"Well I got in a bit of a skirmish with drac, who's pissed because someone messed with his family" Asura says "so I'm not gonna rush in blindly and take you down a notch. But may I ask why you put that bounty out on me?" --- Theta grins and grows several extra pairs of arms before taking as much weaponry as she can carry --- The figure removes the mask and sure enough, it's kishin. ((It's official. My "me" char is now third person.))
@kishin asura "Simple. You were in my way, but I really didn't want to mess with you myself....you're strong..." Ozzy says, walking towards Asura. "However, you're not to much of a problem now..more so, an ally....I've come here, to inform you some things, that my father's told me....that may interest you..." Ozzy chuckles, grinning widely. --------------- Tiny smiles, widely, before thinking for a moment. ".........How many arms can you grow?" He asks, thinking out loud. "I mean, like, eight are...acceptable, but I'm sure you could do more..but.....how many can you make?" ------------- Tsubaki lets out a loud sigh. "Oh god, you scared me..." She says, and the robot walks over, and hands him a small pin. "Identification pin. Wear it." The bot says, before vanishing down another small trap door, just bit enough to fit him. "So, what brings you to my neck of the multiverse?" She asks.
"And why should I trust you?" Asura asks --- "That actually depends on quite a few things, but I once grew around two hundred." Theta replies --- Kishin puts the pin on and says "sorry if I scared you."
With a popping sound and a slight puff of smoke, Drac and Mithias appeared in the centre of the Theatre. As always the coffee lounge was filled with customers, a wide variety of figures from all over the multiverse coming to sample Bob's collection. Always in the centre of things was Bob himself, spinning and laughing as he casually multiplied, multiple forms taking orders and serving them across an expanse the size of a small city. The scents and sights were maddening, but the two weathered souls that had now made their way to this realm were well versed in the madness of Bob's domain, and would find it more nostalgic than stunning. Laughter and screams were aplenty here, and a chorus of unearthly musics tied the entire scene together.
Before Drac could take a step, one of Bob's many bodies appeared in front of him, smiling as he began to speak. Then, suddenly, he stopped, leaning down to stare Drac in the face. Every other Bob disappeared, as the baffled Chaos God inspected Drac's soul. Holding up a finger to shush Drac for a moment (comedic timing forcing him into silence) Bob pulled out a massive tome, bound in the still-living bodies of screaming unborn children. He flipped through the pages, scanning the vast list of names before finally coming to the one he'd been looking for. He seemed to take a moment, looking between the book and Drac, clearly confused.
Then, with the speed of thought, Bob swept down and pulled Mithias down near the floor. The Chaos God's face was nearly pressed to Mithias ear as he, in overly dramatic fashion, whispered into his ear. "Don't look now, but there's a dead guy standing behind you...."
Mithias followed Drac into his portal, and the two stepped out into the chaos realm. Wherever they were going to appear suddenly vanished with a pop sound and the throng of the coffee lounge replaced as far as the eye could see. Damn Bob was fast.
Drac and Mithias found themselves on a stage, and both of them recognized this particular part of the chaos realm. It was the Theater, Bob's center of power of sorts, and where he held his "formal" entertainment. The firelight that had burned in the vampire's eyes dimmed and disappeared along with his expectation of any fighting. There was nothing Mithias had to worry about in here, except for perhaps Bob remembering that little contract he'd signed once. But other than that, Bob would control his guests, Drac didn't stand a chance of trying to kill him again, and maybe for once they'd actually save the universe ...this time.
The lounge was the busiest he'd ever seen it. Mithias merely watched as some liquid leapt out of a mug and began running down the table, across the floor, up another table, and jumped into someone else's mug while they weren't looking. ... Whatever the hell that was. He knew it was pointless to ask. He still had no idea how beings arrived here on their own, nor how even he had done so not long ago. But as long as this place was alive, it somehow meant that things were ok.
Bob whipped out a large book with a ghastly binding, and Mithias softly groaned his disapproval and turned away. Bob certainly had that dark side to him, black as pitch. Was it really right to defend him at all? Mithias thought about it. Surely the book wasn't real. It must have been for show, an illusion. ... Damn it was convincing. The grey knight risked a glance at a dangling red fetal arm from the front cover and was just a bit unsettled by it. Of course it was a show, but nothing made a better show than what was real. Mithias began to worry, and yet he could have sworn he saw Bob grin wickedly as he caught himself considering this.
