heard about some sort of big deal going down between Reunion and the Hermits. Rumor has it they knew DespoRHado’s goose was cooked even before they began the raid today. Some sort of setup.”

Sandalphon’s pupils turned into question marks, and she tilted her head slightly. “Perhaps my servers weren’t as secure as I believed.”

“Hm?” Mr. H turned his drone toward her. “Uh, a-anyways, the point is, if everything lines up, Jena’s gonna be there today. In Quarantine Valley, at some point within the next few hours. If you can get in and catch them in the act, you can figure out everything they know about what’s going on. And…if need be, put a stop to them.”

“Hmm,” Sandalphon mused. “I would be in favor. As a former ARI researcher, Jena would have intimate knowledge of secret Administration activities, and if the Hermits really did tap into DespoRHado, there’s no telling what sorts of critical information they might possess on what’s going on behind the scenes in Midgar.”

“I believe so. As for navigating into Quarantine Valley, I can be of assistance. This drone comes equipped with an IRIS scanner that can detect red matter and perform corruption readings, so you’re safe as long as you’re with me,” Mr. H added.

Goldlewis hefted his coffin over his shoulder, relieved to hear Mr. H’s assurance. “Sounds like a plan to me. Reunion and the Hermits, huh? Looks like we’re tickin’ off all the boxes today. Two at a time!”

Before entering Quarantine Valley, however, the Seekers would have to reach it. That meant crossing through two undercities, including the Sector 07 Slums and Detroit. While the former might not present more of a challenge than somewhat winding, unstructured paths, Detroit was in quite the state. Of the YoRHa androids there was no sign, which was a comfort, but the rogue DespoRHado cyborgs had caused quite a ruckus, and the arrival of Administration forces -even more quickly than expected- fanned the flames. Peace Preservation troopers and G-men from General Affairs were out on the prowl, and even a few Turks put in an appearance. Going on foot would take too long and create too many opportunities to be discovered, but the Seekers needed to choose their modes of conveyance and their routes wisely, or they’d be right out of the frying pan that was the Vandelay Campus and into the fire.

Suoh - Beacon Mental Hospital Medical Ward

Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Sakura’s @Zoey Boey, Gemma




For a brief moment, Gemma thought it might just be a trick of the light, or even a product of his imagination. Not likely, of course, but not impossible. There were few OSF soldiers more seasoned than himself, but with the power of a psionic mind to make thoughts reality, one could never know for certain, especially in a place like this. Though long abandoned, the cluttered and confined halls and rooms of this medical ward weighed down on the intruders with an ominous gravitas, its atmosphere an odd, off-putting blend between prison and mortuary thanks in particular to those eerie mannequins. It was hard not to mistake them for people, or Others for that matter given how Rummies looked, but Gemma tried not to let them spook him. He was made of sterner stuff than that, he knew. But after another moment and the lights went out, the patient that seemingly twitched before began to move for real, and it was go time. “They’re alive,” he said aloud, his low voice urgent but not panicked. “We’re under attack.”

Like Midna he attempted to fight back. In a way, actually getting to hit these things came as a relief. No more beating about the bush wondering if and when they’d make their move. However, also like Midna the bruiser quickly realized that these things weren’t going down so easily. When he slugged one right in the chest as it reached out to grab him, it stumbled backward, but his armored fist didn’t so much as leave a dent. “What?” The patient lurched toward him for round two, and he wound up a much stronger hook punch that he let fly with explosive force, slamming the thing into the wall hard enough to leave a web of cracks, but still it showed no signs of damage. He’d encountered Others with hard metal shells that resisted damage until the shells shattered, but these seemed different. They also lacked the expected compositional diversity. “I don’t think these are Others.” By that time another had activated, tottering toward the team past its non-moving kin down the hall and through the now-open gateway.

He attempted to fight them off, his movements a little more hasty. Midna had gotten the attention of a few as well, but with all the darkness around she was in her element, able to slip through the patients’ fingers like smoke and lead them on a wild goose chase. Gemma possessed no such advantage. It was difficult to see the patients in the dark, let alone fight them, for all the effect fighting them had. He ended up relying on his Sclerokinesis to protect himself when one managed to grab hold so he could wrench out of its grip. By the time an unseen crawler grabbed his ankle and refused to be dislodged, he knew this situation wasn’t tenable. “We’ve got to move,” he told the others. “I’ll light the way.”

He reached out through SAS, and a Vision of Hanabi appeared snapping her fingers. ”Need a light?” Borrowing her Pyrokinesis, Gemma covered his arms in psychic flame. He intended it to find a way through the darkness of the medical ward and maybe boost his attack, but the light yielded an unexpected effect. Once illuminated the patients stopped moving, halting mid-attack in some cases, and stood still as statues. Gemma stared for a moment. “It’s the light.” He grabbed the patient from his ankle, turned its head sideways to put it through the barred gate, then turned its head back to trap it. At the same time he also noticed other patients twitching thanks to the fitful firelight and anything that happened to block it. “We’re on a timer. Let’s move.”

Together the three booked it through the medical wing. For every half-dozen patients they found sitting or standing around, one began to move toward them, at least until the light of Gemma’s Pyrokinesis stopped them. They smashed through doors, vaulted over obstacles, and pulled open gates for about fifteen seconds. Then, just as they entered a door-lined hall with an open elevator at the far end, the Pyrokinesis timed out. Instantly mannequin arms burst out of the windows and bean slots of the doors on either side, reaching, clawing, and trying to grab the trio as they passed. Gemma swerved around the clusters of arms, running down the hall toward the exit. Behind him the doors began to slam open, multiple patients pouring out of each one. Some crawled out beneath hospital beds that partially blocked the hallway, or leaned out from behind dressers. His heart pounded, but his feet pounded the floor harder, and after a tense moment Gemma and the Seekers made it to the elevator. The overhead bulb lit up, freezing the mob right in front of the door as the doors gently slid closed and the team began to descend. Gemma leaned against the back wall, catching his breath with furrowed brows, until the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened once more. Ding!

This lower level looked very similar to the medical ward above, albeit a little better lit and lacking the abundance of patients, although some prosthetic parts could still be seen around. After a few moments, the main difference became apparent: the sound. At irregular intervals a rumbling or banging sound could be heard, continuing for a couple seconds before going quiet for anywhere between a half-dozen and a couple dozen. Gemma inched forward, slowly at first, but it became clear that the sound originated at least a couple rooms over. Watchful in the gloom, the team proceeded. They passed hospital beds, gurneys, wheelchairs, and various pieces of equipment, some of them laden with patients -often incomplete ones- that never stirred. A couple times, Gemma spotted red pinecone flowers growing straight out of cracked floor tiles, or even weirder, empty beds. All too soon the trio approached the source of the noise. When a rumble stopped, Gemma could begin to hear other sounds: a clumsy rummaging, a heavy strained breathing, and a slight, distressed moaning. At the threshold of an operating room, Gemma paused, searching. Something jostled two tall shelves full of medical supplies directly ahead, but couldn’t see anyone there. Not until an enormous, bulbous, pale shape swung down from the ceiling to reach a lower shelf.



After a moment, the Doctor found what he was looking for and bent back up. Despite his size, he then began to crawl along the ceiling, slipping his hands and feet between the ceiling panels to find purchase. He positioned himself above an operating table where a patient laid motionless, then leaned down to operate, inserting the joint he’d found in order to attach a peg-leg before bandaging it together. It looked like he hadn’t noticed anyone yet. This square room sported three other exits, one leading to a small, softly-lit room that a steady beep…beep…beep came from, one with a set of closed double doors, and one leading toward a larger room with a pink-green glow.

Suoh - Beacon Mental Hospital Residential Wing

Pit’s @Yankee, Roxas’ @Double, Luka




As the young trio cautiously advanced through the heavy, stifling silence, more and more albedos turned up, and though they lay perfectly still -in some cases very well hidden in the area’s nooks and crannies- and betrayed no signs of life, nobody could shake the feeling of an imminent ambush. And despite their best efforts, disturbing the lurkers turned out to be an inevitability–more of a question of ‘when’ than ‘if’, and the answer was ‘too soon’. When the intruders drew too close, the albedos wrenched themselves from their pallid morass to thrash and stagger around like the living dead, rasping in angry desperation with parched throats as they tried to slake their thirst with blood.

Pit, Roxas, and Luka were well-prepared for this eventuality, however. Stealth might not be their collective strong suit, but all three could hit the albedos hard and fast. Though slathered in sticky psychoplasm, their bodies were hard but brittle, and like ceramic they crumbled when subjected to blunt force. Luka’s Weight Hammer and Pit’s Upperdash Arm proved very effective, but the ungainly monsters had no answer when Roxas combo’d them either. Together the three dispatched the albedos, a lot more ‘quickly’ than ‘quietly’, but the end result was the same. Silence settled over the residential wing once more.

When they reached the second common room, however, things got more complicated. The arrival of the Watcher forced the trio to take cover. Luka crouched down behind a faded green couch covered in psychoplasm. It swung its head around on its serpentine neck, its vile compound eyes wriggling around in their sockets as the nightmare surveyed its milk-white dominion. All the while, it filled the residential wing with the echoes of its horrible gurgling, clicking voice. With that in the background, Pit discreetly posed a question to Luka, but the Scarlet Guardian shook his head.

“I can only teleport one person at a time, and it makes a distinctive noise. Plus, if I were to teleport too hastily, the result of a matter overlap would be comparable to a nuclear bomb.”

But maybe there was another way. Despite all those bloodshot eyes crammed into the Watcher’s sockets, Roxas was on to something. It couldn’t peer everywhere at once. Luka noticed the red glow those eyes cast on all the waxy white puddles, splotches, and smears. That made it possible to gauge where the monster was looking without having to risk a peek. Luka pointed out the crimson spotlight on the wall, tracing its path with his finger as it roved around so that the others would be sure to notice. By moving individually rather than all at once, it would be easier to avoid the glare, but that meant it would be up to their judgment to move quickly.

The Watcher continued to peer around. When it was time, Luka kept a low profile, moving as fast as he could while still crouching. He kept Teleportation as an emergency last resort, but that meant contending with pockets of white ooze that squirmed and pulsated abhorrently, threatening to catch his foot if he took a careless step or snag his hand if he put his hand on the side of some cover without looking. But by moving carefully, and freezing if the Watcher’s gaze so much as veered his way, Luka made it to the far side hallway.

Once out of sight he picked up the pace in a hurry, running down the hall. At the far end, past a couple abandoned gurneys and wheelchairs, a heavy metal security door stood in their way. Its bars seemed slightly bent and clawmarks could be seen on its surface, but it had endured whatever had attempted to force its way through in the past. When Luka grabbed the handle, it refused to budge. “Locked,” he whispered.

Unfortunately, jerking the door prompted the security system to come online, revealing a wide, eye-shaped lens on the console above the handle. Nothing happened at first, but after a second the system got impatient. “Please open your eyes wide and lean close to the scanner,” a robotic voice requested, its tone just a little too loud in the area’s dead silence.

Almost instantly the Watcher leaned over to peer down the hallway, and right away it registered the intruders. It shrieked, its skull practically exploding as all its eyes extended outward on loathsome stalks, like the tentacles of a sea anemone. Enormous goopy arms began to burst up from the psychoplasm pools in the hall, each of their fingers formed from waxen facsimiles of human hands. Luka readied himself for a fight, but before he could, Roxas showed off one of his special talents unprompted; he took aim with his keyblade and unlocked the door. The trio hustled through and slammed the door shut., and though the Watcher beat on the other side, it could not break through. After a few moments the slams stopped, and the three could breathe easy.

Well, they could breathe easier. The room where they now found themselves looked like a cafeteria, situated in the northeastern-most part of the building. It was tall, occupying three stories and featuring large windows, but the bars outside the glass further reduced what little light filtered down from the gloomy sky, making it eerily dark. Mounted in all four corners were large Tvs, but they only played static, filling the room with fitful light against its faded, flaking blue wallpaper, as well as a constant low roar of harsh noise. The long tables lay barren, many of the benches that accommodated each six-person segment fallen over. Most strangely, various objects hung from the ceiling on ropes, from wheelchairs to dead TV sets to large plastic bags filled with something heavy.

“No signs of human activity here either,” Luka murmured, quiet enough to not disturb the silence that hung over this place. “The suspects may not be working on the ground floor at all. Let’s hope there’s something deeper in that might lead us to Supernatural Life.” There was only one other set of doors here, so Luka went that way, wondering why the room felt so cold.

As he reached for a handle, the doors suddenly burst open, and into the room charged Yuito and Hanabi. Both their faces were wide-eyed, slick with sweat, and white with terror. There was no sign of Raz. When she saw Luka and the others, Hanabi didn’t stop to explain. She just yelled one word. “RUN!”

“Run!?” Having avoided a collision with a quick teleport, Luka was instantly on guard. “From what?” As they ran past him, he looked down the dark, flickering hall they came from. All the way at the end stood a woman, gaunt and stooped, with rags and black hair that slowly flowed around her as if she were underwater. Luka stared, stunned for a moment. The woman took a slow, tottering step, then another, then suddenly shot down the hall. As if she were on a film that had been fast-forwarded. Anima reached the cafeteria with a scream that threw both Luka and Hanabi off their feet. The doors slammed shut behind her, and with a click they locked tight.

The former saved himself with a teleport, but as she fell Hanabi hit her head on one of the cafeteria tables and writhed on the ground, clutching her head. The ghost stalked toward Hanabi, ignoring the others, but Yuito wasn’t having any of it. “Hey! Over here!” He yelled, using his psychokinesis to draw and throw his sword. Its blade slashed through Anima several times, but to no effect, other than getting Anima’s attention. Giggling horribly, she fast-forwarded right into him, and after grabbing Yuito’s face in her hands, she began to inhale. The young man’s life force drained into her in a matter of seconds as he yelled, leaving him hollow and lightless–but rather than fall, he continued to stagger around once released, not unlike the albedos from before. Anima, meanwhile, rose into the air, letting out a victory cry. In response the tables and all the furniture in the cafeteria began to levitate. They floated around for a moment, then slammed down, creating a maze of overturned tables and benches. Now blocked from the exit, Luka hid behind one table, stricken by horror. ”Yuito? Hanabi?” In a panic he attempted to reach them both with Brain Talk, but he could hear nothing from one and cries of despair from the other, though at least those were confined to Brain Talk. ”Hanabi!” he tried to tell her. ”You have to be quiet, or it’ll get you too!” Luka couldn’t see anyone except Anima, who slowly walked through the air looking for a new target.

This was very, very bad. Somewhere Hanabi was hiding beneath a table, paralyzed by fear, with only her weeping to clue the Seekers in to where she was. Yuito was here too, clearly not dead, but Luka had no idea how to restore him, and he couldn’t teleport with all this clutter around. Everyone needed to get out of here as soon as possible, hopefully recovering the OSF members while avoiding the ghost’s attention, though that would be tricky with pieces of furniture constantly floating up and coming down elsewhere, rearranging the maze. Next to this, the Watcher looked like a warm-up. Now it was time to sneak for real.
Hidden 1 yr ago Post by Archmage MC
Raw
Avatar of Archmage MC

Archmage MC

Member Seen 3 days ago



Level 10 Sectonia (holding 4 level up) - (89/100)
Location: The Under - Termite Kingdom Ruins
Word Count: less than 750


"I see no point in stealth, the less enemies, the easier leaving this place will be." Sectonia said, and upon saying that, got started on the frontal assault. She started by summoning her antillions, which if the guards weren't looking at the group before, they sure were now as they saw Sectonia's summoning portals. But considering the royal was out for blood (and loot), and she much preferred the bees over the wasps asthetically, she opened up by causing the chaos she often did in a battlefiel. Making and throwing her large rings of light that just went in a general direction, they for the most part waved, weaved, zig, zagged, and zoomed through the hive. The bee workers would be unharmed, but the wasps would be enraged as these attacks went at them. Their agility made dodging through the ring of light barrage easier due to Sectonia's lack of control on them, although a couple as they approached got caught off guard by the mild homing properties of the ring thanks to the smart worm.

While melee based wasps couldn't really approach Sectonia due to her barrage of attacks, ranged attackers could still hit the intruding bee queen. Due to her size, she herself couldn't really dodge these ranged attacks that well either, but summoning her Chaos Shield greatly, greatly reduced the damage these did as her antillions advanced onto them. The queen herself would also advance forward, spitting out more projectiles if any wasps got near her, and with the others help things wouldn't be nearly as bad as they could be.

Since Sectonia and her minions basically caused chaos, attacking whatever wasps came around, this also aggroed the miniboss of the area, the Heavy Drone B-33 and its Bee Boops. While the Bee Boops were not too much of a problem, either shooting their honey shots at Sectonia's antillions or rushing towards the group and dying to the bruisers of the group or even an antillion as they got frozen solid, the same couldn't be said about the Heavy Drone. Unlike the bee boops, it was far tankier, and hit much harder with its missiles and its laser sweeps. It was big, and couldn't really dodge that well unlike the wasps, but it made up for it with its ability to deal damage and tank hits.

These missiles attacked anyone in the group, with the Heavy Drone B-33 having no concept of what was more threatening, instead just shooting its missiles at every hostile unit it could see at random. While this made it easier for the group, as these missiles would either take out an antillion or target Sectonia or Bowser, they could also target the less tanky members of the group if not intercepted. Even then, its laser sweeps would also cause mild explosions around the hive and damage anyone who got hit by them.

"Rush forward and deal with these weaklings." Sectonia said at Bowser as she gave him and Ganondorf Haste, giving them some breathing room with her projectiles. This was for sure causing quite the distraction for the wasp forces, and while tanky, the Heavy Drone couldn't withstand attacks from all of them. As one of Sectonia's light rings hit it, it started to have some of its heavy armor drop off. This made it more threatening, as it had lost some of its defense, but now with its much greater mobility it could more reliably dodge the errant projectile from Sectonia, and even though it was a bit lighter, it was still quite a large object and upon seeing the distraction team advance, decided to meet them head on with a thruster boosted charge, wiping out any antillion it came into contact with as it charged the group.
1x Like Like
Hidden 1 yr ago Post by DracoLunaris
Raw
Avatar of DracoLunaris

DracoLunaris Multiverse tourist

Member Seen 1 day ago


The Koopa Troop

wordcount: 2,322 (+3)
Bowser: Level 12 EXP: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (264/120)
Bowser Jr: Level 12 EXP: //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (149/120)
Kamek: Level 12 EXP: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (141/120)
Rika: Level 8 EXP: //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (75/80)
Location: The Under - Termite Kingdom Ruins


”Alright, let's get this party started!” Bowser declared as Barnabee leapt forwards to take care of the first patrol that ran across them.

Rather than do the same and get stuck right, the King leapt up onto one of the nearby buildings, before roaring at the top of his lungs to announce his presence. Stealthy he was most certainly not being.

If the roar didn’t give that away, then the king proceeded to belt out a challenge of ”Listen up chumps! I’m going to tell you this, and tell you this once! The Koopa king has come to town, so you better run away wasps, or you're going down!” too the occupying army certainly did, followed up by him giving the command ”Koopa troop, attack!”

Attack they did, joining in with queen Sectonia and opening fire on the various bee-bop drones hovering around the hive. Magical blasts from Kamek, gunfire from Rika and pink sound waves from Jr (who was using Dazzle as a hand cannon) all lashed out and knocked the robotic drones from the sky.

While a wasp on camera drone watching duty some ways away ran to find someone in charge, the troop entered the fray properly, just in time to back up Barnabee as the additional squads came in.

The troop opened up with a gust of icy wind launched by Dazzle, the pokemon’s frosty gust hampering the flying foes as they were pushed back, and frost formed on their wings. Then magic blasts and water cannon shots, followed by explosive bursts of goop, and that was all before they got into melee where spears, claws and rocket powered punches awaited them.

Suffice to say that, if the seekers stayed grouped up, the individual wasp patrols were no match for them when the numbers were remotely even. They were meant to keep the various bee workers in check after all, not see off a concentrated invasion force.

Worse for them, in seeing their oppressors fall, and the return of a hero of their people, some of the bees abandoned their indentured tasks to race to his side. Not all, not even many, but some. They picked up tools, raided now undefended weapon stockpiles, or went to battle with only stinger and bear fists to their name, fighting for the hive and for freedom.

”Ha ha! This is going to be a cake walk! We’re building our own army and everything, and what have they got? Nothing!” Bowser laughed, right on cue for his earlier aggrandizing to come around to bite them in the thorax.

The thrum of heavier wings, much, much heavier wings was heard, and then two titans, twice as tall as their lesser kin and far more bulky, entered the battlefield, or rather, by their very presence, truly made it one.

The first of the pair brought the swarm. Adorned in crimson robes and with red ribbons trailing from her antenna, the ichor queen carried with her in her four arms a single cleaver as tall as she was. Accompanying her where lesser pretenders to her own image, also carrying great cleavers and dressed in red, as well as a very small cadre of male drones, their faces veiled, every hand carrying a weapon, and something stirred in their blood that made them far more dangerouse than mere mortals.



The second arrived with a smaller contingent, but neither it nor she were any less dangerous because of this. Her brown hued chitin had a metallic sheen to it, and spikes radiated off of it. She carried with her a small rune covered hammer that was no weapon, but instead a tool she had been using to craft artifacts, many of which she now carried: she was armed a sword who’s reflections shone like sunlight and which could summon vines, and a large poisonous thistle shaped like a mace, while being protected by both a shield and a helmet made of lead. A thick layer of soil clung to her feet and lower legs, giving her the appearance of wearing boots made from the earth itself. Accompanying her were several wasps carrying staves and wands decorated with ribbons, these blue and green instead of the blood red of the cult.



These immediately demonstrated what exactly they were by taking up defensive positions, whereupon those with green banners engaged in some kind of ritual to draw strength from the earth, before they began barrages of launching spinning blades from out of thin air, while those with blue banners immediately began hurling lightning bolts. The brown hued iron queen meanwhile began casting spells that empowered small groups of wasps, turning chitin to iron much like her own was, and conjuring spectral beast hides atop that same defense to further increase the resilience of the swarm.

When combined with the missile onslaught of the Heavy Drone B-33 and the odd javelin wielding wasp, the arrival of the mages meant that the heroes no longer had an overwhelming ranged advantage, forcing the troop, at least, to back off and take cover.

Rather than surge forwards into this space, the cultist wasps took the moment to pray … and to sacrifice. A number of bees adorned in white robes of purity and bound in chains had been brought with them, and in the moment they were given, the cultists turned their blades on these captives first, spilling blood from which a swarm of bloodflies erupted. The flies, like redfured mimicries of the bee’s own hivings, surged forwards as an expendable vanguard which the blessed cultists then followed. All but their ichor queen. She instead channeled her magic, empowering herself, readying to enter the fray at a decisive moment and deliver the executioner's blow.

The charge was met by sporadic firepower that mainly managed to cut down the swarm of flies, and then crashed into the seeker’s minion frontline. Man sized cleavers were swung overhead, crushing dry-bones and antlions in a single swing, while the wasp drones utilized their four smaller weapons to overwhelm with flurries of blows, cutting down nimble hivlings that avoided their sisters’ singular strikes.

They did not do this without taking blows, of course, but this seemed to only make them more furious, the wasp cultists devolving into a frothing berserker rage when hurt that rendered them even more dangerous, their blows keener and heavier than ever, though in that fury the became far less focused on protecting their remaining vitality. The enraged drones were even worse than their sisters, for on top of being empowered by harm, their wounds also knit shut shortly after they received them.

As they broke through the expendable summon line in places, or simply flew over it, they entered into a street fight with whatever seekers were on the ground, and the bees fighting for their freedom alongside them.

While fights with the latter were rather one sided in the cult’s favor, the former was anything but. For the troop’s part, Bowser and Rika were their frontline.

The ship girl's first cultist kill came easily, a hail of lead from her rifle gunning down one of the massive cleaver wielders before she could get close. The second she splatted with her grizzco blaster, covering it in goop that caused it to drop to the ground, where she blew it apart with a barrage of shells from her rigging guns. The third got close enough that she had to bring her lance out, skewering it upon the needle thin point thanks to the element of surprise.

It was the fourth that caused issues: a drone, his hide turned to iron and a phantom cloak of some beast’s hide draped across his shoulders, all thanks to the iron queen’s magic. Bullets pinged off his enhanced chitin as she tried to gun him down, he recovered too quickly from the goop blast for her to nail him with her ship guns, and the point of her spear was parried away by two of his many blades.

With a wordless cry the ship girl princess met him with gauntlet and hull blades. She slammed an armored fist forwards, only for the drone to buzz to the side and only be grazed by the blow, after which it struck back. Cleavers smacked against guardian hull blades, energy shielding and armor, doing more harm from their bludgeoning weight than any cutting.

Her chainsaw bayonet squealed against steel as she tried to cut though his armored skin as he continued to hack away at her, one of the blades finding her narrowly missing her unarmored neck. In a half tactical, half panicked move, she fired her maneuvering thrusters, slamming herself forward into him, and then him into a wall, his magically metal hide doing little to increase his weight it seemed.

She kicked off the wall while the drone was momentarily stunned and hammered him with her grizzco blaster, first with fiery goop, and then with electricity. That last seemed to do the trick, the electricity coursing through his metal chitin, stunning him just enough that she could line up her rigging guns and open fire.

The heavy anti ship shells hammered the drone, punching through armor and detonating inside of him, turning the drone into a shower of gore. In the half second it took her to realize that this itself was odd, the demonic blood that the drone had been filled with formed into a writhing living thing and attacked, tendrils of blood streaking out, tips hardening into crystalline ponts.

The princess cried out in pain as these hammered her armor with rapid jabs. She tried to fight back, but being made of blood, the slime-like mass resisted being punched and chopped. So she retreated, grappling hook latching onto a building and pulling her up and away.

There she took a half second to breathe, and then, before the demonic blood could flow off and attack nearby bees, she launched herself back at it. Her goop blaster fired, striking the blood, filling it with inky contamination. Again and again she shot, till the blood was to full of ink to remain cohesive and at last her foe fell

Yet he had been only one of ever so many, and no sooner had she dealt with the blood than she had to run forwards, bringing up her spear as she rushed to support an embattled team of worker bees. They needed all the help they could get. The princess rammed her spear through one wasp, hammered another with her fist, and then unleashed an all out assault on another drone to stop both him and his cursed blood, and by the end of it found herself leading the remains of the bees in a charge across the street to aid a second group of their kin.

Behind this melee, as much as was possible to be behind the messy streetfighting anyway, Kamek and Jr engaged in duel of ranged firepower with the wasp’s mage core and the Heavy Drone B-33, who were quite contrasting in their era, but neither was outdone by the other.

Lightning flashed, hammering into buildings and shocking right through armor, while hails of double ended throwing knives rained down, all accompanied by laser blasts and missile strikes.

Kamek and his doppelgangers returned fire, poking heads and wands out from out above the tops of buildings to blast at the enemy mages, while Jr wielded Dazzle like a gun, and had Mimi on his shoulder, both pokemon blasting away with lightning and song when the prince ducked out from cover.

In the air, queen faced queen, as the iron queen’s ledden shield and helm let her resist a lot of the damage of magical attacks and her transmuted chitin mundane attacks, while a ring of 7 gems and a self empowering spell she had cast caused any wounds she did suffer to regenerate at a frightful rate. She actively placed herself in harm’s way, protecting her team with her own durable form while they continued to trade fire with the seeker’s ranged fighters, as well as healing any who became harmed.

Sectonia’ idea to send their pair of brutish kings forwards under magical empowerment then was doubly wise, as it seemed like the best way to break this stalemate, and Kamek joined his own spellcraft to hers, surrounding one or both with a physically resisting barrier.

In response, the damage Drone charged forwards to meet them, Bowser and it slamming together, sending a shockwave echoing through the battleground. They pushed at each other for a few moments, before the king grabbed the drone with both his claws, and hurled it to one side, sending it smashing through the wall of a building.

He laughed in victory, only to turn in response to a warning call as the ichor queen finally entered the fray on her own. She had not spent the opening moments of battle idle either. A barrier of air surrounded the queen, deflecting projectiles, while her body had turned to mist, protecting her from minor blows while doing nothing to reduce her own deadliness, and she was surrounded by a half dozen illusory reflections of herself.

She and her mirrors slammed down their great cleaver, though only the true one struck true, smashing into the king’s shoulder. He grunted in pain but the barrier protected him from the physical harm. It did not protect him when she buzzed back, avoiding his retaliatory punch that would have hit an illusion anyway, and blasted an electrical shockwave from an outstretched hand.

Convulsing from the super effective damage, the king was unable to avoid the return of the drone, which slammed out of the ruined building, into the king, and then carried him and it into another one, slamming him through said wall and leaving the empowered ichor queen unchecked on the battlefield, and ready to charge forwards to deliver death whenever she might please unless someone faced her.
Hidden 1 yr ago Post by DracoLunaris
Raw
Avatar of DracoLunaris

DracoLunaris Multiverse tourist

Member Seen 1 day ago


wordcount: 1,314 (+3)
Midna: level 9 EXP: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (34/110)
Location: Suoh
Warp Charges: 1


Light flared, and for a moment the princess thought she was doomed, the flickering flame in Gemma’s hands banishing the shadows and, in doing so, the way she had intended to escape the small horde of patients she had taunted into chasing her.

Only after a pair of seconds on her overpriced watch had passed did her vision clear enough that she could see that the light’s return had been far more impactful on their foe’s mobility than hers.

”What kind of children's nightmares are these, stopped by lamplight?” she asked, as she poked a motionless patient with the tip of a sword, only to start away as the blade’s shadow blocked just enough of the light for it to move an arm to try and grab her.

She stepped back hurriedly, and the returned light froze it once more.

That was only the minor flaw in this defense. Much worse was that it was, according to the man casting it, on a limited timer.

”Then let’s move” she agreed upon learning this, discarding her blades into portals and summoning her wolfos steed beneath her, having to size it up a bit to make sure it could carry her new larger form. Its clawed paws clitter clattered across the tiled floor as it moved to catch and then keep up with the other two.

Her beast scampered around and lept over obstacles, while the princess mentally rummaged around her things, first looking for the flamethrower, cursing when she remembered she’d just given it away. This was probably for the best, as if she had had it, there would have been a real risk that she would have ended up burning the building down while they were still in it.

As it was, she did pull out her sharpened volcano fragment, but thought better of trying to hack it into the wall of grasping arms (not because of the potential fire hazard igniting them represented, but because she might lose the axe) and instead hunkered down atop her steed and had it rush past them, only to end up what she briefly thought was a dead end.

Fortunately, it turned out to instead be a mechanical moving room, one that she had to unsummon her wolfos to not overcrowd, and also one that fortunately seemed to have a different powersource from the rest of the floor. Its light came on, its doors slid shut, and it delivered them down into whatever fresh hell awaited them below.

”I really hope there’s something binding those things to this place” Midna said, shivering at the thought of what could happen should those indestructible things get out into the wider world.

They would not, fortunately, have to deal with any more of them down below, at least not right away. The elevator’s door slid open and, while there were manikins to be found, none of them tried to get up, either due to the dim light or because most of them were incomplete.

That latter state of affairs looked like it wouldn’t be a permanent one, as their next discovery was the man, or thing, responsible for the patient’s creation.

Midna watched the man or monster at work, peering from behind a set of supplies, her mask hiding a look of visible distaste. Still, as much as she wanted to attempt to take whatever this entity was down, she thought this might be unwise.

”For all we know, this doll maker playing doctor is protected by whatever vile power does the same for his creations. Best to not attract his attention if we don’t have to, I think” she suggested.

If they took that course, then there was the question of which way to go.

”Three ways forward. Let me check the one with the doors by sneaking through the shadows, and then I’ll come back” she offered, making an assumption that the other two would at least peek into the open doors from some kind of cover while she was at that.

Then she slipped away, hopping from shadow to shadow till she was near the double doors and then, while the doctor was busy making noise and getting parts, she slipped back out, pushed open the doors and quickly stepped through.

Yet instead of ground, that foot stepped on nothing but open air, causing her to topple forwards into that same absence, her low friction combing back to bite her in the butt for the first time in a while as it prevented any kind of grip from the remaining foot. Had she used a hand to try and grab the ledge, or a shadowhand to grab one of the wire hung beds swinging above the drop, she might have caught herself. Instead, she reached for her levitation, and found nothing.

And so she fell, tumbling end over end, four arms flailing. Yet the bit of the fall that would kill her, namely the ground, did not come. Instead the princess had the time to stabilize her fall, mostly using her fan-like flygon tail, and then look down to find out why.

Far, far, far below, and yet still approaching at speed, was the sight of familiarly scummy water, and if that didn’t give away what she was looking at, the glowing, semi translucent form of a psifish certainly did.

It was the reservoir that sat down at ground level beneath Suoh’s plate.

For a moment, the princess found herself pondering if this right here was how the psyfish had been flushed down into the reservoir, before the reality of her situation reasserted itself. There was time to think, but it was rapidly running out, and so in the scant few moments remaining she came up with a plan.

A few moments later, the psyfish she had spotted spun on the spot upon sensing something falling, and then proceeded to watch the princess' final moments before she hit the water. Yet strangely there was no splash, and so it moved over to inspect the spot, yet found nothing to be found in the shade of one of the tall metal pillars holding up the plate above.

Back up above on that same plate, the princess of twilight pulled herself out of the shadows and onto the lower half of a hanging bunkbed. She’d managed to angle herself so that she could drop into a shadow, the immaterializing nature of that act preventing her from becoming past on impact, yet it had been a close thing, and her heart was beating at machinegun speeds in her chest still.

”Once again. Can’t fly any more” she quietly reminded herself with a rap to her helm, before glaring at the precipice by the door she had fallen off of and asking ”Who builds a room like this? Are they all built like this and if you break a floor that’s it down into a pit you go?” before shivering at that thought.

Once she had recovered, and identified that there was really nothing of note worth investigating this way (just a few vents that went who knew where), she carefully crossed over the gap between the bed and the narrow lip of concrete by the door. Then she listened for the rumbling before slipping back inside of the room, and then back into a shadow once more, skipping around the room till she found either or both of the others

”Unless you want to climb on beds hanging over a drop all the way down to the reservoir to get to nothing interesting, I do not recommend going that way” she informed them quietly, before adding a warning ”And if we do, watch your step, there’s less than a foot of space on the other side of the door before that drop” and leaving out that she herself had not done so and almost suffered the consequences as a result.
1x Like Like
Hidden 1 yr ago Post by Archmage MC
Raw
Avatar of Archmage MC

Archmage MC

Member Seen 3 days ago

Roland

And
Robot Girls



Level 3 Roland - (6/30)
Level 12 Blazermate (Holding 3 level up) - (29/120)
Level 5 Susie - (38/50) - (Holding 2 level up)
Location: Sector 7 > 8
Word Count: 3414


As Roland moved through the slums, having been cured of his drunkeness by Blazermate (Which he was part thankful for, part annoyed with.) he noticed Sandalphon's new outfit. "Hey, So, i notice you changed your outfit. Is there anything more to that or are you just changing jobs? Its hard to tell with some people nowadays."

Sandalphon looked down at him for a moment, question marks in her eyes. Then her pupils returned to normal, a look of understanding flitting briefly across her face. "Oh, I see. You must have been rather low on the proverbial totem pole," she stated matter-of-factly, despite the brisk pace at which she and the rest of the Seekers were moving through the Sector 07 slums. "I observed other members of your group partaking in spirit utilization, but if there are gaps in our collective knowledge, it would behoove me to make sure all are up to speed."

She paused for a moment, considering how best to explain the phenomenon. "Spirit utility is seldom practiced and even more seldom understood. The powers that be in Midgar, and I would assume the world at large, keep what it is -and how to use it- top secret. It is understandable, since I have no doubt that if word were to get out the crime and especially murder rate would spike drastically, but it means that they control the single most expedient way to gain power." Sandalphon put up a display that showed off a number of spirits, with the images of various people shimmering within the orbs of prismatic light. "Despite the name, spirits have nothing to do with a being's consciousness or immortal soul, and are themselves inanimate. Suffice to say, a spirit is an agglomeration of data about a particular being. Very much like the genetic code of biological organisms, albeit greater in scope. And like code, spirits can be merged. Following a brief conflict resolution, which influences the host's physiology and psychology, the host gains a boon from the merged spirit as well as its 'potential'."

After going quiet while the group navigated through a crowded junction, Sandalphon wrapped up her explanation with a little specificity. "How this works can take different forms depending on the fusion method. Cerebrofusion injects a spirit's Skill. Cardiofusion injects a spirit's Ability. Physically destroying a spirit will itemize it, resulting in a semi-random object. Spirits can also be co-opted through a brief ritualistic act in order to make use of it remotely, and the resulting projection is known as an Assist. Think of it as a ghostly puppet, but make no mistake, it's still just an extension of oneself." She thought for a moment, then shrugged. "That about covers the basics."

Roland nodded, listening but not really understanding the big words she was using. "Sounds like this thing we did back in the library. We turned people into books, then copied their combat abilities by donning their persona. "

Blazermate, making sure Roland wasn't too intoxicated as he moved through the slums, had been following behind, and clarified the spirit thing. "Put it in your chest for power, head for knowledge; although no seeker I know has done that one yet since it doesn't seem like it helps you fight, bond with it to summon it as a friendly thing for a bit, and crush it for an item. Oh yeah, and if you fuse with too many spirits of your opposite gender you'll turn into that gender until you equalize the spirits, unless you have some kinda innate power or something that lets you bypass that like me. And uh, if you absorb too many spirits you'll turn into some kind of chimeric monster. Kamek has something for that part, and Peach did have the power to unfuse spirits, but.... yeah...." Blazermate said, trailing off.

Side eying the medabot, Roland said. "So... its like that EGO thing, but different... Wait, is that why Midna looks so weird? I didn't want to say anything, but that doesn't look right."

Blazermate nodded, saying. "yep! She needs to visit Kamek to fix that up. At least its not like Bowser, who had it even worse. I wonder what that guy looks like now, the big teddy bear."

Sandalphon glanced at Blazermate as she reiterated what the archangel had said, but dumbed down. Had her own explanation been too cerebral, perhaps? The medabot did add one or two things of note though, more or less confirming Sandalphon's inference that one should be careful what one consumed. You are what you eat, as they say.

Susie didn't have much to add to this discussion, and also learned something new as well. She wasn't aware of the gender change part of spirit fusion, something she'd have to keep in mind.

While the slums were pretty quiet, the Detroit sector was anything but. With the dismantling of the leaders of Despirado, those cyborgs were going crazy, with the general police force dealing with that. It was kinda like when two Syndicates were fighting each other for territory in a way, although not as brutal.

Still, Roland was here to get through the area, not participate in the combat itself. His mask at least made him less of a target. Still, he'd have to find a bit of transport that wasn't shut down due to the riots in the streets. Unlike the robot girls who could just fly above the city and; while getting a birds eye view of the chaos below, could ignore most of the chaos, Roland had to stick to the ground. Blazermate offered to carry him, but Roland wasn't sure if the robot girl that was her size could carry a tall guy like him.

When he looked around near the entrance from Sector 07, Roland quickly found a possible solution to his quandary--and a potential source of trouble. Just outside a corner convenience store, a couple bikers had pulled to a stop in the parking strip and put down their kickstands while they went inside for a quick top-up. Their vehicles were both very impressive, one big and red while the smaller one came in glossy black, but both motorcycles were sleek, high-end machines that stood out against the gritty backdrop of Detroit, as powerful as they were beautiful. Unfortunately, the timing worked out that both bikers were just now returning from the store with a bag of snacks and such apiece.

Though quite dissimilar to one another, the pair matched their motorcycles perfectly: tall, broad-shouldered, and scruffy, the long-haired man sported a roughed-up look thanks to his eyepatch and bandages, but an easygoing smile and disarmingly melancholic eyes. Meanwhile, his short-haired lady friend seemed small and thin but fierce, her black leather contrasting white hair but complimenting a sour expression. Fittingly enough, Roy wore a heavy toolbelt but no weapons, and Sugar came strapped with both a long shotgun and a sawed-off double barrel. Upon exiting the convenience store, however, the pair found their bikes under examination by a pair of G-men, both with wrenches. "Hey!" Sugar yelled, her voice turned up to eleven instantly. "The hell're you doing?"

The G-men turned her way. "We are mechanics, and we are mechanizing these machines with our wrenches," one told her in his deadpan voice, gesticulating with his tool like a conductor's baton. "Who, might I ask, are you?" He was dangerously close to provoking Sugar, and Roy clearly didn't like these spooks, either. Things seemed liable to escalate fast.

Well, motorcycles weren't his thing, but it'd do for now. Better than running, anyway. G men were.... unique to deal with if anything. He'd hate to be the poor guy who got on their bad side. That being said, those two the G men were irritating were also in a bad spot, and right now Roland needed those bikes the most. Wait... did any of the others even drive, let alone motorcycles? Either way, now was one of the those times Roland got to throw his weight around.

Approaching the scene, Roland said. "Hey pals, don't you know what G men are? Say or do anything suspicious and you go straight to jail. Or disobey the cops." And upon saying that final statement, Roland showed his turk badge to the group. "Turk business, I'll be needing those bikes. You can pick them up later." Of course Roland didn't know if that was actually true, but considering he could just trigger the g men if needed, well... sucked to be these guys.

When Roland veered off without a word to take a small detour, Sandalphon followed him, unsure of his intentions. Communication was key to the function of any organization, after all. He turned out to have his sights set on a scene unfolding nearby that reeked of trouble. Sandalphon meant to advise him not to get involved, but she was too late, and just as she expected, neither biker took Roland's intervention well. "We didn't DO anything!" Sugar fumed, turning on him. The sight of his badge, and the declaration that followed, turned her indignation into fury. "No goddamn way! You Administration goons leave us high and dry when we need help the most, then think you can show your face here and walk all over us? Go die in a ditch somewhere!"

Before Roy could try and calm the situation, the original G-man -emboldened by Roland's arrival- stepped forward. "Suspect under arrest for obstruction of General Affairs activity, suspected insurrectionist sentiment, and threatening a peace officer." It reached out a hand to seize Sugar.

"FUCK!" The woman jerked away violently from his outstretched grasp, her face one of raw panic. Almost without thinking, she grabbed her sawed-off and unloaded both barrels directly into the G-man's chest in an obscenely loud blast. It went flying and fell on the pavement in a heap, then melted and erupted into a badly-wounded Myrmecoleon. Promptly the other G-man switched into combat mode, removing its hat and transforming into a Yowie the size of a horse. As soon as it appeared, however, the reptilian monster turned toward Sandalphon, who was approaching in order to help control the situation. Aggravated by her new Bane of Dinosaurs weakness, it roared at her and cast Zio to shock her with a bolt of lightning.

Meanwhile, Roy went to deploy something from his toolbelt, and Sugar rounded on Roland, reaching for her pump-action shotgun rather than trying to reload. "Get away! Not a step closer!"

Roland wasn't surprised this is what was going to happen. It always did with punks like these, although to be fair, he wasn't sure himself if they would get the bikes back. Well, either way, they opened fire first so.... "It would be best to run now. Maybe you'll get away fast enough that we wont get an ID." Roland said, giving these poor sods one last chance to fix their mistake. Still, he wasn't going to say no to a fight and was ready to draw a weapon to deal with these two if needed.

The weird thing was the transformed G man attacking Sandalphon, that would have to be dealt with. These things were always so predictable. Roland moved to smack the Yowiel to knock some sense into it.

Not only did the Yowie's cast take less than a second to perform, meaning Roland couldn't possibly get in the way in time, but it descended from above like a real lightning bolt, so it struck Sandalphon near-instantaneously and without mitigation. The archangel gasped, flinching. Even if water-aspected beings from her world took extra damage from wind-aspected attacks rather than light-aspected ones, her defense was low enough that she felt even this rather paltry spell. Of course, Sandalphon didn't plan to take that lying down. She bore no more love for the Administration and its peons than Sugar evidently did, especially the G-men, who jumped to conclusions at the drop of a hat and happily backed their presumptions up with mindless brutality. Her gunstaff materialized in her hand as she prepared to take the Yowie down; these mooks were designed to be expendable, and the archangel wasn't so cruel as to deny them their purpose.

In the commotion, both Sugar -her weapons quickly holstered- and Roy -now surrounded by a handful of his mechanical bees, the Sweeties- went for their bikes. They swept up their kickstands and noisily revved their motors as they prepared to make a break for it. However, by that time the Myrmecoleon had recovered enough to attack, and as it faced the bikers it inhaled deeply to knock them over with Wind Breath.

Roland sighed. Well, he really didn't have any beef with these two bikers, and they didn't look evil or anything, so he would've let them go without much fuss, but now that the situation has gotten so bad and they were making a run for it, he shrugged and made a move for the G man that attacked Sandalphon, coming down on it with his daggers, before moving to intercept the bikers with his sword drawn. He would then notice the other inhaling and getting ready to blow something upon the bikers, and held his attack for a moment to see what it would do.

His dagger strike against the Yowie distracted it long enough for Sandalphon to close to melee range and take over. Using the head of her gunstaff she dealt the monster a heavy smack across the face, and as its long neck whipped sideways the Yowie over balanced and fell over. The moment it hit the asphalt, Sandalphon planted her heel on its neck just behind the head, then planted the butt of her staff -which happened to be the weapon's barrel- on the monster's face. As the weapon spun up, her pupils turned to targeted reticles, and the next second she squeezed the trigger. In an instant the Yowie was dead.

At the same time, the Myrmecoleon battered Roy and Sugar with its Wind Breath. Though the spell lacked stopping power, it dealt enough damage to trigger the bikers' Gleam, and both immediately changed tactics. Roy's Sweeties surged forth to pierce the half-lion, half-ant monstrosity with their stingers, keeping it busy long enough for Sugar to unholster her pump-action shot gun, take aim, and blast the thing to kingdom come. Although both shadows had been mercilessly exterminated, Roland had a chance to act freely.

Having a bit of time, as the two bikers unloaded on the unfortuniate G man, Roland moved behind Roy, the one of the pair that didn't seem extremely jumpy with his silent movement, and as his bees dispatched the G man, Roland squatted on the front side of his bike as his back was turned, tapping him on the shoulder once the monster was obliterated by their combo attack. "Hey, make this easy for everyone here. You two bring me and a coworker where we need to go, and perhaps these G men went missing dealing with some cyborgs. I don't want this to get messy if I don't have to." roland said.

"Whoa, whoa!" Roland startled Roy with his sudden appearance, causing a reaction before he even finished his first sentence. With the ill-meaning stranger way too close for comfort, the brawny man turned and shoved Roland away, then revved up his bike to get the hell out of dodge, his Sweeties ready to follow behind him. With her Gleam sated as well, Sugar hurried to do the same, but that meant she needed to sling her shotgun across her back again before she could speed away.

Well, it couldn't be said Roland didn't try the peaceful method. But such was life in the city, it was rare to find anyone who could be considered neighborly. Flipping off the bike as he was shoved off, Roland decided to go for Sugar, who was having some difficulty getting into a riding mode due to her shotgun. An opportunity Roland would take by knocking her off her bike with a non lethal hammer strike to the side, before hopping in the seat she occupied and using the pre-revved bike to speed away, swinging by to make sure Sandalphon had her own transport before heading off himself.

With an agonized grunt Sugar hit the ground, several ribs broken. Because she'd been straddling the motorcycle, the force that knocked her over also knocked the bike over, forcing Roland to pick the heavy thing up in order to get it rolling again. As one might expect, however, Roy hadn't planned on leaving his lady friend high and dry. "Sugar!" he yelled, his voice echoing down the street as he slid his motorcycle sideways with the screech of tires. Then he sped back the way he came. His Sweeties hovered around him, ready to attack, and while he now appeared to be holding a grenade in his hand he clearly didn't want to risk hitting Sugar. Speaking of, she wasn't down for the count just yet, and she gritted her teeth through the pain as she reloaded her sawed-off as fast as possible. Roland having been starting to ride away.

In her current state Sugar took too long to reload to get a good shot off, so by the time she fired, the spread of the breaching round only grazed Roland and the stolen bike in a number of places. Sugar was effectively out of the equation, but Roy was not. His Sweeties hurtled toward the Turk en masse, not just trying to pierce him with their metal stingers but also bull into him and compromise the motorcycle's precarious balance. Still, he didn't prime the grenade. It was too risky, and there was a slim chance that Sugar's prized possession could still be recovered later.

It was at this point that Sandalphon stepped forward. She approached the spot where Sugar writhed from behind and planted the butt of her gunstaff to create a healing ring. Addressing the biker might have provoked her ire, so the archangel allowed the relief of restoration to speak for her. Once Sugar realized what was going on, she relaxed somewhat, accepting the help.

Roland wasn't an ace when it came to using a motorcycle, but he knew a thing or two. Having deflected the bit of buckshot that streamed his way, Roland put his sword away and pulled out his gun to shoot the tire of the guy persuing him with his little nanoswarm of drones, swapping weapons back to his sword to deflect the drones when they got close before taking a sharp turn to head down an adjacent street towards quarentine valley.

While Roland's shot missed, his heart not really in it, Roy's Sweeties didn't manage to make much headway either, and the two men passed within a couple feet of one another as they sped in different directions. That left the biker with a decision: Roland or Sugar. Although it pained him to see some psychopath make off with his friend's motorcycle, the Turk had demonstrated zero sympathy and maximum violence. Better to make sure Sugar was okay than risk both their lives. As the motor of Roland's stolen bike receded into the distance, Roy headed over to the two women, regarding Sandalphon warily. "You okay, Sugar?"

"I'll live," she replied, running her hand along her midriff. Though this prompted a wince, she was already feeling much better thanks to the healing ring. She looked up at Sandalphon. "Who the hell're you? Weren't you with that...that lunatic?"

Roy shot her an apologetic look. "I think Sugar means to say 'thanks for the help'."

Sandalphon's face betrayed nothing, but her pupils had turned into stress marks. "You're welcome. Be safe, you two." With that she hurried off. The archangel had a lot of ground to cover to catch up with the others. Hopefully her familiarity with the sky-line network that ran through Detroit would make up the difference.

As Roland rode away, he shouted behind him. "You can pick this back up at the interplate train station near the Quarentine Zone." as he rode away, saying that more to clear his conscious than anything. Overall he was being pretty nice, but he didn't have any reason to be more hostile than he was. These people were just common folk that had a bad shake, but thats that and this is this.
Hidden 1 yr ago Post by MULTI_MEDIA_MAN
Raw
Avatar of MULTI_MEDIA_MAN

MULTI_MEDIA_MAN

Member Seen 4 days ago

Geralt of Rivia & Zenkichi Hasegawa

Sector 7 Slums -> Sector 8, Detroit

Lvl 10 (188/100) -> Lvl 10 (191/100)

Lvl 4 (47/40) -> Lvl 4 (50/40)

Word Count: 1,552 words


As their conversation died down, Goldlewis was approached by Giovanna, who mentioned needing to leave on a mission for Vernon without delay, and did so with a bit of a lackluster farewell, not that Zenkichi or Geralt could blame her for getting well away from the Seekers and their shenanigans. They were both a bit suspicious of the circumstances, perhaps owing to each of their own history of betrayals, but neither would voice their concerns, nor did they think at the moment that there was any reason for them other than a touch of paranoia.

Not long after, the companion (or more accurately, a drone/flying golem sent to represent them) that Giovanna advised them of arrived, and Goldlewis lead the way out after Mr. H's drone bade them follow. The former Secretary of Defense made sure Clara and her currently invisible protector would be alright, and while Zenkichi questioned the wisdom of leaving her to join the Sector 7 militia, he knew he couldn't be everywhere at once. He'd have to trust Tifa and the others to keep her safe, even with Svarog around to handle the heavy lifting in that department. Geralt, having seen the guardian in action, had no illusions that Clara's safety was all but assured as long as she had him to protect her.

As the group gathered with Mr. H's drone, Goldlewis introduced them, leading Zenkichi to grimace. "I only just realized, especially since we were talking about it a few minutes ago, but the Administration can probably follow us pretty easily if they track Benedict or I's IDs. I know you're in better standing than I am, Benedict, but it might be a good idea to get that addressed sooner rather than after getting ambushed..." Sratching the back of his head, Zenkichi lazily frowned and scuffed a sneaker along the ground awkwardly. Figured it'd be a good idea to bring it up, ya know?"

Nonetheless, it was a little too late to get an ID made up for him now, so he let that hang for resolution at a later date, while they got to the real meat and potatoes of this meeting: The Quarantine Zone. That godforsaken place was, of course, still on their to-do list, and with actionable intel that Jena Anderson would be around, rocketing it to the top of their priorities. Even Zenkichi, as laser-focused on Konoe as he was, couldn't deny that. The others agreed, and with the knowledge that this drone could help them detect and avoid becoming corrupted by Redshift, there wasn't a better time to address a potential alliance with the Hermits, who supposedly were able to hack into DespoRHado's servers, and try to get what they could out of Anderson. Even with her history, if they were planning on going against the Administration, they'd need all the help they could get. If it came to it, they could work on taking her down afterwards, as distasteful as it all was to Zenkichi.

The Seekers slowly meandered their way through Sector 7, some of the others catching the newer members up on the specifics of Spirits and Fusion, with Zenkichi keeping an ear out for any information he might've missed in his earlier introduction. The part about becoming a chimeric abomination stuck with him, and he looked Geralt over with a grimace. He wouldn't call the man an abomination per se, but he got the feeling that he and Midna were probably more extreme cases of Spirit Fusion. It only made him more wary of messing with that sort of thing. The last thing he needed was to wind up a woman on top of all this.

As they crossed into Detroit, Geralt was quick to break off from the group, promising to meet them at the inter-plate station he'd visited with Giovanna, Blazermate, Susie and Benedict earlier. His sky-hook in hand, Geralt made a hasty escape, easily avoiding much of the chaos in the streets below, even if he did come across a few punks here and there between lines. Any time he did, he kept his eyes forward and made no challenges beyond letting it be known that he saw somebody. Even for his size, while he could have easily barreled his way through anybody and forced them to move aside or be trampled, he made room aplenty and avoided a fight while he made his way to the next sky-line.

Zenkichi, on the other hand, had a much less simple time of getting through the Sector. While he'd never actually turned in his Turk badge, anybody in PubSec would know it was useless, and trying to throw his weight around here wouldn't get him nearly as far with civilians as it might have in the Upper Sectors.

But he knew somebody who might be able to give him a hand. Pulling out his phone and looking through his messages, he re-opened the one from a fellow former Turk: Ch'en. Letting out a little sigh as he read the message over again, he clicked on her name, his phone sending a call through. It was on the second ring that the line was answered, and a familiar voice responded: "Hasegawa? Is something the matter?"

"You still in Detroit, Hui-chieh-san? I'm free if you have a minute. Promise it's important."

"Of course, Hasegawa-san. I left the hospital not long ago, and am currently taking refuge from the chaos in a low-traffic area. I will send you my location now." Thankfully, it wasn't very far away, and with a promise to Goldlewis, Sandalphon and the others that he'd meet up with them at the station by the Quarantine Zone, he headed off.




It took a little bit for Zenkichi to reach the location Ch'en sent him, but as he ran down the street, he caught a glimpse of familiar horns and blue hair, skidding to a stop and resting his hands on his knees, panting a little. "Hey, just...hoo boy...gimme a sec...ran all the way here." Taking one last deep breath before pushing off his knees and standing up relatively straight, Zenkichi nodded. "Okay, so...long story short, I could use a hand getting out of here. With DespoRHado on the rampage, PubSec going wild, and just the gangs in general being a pain in the ass, I figured it was best to work together."

"I see. And I suppose it would be foolish not to agree, given that I have little to lose in doing so. I had originally planned to request Public Security send a vehicle, but when I read the news of my demotion, and the subsequent attack on DespoRHado, I was shaken. However, I did manage to secure transportation after...an incident involving those same DespoRHado remnants. They attacked a Public Security patrol, and I intervened to assist. After dispatching the cyborgs, the officers thanked me and sped off to respond to another incident. However, they left behind the vehicle that the cyborgs had been using. I, not wanting to be stranded any longer than I needed, commandeered the vehicle and was about to make my way out of the city when I received your message. Fortuitous timing, Hasegawa."

Nodding Zenkichi adopted his typical lackadaisical pose, shrugging. "So where's the car?" He asked simply. If whatever was left of Desporado without Sandalphon and her androids wanted to cause chaos, it was hardly a problem worth investigating if somebody were to take one of their cars and try to run away with it.

"It is just inside this garage. The building has been abandoned for some time, and I've come across it multiple times on my patrols. I've only once or twice come across squatters, and seeing that I haven't gone far, I wasn't worried about the vehicle being damaged or stolen. Shall we be off, then?" Ch'en offered as she opened the side door to the garage, pressing the button to open the vehicle bay door.

"Gladly. You're a lifesaver, you know that?"

"No one fights alone, Hasegawa. Especially now." More than you realize, Hui-chieh... Zenkichi mused as he got into the jeep.




The drive was mostly made in silence, though Zenkichi did leave Ch'en with a warning. "Listen, I...can't really explain much, but...I know what my reputation is like in PubSec. Just trust me when I say there's a good damn reason for it and you should try and get out of town if you can. Things are about to get a lot worse than this, and I heard some pretty good rumors that Reunion may be trying to make a big move." Closing the door before she could respond, Zenkichi looked over and saw a familiar unicorn giant, and gave Geralt a wave as he walked over to the Witcher. "Sky rails are cheating."

"Whatever you say." Geralt joked back, nodding at the vehicle, which hadn't left just yet. "Friend of yours?"

"The other Turk that got demoted after we failed to bring in the Hollow Child. Which was related to that Machine attack, and why PubSec wanted Desporado to take the fall. It was our fault they got the intel they needed. I just hope she's not taking it too hard. We didn't really talk about it."
Hidden 1 yr ago Post by Scarifar
Raw
Avatar of Scarifar

Scarifar Presto~!

Member Seen 24 hrs ago



Location: The Under - Termite Kingdom Ruins
Level: 3
Experience: 89/30 (Level up available)
Word Count: <750 (+1 EXP)


It seemed everyone was in agreement about the stealth tactic, and decided to go with creating a bit of chaos instead. Rubick chuckled in delight; that was his specialty. Rubick twirled his staff before pointing it at one of the wasps, firing a green bolt of energy. Soon the battle commenced, and Rubick began to aid Sectonia with the Bee Drone. He fired off a quick blast of his Fade Bolt, which also bounced off nearby wasp enemies and temporarily weakened their attacks. Rubick then moved on to other nearby drones, Power Stealing various abilities to take down the nearby mobs. A fireball here, a few summoned minions there. With a bit of teleportation and stolen wasp ability shenanigans, he even got some of the wasps to start fighting each other. Rubick just laughed as he continued his assault. There really was nothing like a chaotic battle to entertain him.
Hidden 1 yr ago Post by Zoey Boey
Raw
Avatar of Zoey Boey

Zoey Boey Spider!

Member Seen 8 hrs ago

Sakura Level 10: 06/100
Karin Level 6: 37/60
Location: Hospital
Word Count: I hate it
Points Gained: 1
New EXP Balance--- Sakura Level 10: 07/100
Karin Level 6: 38/60


Sakura did notice the mannequin moved a little weird when she fired her fireball at it, but she didn’t think much of it. But the Patients were frozen by light. Sakura wished the lights were on right now. She also wondered if she could just blow a hole in the wall or ceiling, but they were probably too far into the place.

They ran through a creepy hallway full of arms and ended up in a big room. ”This is all weirdly familiar. At least I’m not a little kid this time.” Sakura said while they were in the elevator.

When they were creeping around in the dark room to avoid the giant Doctor, Sakura let out a breath. ”So, that guy works for the government? Is all this just the creepiest security system ever?” Sakura asked. ”I guess I don’t want to fight anyone just doing their jobs, so…sneaky time.” Sakura said with a whisper.

She saw the pink-green light. ”Peach-san likes pink…maybe she’s in there?” Peaking to see that the Doctor wasn’t coming back yet, she began to creep over there, staying in a crouch. A crouch that she could maintain forever thanks to her incredible core strength. Hopefully she could peak around the corner and see what was on the other side of this mysterious door.
Hidden 1 yr ago Post by Zoey Boey
Raw
Avatar of Zoey Boey

Zoey Boey Spider!

Member Seen 8 hrs ago


Level 8: 08/80
Word Count:
Location: Home of Tears
Points Gained: 1
NEW EXP balance--- Level 8: 09/80 + something idk ill math later




Jesse had never stealthed a day in her life. When she caught up to the others the battle had begun and she was going to get involved. These wasps were pretty intense- it was kind of like how she imagined wasps would be if they were as smart as humans. Zealots dedicated to the cause of their queen.

This is pretty fucked up. Jesse said with a frown watching some wasps kill themselves for a power up.

Jesse engaged with the heavier wasps on the ground. Thanks to her Levitation and Evasion, she could ruin a bruiser’s day. Even if they did manage to land a hit, she was capable of using the Health Elements they dropped to recoup some of the losses. When she beat one group, she usually had a chance to Seize the survivor and use them to help her in the next bout, giving her a bit of snowballing momentum as she engaged with the others against the wasp infantry.
Hidden 1 yr ago 1 yr ago Post by Double
Raw
Avatar of Double

Double Hard-Boiled

Member Seen 9 hrs ago


The Under ~ The Hive
Kicking the Hornet's Nest

Word Count: 1,164
Level 5 Ganondorf: 28/50
Exp: 2
NEW EXP Balance--- 30/50


The debate between attacking or using stealth was surprisingly short-lived. Seemed a majority of the Seekers were of a similar mind as Ganondorf himself was. That suited him just fine. And while those such as Nadia chose to move ahead with stealth, Ganondorf was of course among those - particularly the royals - who chose simply to attack openly. On the surface of it they would seem rather foolish to charge into a hive and kick over a literal hornet's nest. But when the fighting actually began it became swiftly apparent that the royals were not exactly exaggerating their own abilities.

Ganondorf for his part, started things off by summoning a squad of moblin archers. He instructed them to use their fire arrows to try and pick off drones and other aerial foes so that the Gerudo himself could focus on the more grounded enemies. The Haste from Sectonia was unexpected-but-welcome boon. It allowed Ganondorf's twin great swords to become a speedy whirlwind of death to any of the wasps that came at him. And some did, appearing to wield swords of their own or in some cases spears or a battle flag. In the end it mattered not. Between the speed of Ganondorf's attacks thanks to Haste, and the dark strength that slowly built up in the blades - these bugs were just that: bugs.

"Come on!" the Gerudo bellowed after cutting down an unfortunate sword-wielding wasp, "You could at least make this a challenge for me!" he taunted with great confidence and outright arrogance. And then, as if answering his challenge, a small swarm of five robotic hornets buzzed behind him in a dive bomb attack from above. He whirled around and managed to slice all but two out of the air. But those remaining two latched themselves to Ganondorf's body and exploded. They were small, no larger than humming birds, and so the explosions they produced were not particularly large. But they did manage to knock the King of Evil off his footing for all the briefest of moments. The Gerudo then had to quickly roll over out of the way to avoid being skewered by a long stinger.

"I'll be your opponent, human!" spoke the voice of the robotic hornet that had just tried to dive bomb Ganondorf, "You'll regret interfering in our business, here!"

"We'll see about that." the Gerudo responded with a flourish of his twin great swords.




Blast Hornet was no fool. He knew his wings gave him the greatest advantage and he wasn't about to let that go to waste. The Reploid buzzed his wings and hovered in the air, making sure to stay out of the reach of Ganondorf's swords. He summoned swarms of his hornets to dive bomb Ganondorf with their previous Parasitic Bomb attack. Blast Hornet even mixed things up on occasion and would briefly lock onto the Ganondorf in order for his hornet swarms to home in with greater accuracy. But the Gerudo wasn't fighting by himself. His moblin archers were nearby and more than capable of picking off the smaller hornets, with Ganondorf himself managing to cut down any that avoided fire arrow shots.

But this little stalemate could only last for so long. Ganondorf soon gave a new order to the Moblins, "Forget the small ones! Focus your fire on the one summoning them!" the Moblins were unsure about the wisdom of this tactic change but they dare not question the King of Evil's commands. And so they began to ignore the summoned bees in favor of concentrating their fire on Blast Hornet. He was agile enough to avoid most shots, but still took an occasional arrow regardless. As for Ganondorf, he found himself less able to fend off the exploding bee attacks without the coverage granted to him by his Moblins. At least at first.

When it seemed like Ganondorf was about to be overwhelmed, something buzzed in to provide interference. Bees of differing sizes and shapes. That's when it became clear to Ganondorf. The Hive wasn't quite so unified as it first appeared to be. It seemed the Seekers had unknowingly stepped into a war of sorts between the bees and wasps. Blast Hornet's drones were intercepted by fast-striking Beedrill and Combee who were being commanded by a nearby Vespiquen. And this provided Ganondorf with a much-needed opportunity to turn the tide. And it started with him drinking one of the potions he had received yesterday. The jumping potion to be precise.

With it and the Haste from Sectonia, Ganondorf was able to largely eliminate Blast Hornet's aerial advantage. The Gerudo made a swift and powerful leap that launched him straight at the flying reploid. Rather than attack he hooked his arms around Blast Hornet and used his great strength to fling the reploid down to the ground. Ganondorf came crashing down shortly after and was now in a better position to unload a flurry of slices and slashes from his twin great swords. That finally did some real damage to the reploid. Blast Hornet went to take flight again, but his attention on Ganondorf caused him to not notice the incoming volley of fire arrows from the Moblins. Those kept him stunned momentarily, giving Ganondorf a chance to quickly grab hold of him and slam him back down onto the ground with a Flame Choak.

Blast Hornet's body began to spark with static from the damage he'd been dealt thus far. He tried to unleash a last ditch swarm of hornets on Ganondorf hoping their close proximity would make them impossible to dodge. But once a gain the bees ran interference, this time in the form of a volley of Pin Missiles fired by a trio of Beedrills. Blast Hornet struggled to get airborne but Ganondorf was too quick to seize the opportunity. He lunged forward and delivered a final x-slash of his great swords that cleaved Blast Hornet into exploding pieces. All that remained of him now was a Spirit that Ganondorf quickly scooped up.

With Blast Hornet defeated, Ganondorf found himself surrounded by the helping bees who appeared to be buzzing with gratitude. Ganondorf didn't say anything, not exactly having come here to liberate any oppressed peoples. But he also was not foolish to make enemies of both sides of whatever this conflict was. As such, Ganondorf just offered a silent nod to the bees and then went along his way. he figured they'd probably go look for an enemy elsewhere on their own something. He also figured he should probably regroup with the other Seekers, deciding it was probably unwise to wander too far off in this Hive alone.
Hidden 1 yr ago 1 yr ago Post by Lugubrious
Raw
GM
Avatar of Lugubrious

Lugubrious Player on the other side

Member Seen 3 hrs ago

Suoh - Beacon Mental Hospital, Medical Ward

Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Sakura’s @Zoey Boey, Gemma


Though rather unsettling, both in terms of appearance and the way he crawled around on the hospital’s ceiling, the Doctor didn’t really intimidate Gemma. Sure, he seemed inhumanly large -inhuman in general, in fact- but the Scarlet Guardians regularly beat larger foes, and while holding that ungainly bloated mass aloft probably took some serious strength, the Doctor looked ill-suited for combat. Still, given the inexplicable invulnerability possessed by the patients it sounded reasonable to abide by Midna’s suggestion and not get tangled up in another fight needlessly. Although, the Seekers ought to know as well as Gemma did that investigations like this tended to culminate in the act of beating answers out of somebody. If this uncanny physician didn’t strike him as incapable of human speech, he might have objected, but for now he allowed the smaller, more agile members of the team to take initiative and sneak around.

Behind door number one: a surprise death drop. Midna actually fell in, much to Gemma’s dismay, but thanks to the special talents of the Twilight Princess she managed to save her skin. Soon she returned with the bad news, and though Gemma was relieved to hear it her cautionary tale was cause for concern. “I didn’t think we were that far down,” he murmured in a low tone. “This area of the plate may be heavily undermined. We’ll need to tread carefully.”

Sakura wisely chose a different exit. After taking pains not to disturb the Doctor as he worked, she reached the doorway silhouetted against a pink-green glow and made her way inside. On the opposite side lay a circular room in the same style as much of the hospital, with faded green tiles and splotchy off-white concrete. A strange machine stood in the middle, visually somewhere between a hot water heater and a lighthouse, with a spider’s web of cables stemming outward from the top and a ring of glorified bathtubs around it, all standing in a depression filled with ankle-deep murky water. Medical stands with monitoring devices could be found parked along the walls, and cables lay everywhere on the floor. However, this apparatus appeared to be offline, and judging by the dusting of cobwebs, not used for some time. Moreover, this wasn’t the source of the green light; that lay deeper in, beyond another set of doors, where it got much stronger. When Sakura ventured in there, she quickly realized that the squat, neglected chamber she’d just left had been nothing more than a prototype.



Though also circular, this room was much larger and high-tech, its better-kept machines connected not just via insulated industrial cables but holographic orange vision cables. Gone was the standing water; each tub had its own dedicated machinery with it on a checkered platform. There was a set of elevator doors on the room’s right side, and a stairwell on the left that led up to the second-story observation deck. Over the central hub a much larger nexus of oblong pods connected to the inverted glass dome of an enormous, oval-shaped tank that formed much of the room’s ceiling, and inside the tank were thousands of brains.

Those aside, the room wasn’t empty. In one of the tubs, unconnected to any machinery, slept a gaunt, wiry young woman with a stitched mask, brown hair in a bun, a scant beige dress, and nails protruding from the black veins in her skin. On one side of the tub, four enormous blades dangled from the cord that extended from the small of her back. Next to the central hub floated a figure in a dark brown trench coat lined with cream-colored fur. At first glance he appeared to be wearing a white metal helmet and gauntlets, both laden with spiky points, but in truth he was a robot. Or a robotic body encasing a glowing pink brain inside his head, bent as if asleep or meditating, deep in thought. Psychic pulses emanated from the mystery man at short, rhythmic intervals. When Sakura entered, however, he awoke after a few moments, his red eyes blinking on as he slowly straightened up. His glowing white irises turned the Street Fighter’s way, and she could feel a faint psychic pressure. ”What have we here?” A deep voice intoned directly to her mind. ”Not another surprise visit, surely? Hmm…interesting. I think not. You’re not here on business.” Brain Drain adopted an upright posture as he descended, his feet not quite touching the ground. “I’ll make this simple, then. Tell me who you really are and why you’re here, before I pry your mind.”

The Under - The Hive

Level 11 Nadia (147/110)
The Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Primrose and Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey, Ganondorf’s @Double, Rubick’s @Scarifar, Artorias’ @Dark Cloud, Barnabee
Word Count: 1340


Nadia moved through the remainder of the underground marsh quickly. Now that she'd gotten wet and dirty she didn’t play around jumping between the trees, instead skating across the surface of the rust-colored muck with the speed and lightness of a water strider. She would have preferred to put what just happened out of her mind and focus on the mission, if only she could. Instead the unfortunate event pursued her doggedly. While she hadn’t known this Ah Muzen Cab whatsoever, and the exact circumstances meant she didn’t get the chance to see or hear his morbid fate, the whole thing left her in a sour mood with a bad taste in her mouth. As she wound her way through the fridge of the bug-riddled bog, close enough to the edge that she could gauge her progress, she passed everything else right by. Not even the sight of an infested settlement amongst the trees, home to the malignant insectoid cleric known as The Thrall, gave her paws.

Soon enough the feral ran out of swamp. Though it provided good cover for bypassing the wasp legions in the end, she was glad to leave the fetid mire behind. Toward the back of the great Hive cavern, where the honeycombs were richest and the hexagon-based architecture the most grand, a tiered series of cliffs about a dozen feet high led like gigantic stairs up to a magnificently archway, opulent with gold and amber, that led to an immense hallway. Nowhere in the Hive seemed fancier or more important than that, meaning that nowhere was more likely for the usurper of Vespa’s queendom to be. After thinking about making her way up with a series of blood-pressure rocket jumps, Nadia realized that the hollow hexagonal cells in the cliff faces formed perfect handholds and pawholds, while the filled-in ones yielded readily to her claws. The climb up to the entrance turned out to be a breeze, especially since the wasps that would’ve normally been guarding this area had abandoned their posts to join the fight against the Seekers. As she ascended, cresting ledge after ledge out in the open after all the pains she’d taken to be stealthy, the feral couldn’t help but feel small and exposed after. Like a mouse scurrying around a storeroom for morsels of cheese. By now, with so many slain by the intruders, the wasps’ leader had to be getting desperate to hunt down and squash every last Seeker. Once they pushed through and regrouped, however, the hunter would become the hunted.

Despite her delay at the ruined temple, Nadia actually arrived first. Maybe the others had really kicked the hornets’ nest by going loud right off the bat. At one point a platoon of reinforcements buzzed down the hall to go join the battle, forcing Nadia to make herself scarce. There wasn’t anything in this big, empty corridor to duck behind, but by going to pieces she could easily fit herself into an empty hex cell on the wall and avoid their gaze. She hid there until the others arrived, then rolled out the welcome wagon by dragging herself out of the cubby like a mummy from a catacomb. “What took you guys so long?” She asked, working harder than usual to force a cheerful smile. “I thought you’d bee here ages ago.”

The Hive Knight was breathing heavily. His fuzz was stained with the gunk of dozens of wasps, and the teeth of his Yato blade moved slowly, chewing through the caked-on remains that had yet to turn to ash. “Justice,” he told her flatly.

“...Right.”

Together the team proceeded through the gilded hall, its waxen walls and hexagonal tiling polished to a mirror sheen. At the other side they found yet another cavern, this one with walls of scintillating royal blue and a honeycomb platform leaning out over a yawning abyss, with a minecart track looping around the circumference of the cave between the platforms' opposite sides. In the center of the great hollow hung the usurper, a colossal wasp in appearance, but not quite in truth. Though no expert on either bugs nor engineering, even Nadia could tell that this six-legged titan was no more than a robot. A stupidly huge robot, maybe even comparable to that leviathan that surprised the Seekers back in the Bottomless Sea, but still. She could easily picture herself sliding down that tube protruding from the mega-bug’s middle, which on second thought looked rather like a giant yellow teapot. Regardless, the Wasp Queen’s glowing red eyes fixated on the Seekers the moment they set foot in her throne room. No backing down now.



“Intruders!” The queen cried, her fake wings flapping back and forth furiously as she dangled from the ceiling on an immense chain. Her resounding voice sounded like it was being projected by a megaphone. “How dare you challenge the Queen?”

On either side of her, more wasps began to swarm, forming a couple enormous clouds of them. “Don’t challenge our queen!” they called out in chorus.

“Exactly! Attack!”

The Queen herself did not attack, however. Instead her wasps fought for her, attacking not as individuals, but as a cohesive swarm. They packed themselves together into huge, floating shapes, like swords that span through the air, hammers that came down hard on large areas, and pairs of scissors that chased the Seekers down, snipping ominously. Not sure what to do, Nadia took off running, dodging hammer after mighty hammer. “Bahahaaa! Run, you pests!” her foe sang. Those ‘weapons’ struck with serious force, the hammers in particular sending out ‘shockwaves’ of wasps that spread out in all directions on impact before wheeling around to rejoin the swarm. With a smirk the feral leaped over the ‘blades’ of a giant pair of scissors as the swarm tried to snap shut on her, then ran for the platform’s edge. When she jumped onto the minecart track, she slid along the metal rail with improbable ease, away from the assault swarms and around the hanging Wasp Queen. That gave her time to think about how exactly she’d go about attacking this distant metal monstrosity.

As she circled around, her ears, hair, and tails streaming behind her, she noticed the big orange bandages on the robot’s hull, one pair each crossed in an ‘x’ on the front and back of both her thorax and abdomen. Seeing no other possible weak spot except maybe the eyes, Nadia put together a plan and leaped from the track. She airdashed toward the Queen on jets of blood, then flung Athame directly into the bandages on the back of the abdomen to weaken it. Then she blitzed into the spot with Charge like a living lightning bolt and dished out a handful of air-to-airs, culminating in a dropkick that acted as Battery, triggering a pair of electric crits. She yanked out Athame and kicked off, flying back toward the rail to continue her grind. Her sneaking suspicions proved to be correct, as the Queen was not happy about that. “Managed to tickle me, did you?” she asked as Nadia’s slide came to an end. To either side of her, wasp swarms formed into giant mitts that flew toward her to try and squash her flat. “Let me give you a hand!”

The Wasp Queen would continue to ‘attack’ with swarms in a variety of shapes, covering different angles but not all angles. To defend her weak spots she would call upon her underlings to form shields and block with their clustered bodies, but if enough wasps got minced, burned, or blown up, she’d be vulnerable until reinforcements arrived. When each bandaged spot took enough damage, the yellow shell covering the corresponding front or back of the Queen’s abdomen or thorax would break off and fall away, revealing the metal skeleton and parts beneath. But only when all four parts were destroyed, leaving more or less just the wasp bot’s head, would the fight progress to the second phase.
Hidden 1 yr ago 1 yr ago Post by Double
Raw
Avatar of Double

Double Hard-Boiled

Member Seen 9 hrs ago



Suoh ~ Beacon Mental Hospital Residential Wing

@Lugubrious Luka | @Yankee Pit

Word Count: 805
Level 7 Roxas: 4/70
Exp: +2
Friend Heart used: -5 exp
NEW EXP Balance--- 1/70


"What the-? Yuito!" cried Roxas as he helplessly watched him be... devoured(?) by Anima. Right after this was when the real horror show started. Anima let out a shrieking cry of victory that caused all the tables to float up and then drop back down to form a maze of sorts. With the horrific monster floating about them above, this left the Seekers as well as the remaining Scarlet Guardians little choice but to hide until a better opportunity presented itself. By pure chance, Roxas spotted Yuito's sword on the floor near to his position. After what happened, Yuito's psychic control over the blade must have been broken resulting in the levitating weapon being dropped on the spot. The following victory cry and resulting shuffling of the tables must have knocked the weapon to its current location.

Hold on, Yuito. Roxas thought to himself as he scrambled forward and snatched the weapon up along the way. He now scurried in a low-crouch, making sure to keep himself well behind the tables to avoid being spotted by Anima. He'd dismissed both his Keyblades and was now only holding onto Yuito's sword, the hilt of which he clutched tightly in his hand. I'm not leaving this place until I figure out a way to save you. He solemnly promised himself. Just after this the tables rose back up only to drop down in a new formation. That meant that even if Roxas did start to get a sense of direction, Anima would likely just change it all up and effectively reset the entire board. Was navigating this "maze" really going to be so impossible? Or maybe Roxas was just thinking too linearly.

When the tables shifted next, Roxas was able to use the opportunity to glance around and gauge where everyone else was. He briefly glimpsed Luka across the room and the sobbing Hanabi in another position entirely. He also spotted where Yuito's body was shambling. All just before the tables came back down. If he wanted to regroup with someone without having to reorient his sense of direction every time the maze changed, then he needed to change the timing of when he moved! Luka! Roxas loudly thought in his head, hoping Luka could hear. We can track each other's position during the periods when the tables are floating. We can use that time to move closer to each other. Otherwise we'll just be wandering around this maze of tables forever!

After this Roxas made a point to glance around and double check where in the room everyone was during those brief moments when the tables were moving. It wasn't a perfect solution, but at least it was something. At the same time, Roxas began trying to think of a way to stop Anima. He had a feeling that Yuito might return to normal if Anima was defeated and destroyed. But even if that idea was no good, he did have another thought percolating in his mind. The other day during the return home from Suoh, he and some other Seekers had that brief run-in with the demons born from the redshift. Roxas could recall saving one specific individual from the infection by using a Friend Heart on him. Would it work on Yuito, too? He had no idea, but Roxas wasn't about to give up without at least trying.

So for the time being, Roxas focused not on regrouping but instead on closing in on Yuito. He knew he'd have to get closer to try using a Friend Heart on him after all. This was a huge, if it didn't work then Yuito's shambling body could just as easily attack him or worse, alert Anima to the Nobody's presence. Roxas was really hoping at this point that his black coat was doing its job in helping him stay undetected. He never thought he'd have to rely on it for a mission like this before. It wasn't too terribly long before Roxas spotted Yuito after a table shifted position. This was it. It was now or never.

Roxas moved toward Yuito from behind, remaining crouched and hopefully still out of sight from Anima. Roxas swallowed hard as he formed a pink Friend Heart in his free hand. Then he just held his breath and threw it at Yuito's back. This was either going to work, or result in a catastrophe. But Roxas promised himself he was going to save Yuito. If not with this Friend Heart, then perhaps by defeating Anima if necessary.
Hidden 1 yr ago 1 yr ago Post by Zoey Boey
Raw
Avatar of Zoey Boey

Zoey Boey Spider!

Member Seen 8 hrs ago

Sakura Level 10: 07/100
Location: Hospital
Word Count: short
Points Gained: 1
New EXP Balance--- Sakura Level 10: 08/100


Sakura was trying to be sneaky, but it seemed like the mystery brain man could sense her presence. As soon as Brain Drain stood up and looked at her, Sakura shot straight up, her hands at her sides. Her eyes flitted from corner to corner of the room, taking in all the sights as he asked his question. She winced a little at the pressure.

”U-um, hi.” She waved with an awkward grimace. Then she kept her hands up, though her elbows were at her side. ”Don’t pry me- sorry, I was- I didn’t mean to-” Flustered, she shook her head and gathered a little composure.

”My name’s Sakura and I’m here looking for my friend, Peach? Princess Peach? She g-got turned into a giant monster and kinda got whisked away, and we heard- me and my other friends- we heard she got taken here? And I didn’t think to look for a phone number to try and set up an appointment or anything. I mean this place is really scary, even for a hospital.” Sakura said, turning her raised hands into an apologetic shrug.

”I guess we just wanted to know if she was okay? Or if she will be okay? Sorry, I guess I just kind of assumed this was an evil hospital but, you know, you’re asking who I am and stuff which is a pretty reasonable response to um, a trespasser.” She lowered her hands and grabbed her elbow behind her back.

”But that is just…that is just so many brains. I guess they all got donated to science?” Sakura tapped her forefingers together and grinned at Brain Drain, a bead of sweat going down the side of her face. Maybe a little worried she might be talking to a mad scientist. But he hadn’t done anything mean to her and, well, she was a trespasser. A mad scientist would probably say something like ‘Gimme your brain!’

”That’s it in a nutshell, I guess. Could you please tell me where Peach is?” She asked finally, clearing her throat.
Hidden 1 yr ago Post by Zoey Boey
Raw
Avatar of Zoey Boey

Zoey Boey Spider!

Member Seen 8 hrs ago

Karin Level 6: 38/60
Location: Sector 7 - > Detroit - > Quarantine Valley
Word Count: 2,322
Points Gained: 3
New EXP Balance---
Karin Level 6: 41/60


Karin nodded graciously at Sandalphon. It was the least she could do, really.

Giovanna went on her way, citing obligations from her past. She seemed like a professional, but while she might not be with the Seekers anymore she wouldn’t be making things worse wherever she went. At least. Karin waved her goodbye and awaited the new information.

Now, their mission was simple- find a group of power-abusing hackers and find out what they know. Particularly about an anti red-shift drug. That would be very, very useful.

Karin stood up and, before they all set out, asked Sandalphon for her attention. ”Excuse me, Miss Sandalphon. Since traveling in a large group would undoubtedly garner much attention, I’ve decided to split off. In order to avoid missing our destination, however, I would be obliged if you established communications with me.” She said.

Once that was settled and Karin was confident she wouldn’t lose contact with the other Seekers, she thanked Sandalphon with a curtsey and was on her way.

As they traveled through the slums, Karin began constructing her disguise. Street markets provided ample opportunity for clothing. Being an expert haggler, she was able to avoid getting ripped off. With a few well placed coins, she managed to procure a large sun hat, a pair of sunglasses, a purse, and some flip flops.

Karin slipped into a back alley and began assembling her disguise. She just needed to not look like Karin Kanzuki- she also needed to not look dangerous. First things first, she removed her adventurer’s shirt, leaving her in her black sports bra. Then, with a few careful tears and folds, turned it, somehow, into a scarf that covered up her chin. With expert precision she folded and tied all her hair coils tightly around her head, and then covered it up with her sun hat. She donned the sunglasses. Next, she stuffed her boots into her purse and put on her flip flops. After that she rolled up her pants to above her knees. She took a few moments to slacken her posture and concoct a clueless, ditzy smile. This would be good enough on such a short notice. Last but not least, she detached her grapple hook and stuffed it into her purse as well.

Karin strolled back out into the thoroughfare on the border between the slums and Detroit. She would need a vehicle. It might be possible to rent a bicycle, but… she glanced down the street and saw an oncoming Taxi. It was moving a bit fast, but it would be even better for her disguise.

“Excuuuuse me!” Karin stood on her tippy toes and lifted one leg up. Her voice was several pitches higher, and she executed a valley girl accent. “Huh-lloooo! Taxi!” She waved her hand and fingers to get the driver's attention. In her experience it didn’t take long for a taxi to stop for a beautiful young woman. Especially one dressed in summer street clothes. When one finally arrived, though, the heiress-in-disguise got a little more than she bargained for.




Connected by nothing less than the Angel of Information, and all bound for the same area, the Seekers could afford to split up as they made their way through both the slums and Detroit, though the two legs of the journey ended up being as wildly different as one might expect. In the slums the only real concerns a hasty traveler might have would be the disorientation and propensity for collision offered by unpredictable and oftentimes-congested dirt footpaths, with unscrupulous locals and pickpockets a slim but still-present possibility. Compared to that, Sector 08 looked like a madhouse. Peace Protection and General Affairs had turned out in force, much to the displeasure of the Detroit inhabitants. Many of the people here, left to fend for themselves by the powers that be, harbored a real problem with authority, and though the troopers drew their fair share of ire, the real problem was the G-men. The unthinking mooks, given carte blanche to operate throughout the undercity so long as they helped quell DespoRHado and any other insurrectionists, happily went around identifying -and even inventing- whatever crimes they could, and situations escalated fast. Whether out of a woefully misguided attempt to bring evil to justice, or simply a desire to remind the unruly populace down here who was boss, the G-men were fighting as many Detroit citizens as they were DespoRHado remnants. And if Peace Preservation or the local gangs intervened on either side, things only got worse.

Having taken shelter from a brief but dangerous skirmish between Hoodlum Dolls and G-men in a bus stop, Goldlewis shook his head in dismay. Like any veteran of the US military, he possessed a great deal of endurance, but his headlong run through these chaos-ridden city streets had only gotten him so far. In terms of raw agility he ranked rock-bottom among his fellow Seekers, but the big man’s visibility was sky high. Even if his destination lay nearby, getting there on foot would be a risky proposition, but the map projected via his link to Sandalphon told him that Quarantine Valley was still a long ways off. Really missin’ my hummer right now, he thought as he took a quick breather, woefully imagining his badass titan of a vehicle sitting idle in the Sector 06 Hublink parking lot, chained up like a dog when it ought to be running free. With the roving Administration squads, spooked Detroit citizens, and general unrest, the buses and other means of public transportation wouldn’t be running. Goldlewis didn’t want to steal a vehicle, but what were the odds of catching a taxi in a climate like this?

Wait…what was that sound?

“Yayayayaya!” Off in the distance, music echoed through the streets. Incredulous, Goldlewis stepped out of the shelter of the bus stop. Out from a side-street burst a bright yellow taxi cab, traveling at a breakneck pace. It drifted around the turn and blazed down the roadway, deftly weaving through the mayhem. Behind the wheel sat a daredevil in blue with a bucket hat, sunglasses, and massive grin. “Holy smokes,” Goldlewis breathed, watching as the cab got closer. “Who is this guy!?”

“That’s B.D. Joe. You should hail him,” Sandalphon’s voice suggested. On a leisurely slide through Detroit’s sky-line network, following in Geralt’s footsteps, the archangel could afford to look out for the others through her magical connection. “It’s said he can get you anywhere, fast as lightning, for the right price.”

“Hey!” Goldlewis stepped out onto the street, pulling a wad of crash from his jacket to wave and hopefully flag the driver down.

B.D. Joe spotted him and slammed on the breaks, tires screeching, to come to a stop inches away from the veteran. “What’s up, man? Where we headed?”

“I’m headed to Zone 9, close as you can…” As he went to climb in, Goldlewis stopped cold. He’d realized that this cab was taken by a young woman, dressed as if on holiday, her face wisely shielded against any grit kicked up by the convertible taxi’s tires via sunglasses and scarf. Instinctively he stepped back. “Oh, uh, beg yer pardon, miss.”

The stroke of fortune just widened Joe’s smile. “Zone 9? Sounds like you two got somethin’ in common! I wouldn’t mind takin’ you both if y’all don’t!”

The woman grinned, breathless from the rise but seemingly pleased by something. “Yeah it’s like, totally no issue at all, dude!” She scooted over to make room for Goldlewis. “The ride’s a little bumpy though!” Inwardly, Karin wondered how long she could keep the charade up. If nothing else, she imagined laughing if Goldlewis caught on right away. She hadn’t really had enough time to be mischievous recently!

“Aw, thank goodness.” With surprising speed Goldlewis clambered up into the back seat beside his fellow passenger, his curious gaze lingering on her just a split second longer before he squeezed his coffin in between them like an article of luggage. Before he even sat down Joe was off again, the pedal to the metal. Despite its new encumbrance the taxi cab accelerated like a racecar, quickly leaving the veteran’s refuge -and the nearby agitants- in its dust. Goldlewis held on for dear life; while he wouldn’t by any means describe himself as easily rattled, this man drove like a maniac. He could only suppose that it took a certain kind of person to be brave enough to be out on the streets making money given the circumstances. And it was hard to argue with the results. Despite his frenetic pace, Joe kept scrapes and bumps to an absolute minimum. Even if a couple G-men, gang members, ornery Detroit citizens, or Peace Preservation Troopers looked the cab’s way, after another second or two they were nothing but distant memories.

“You picked a helluva time to go sight-seein’ ‘round here, miss!” Goldlewis practically yelled over the tires, engine, and rushing wind. “Where ya from? And what in sam hill’s got you interested in Quarantine Valley?”

Karin glanced over the window at the chaos happening around her. A shame, truly, if she lived here she would be rioting, too. But there were more important matters at hand: messing with someone she respected. She was holding the top of her head to prevent the wind from taking her hat away. “What?!” She shouted over the wind. “Sam who?!” She asked loudly, bouncing up and down in her seat.

“Sam hill!” Goldlewis called back despite quickly losing confidence in the feasibility of communication. “Ol’ southern slang for ‘what the hell’!”

“Oooh!” She tilted her head up like she understood. “It’s like, good to meet you, Mr. Hill!” She extended her hand for a handshake. “You’re really tall!”

Goldlewis reached around the coffin to shake her hand, noting that left just one hand for the purpose of holding the woman’s sunhat on. “Yeah, they make us big out west! You’re pretty short for a Californian!”

“Whaaat?” She gasped. “Like, how did you KNOW I was from California?!” She asked.

Goldlewis cracked a slight smile. “Got a couple good friends out there that talk just like ya! Whereabouts you from? Fresno? Bakersfield?”

Just like her? Karin wasn’t sure what to make of that. Though, her accent was very good… “You’re like, totally reading my mind right now. You must be from…Texas!” She said, like she was trying to do the same guess that he just did.

She glanced up at their driver as they hit a particularly large bump. Really had to make sure that had stayed on, otherwise, the jig was up! Karin grinned.

“Nevada, actually!” After going over the pothole Goldlewis straightened his glasses. “Right next to California! My accent oughta be a dead giveaway!” He made sure to raise his eyebrow at her. “Boise, born an’ raised!”

“Boise? What part of Texas is that in?” The woman asked cluelessly over the sound of the wind. “Hey, you know what’s funny! I have an aunt from a place called Boise that’s in Nevada!”

“It ain’t in Texas!” Goldlewis hollered back. “That is funny, considerin’ Boise’s in Idaho!”

“It is?!” Karin asked. “No way! Are you sure you’re even from Amerigo?!”

At that point it occurred to Goldlewis that among the many worlds crammed together by Galeem, there might very well be many coincidences and different versions of reality. Zenkichi’s testament about his homeland had only been the most recent bit of evidence. It would be hard to ‘gotcha’ someone effectively on raw facts when anything was possible. As the taxi rounded a turn, Goldlewis could see open air beyond the next row of buildings, and after another moment Joe brought his cab to a screeching halt. “There! That’ll be four hundred and eighty three dollars and forty five cents between the both of y’all!”

“Highway robbery,” Goldlewis grumbled, reaching into his wallet. The veritable roller coaster ride left him a little numb and jittery, his heart still pounding, so it took him an extra moment to rummage while he climbed out.

“Okaaay!” Karin happily paid such a fare both in character and out of it, considering the virtual warzone he just genuinely masterfully maneuvered them through. She slapped the appropriate amount of coins down on the armrest of the taxi and stepped out, taking her purse with her.

Then she glanced around at the place she was in, taking in the sights. “Uh, like, what? This isn’t the Valley. This is like, creepy.” She put her finger on her chin through her scarf.

She was right in several respects, since Joe had left them on a street that ran alongside the deep, overbuilt gorge, with buildings and air alike tinged orange-brown by rust and sediment. Goldlewis could buildings below, but no way down. Joe counted up his cash with a big smile. “This is as close as it gets. Enjoy the view y’all, ‘cause there ain’t no way in or out. Later!” He cranked his taxi’s gears and steered it toward a glowing green zone nearby where a Detroit woman was waiting. The moment she vaulted into the cab, B.D. Joe peeled away and swiftly disappeared into the disquieted cityscape.

“Not for normal folks I guess, seein’ as the whole place is sealed off. But seein’ as it’s the Administration that sealed it, there’s gotta be a door somewhere. Just a matter of bustin’ it in.” Looking around for any sign of the others, Goldlewis spotted a jeep with Zenkichi and an unknown lady behind the wheel, and as he set off with his coffin hoisted over his shoulder he beckoned Karin to follow him. “C’mon, Kanzuki. We better link up with the rest.”

“Kanzucky? What’s a kanzucky? Hey, I think I have an aunt from there!” Karin asked, maintaining character and following behind.

The big man smirked. “You’re thinkin’ of Kentucky, partner. Luckily, I got a couple aunts from there too. Small world, eh?”
↑ Top
2 Guests viewing this page
© 2007-2024
BBCode Cheatsheet