Before Mithias could have reacted, Bob dramatically pulled him over and whispered in his ear. His statement could have been interpreted a dozen ways, from being a secret revelation about the future to merely childish playing. Certain he had no idea, Mithias responded typically. "Yes, Bob. I know. I'm well aware that Drac is undead..." They both were undead, Mithias and Drac, but the vampire didn't overstate the obvious. It probably wasn't what Bob had meant anyway. "Regardless, please don't kill him again, this time, er... at least not yet. Not before he's had a chance to explain why he's here. I'm sure you're curious anyway."
@kishin asura "Because, if you don't, Maka, and you, are going to end up being a kind of dead no power can fix..." Ozzy says. He walks forwards, and pulls down the medical mask he was wearing. "....The thing I'm here to tell you...Is that, unless I can gain a rather..large..amount of power, we're all doomed..and you're going to help me with that, Kishy." -------------- "..I am curious as to what that situation was...." Tiny says, thinking. He then shakes his head. "No time for daydreaming!" He declares, before he opens a portal, and enters it, before a set of severed limbs fly back in, charred, and on fire. "...I'm ok!" Tiny yells. ------------- "Hehehehe...sorry..It's..just I'm paranoid about people coming to kill me, so a random masked fellow, no matter how charming, is..worrying.." She says, before hugging him.
".....Bob, charming as ever..." Drac says, letting out a loud, obviously annoyed sigh. "So, how's the thr-...no...no..Drac, control your temper..." He growls, mostly under his breath. He breaths in deeply. "....Bob.....I'm here, and that's most likely throwing up some red flags for you, I'm guessing.....Have you figured it out? Or, do you need me to explain..." He asks, leaning on air, as if something solid was there. He seemed unaffected by Bob's antics, not even wincing at Bob's book of the dead.
@supertinyking@Wraithblade6 Bob chuckles, as he places his hands on his hips. "Oh my. Let me guess. Is it clones? No, that's not it. The soul's the same. And the one I got definitely isn't a fake.... so that leaves only two options, doesn't it?" Bob raises two fingers, before splitting into two beings. One clad in his traditional red attire, the other his female form, clad in a similar blue outfit.
"You're from an alternate version of the multiverse, and, having encountered my vampy friend over here, you decided to travel to my realm. You either want to get back Mithy's soul, or the soul of your alt, probably to make your children in this reality happy." The red Bob spoke.
"You've traveled here from the future, after you've been released from my control. You then decided to avert some catastrophe, probably connected to those Omegans, by traveling back in the past. So you're here to either free your past self, or to inform me of some upcoming event." The blue Bob says, moments after her copy had finished.
Both versions of Bob leaned forward together, grinning widely as they stared at Drac, eyes glowing a bright purple. "So do please tell, which one of us is lying?"
Mithias tensed anxiously for a second, then looked aside in a way that confirmed what Drac heard. He had lost his soul and Bob hadn't simply forgotten about it. Hiding off on sparsely populated iceworlds had done nothing to evade the Taker's memory. Mithias wondered if he was going to make it out of the coffee lounge this time or not. He tried to rationalize his chances. Surely Bob was allowing him to live and roam for a reason. If anything, they were friends, yeah... friends. Friends just don't go ripping each other's souls out. Bob wouldn't do that to him....
... oh f... Who am I kidding? Yes he would.
Mithias glanced back at Drac, then exasperatedly threw his arms up. "Bah! Please, spare me your pity, Drac. I've seen my future self and my death, and I'd rather have Bob yank my soul than let myself become that. At least this way, it can never happen." Mithias was referring to Alucard, a malicious monster who had lost all hope and had bent to serve the Omegan's will.
"Sorry, red. Blue's gotcha beat." Drac says, a tad glumly. "....As for the catastrophe, well....Bob....It's all destroyed. Everything. Even you, and your daughter.....everyone dies...Except me...and my family." Drac says. "It's though...well, I don't think this covers it, but divine intervention...We survive....but the guilt of watching everything else, be destroyed..in the blink of an eye....I couldn't stand it....Trillions of years, that guilt build....and..eventually.....I managed to come back..." He then sighs. "Bob, we've had our differences..but for both our families, we're going to need to put them aside, and work together, to stop the Omegans...All of them."
@Wraithblade6@supertinyking "Drat." Red Bob exclaims, before spontaneously exploding into confetti like an overstuffed pinata. The pieces sink into the ground, as only the blue version is left alive.
"Oh wow. A catastrophe that ends the universe? Terrifying. So then it would be best if we all worked together, right?" Bob chuckles, before a gesture sends Drac face-first into the ground. "Terrific. I completely agree. Everyone get on Team Bob, and we'll all be best friends." Drac would find himself completely unable to move. "It's a terrible shame, really. You came all the way back from the future, and where do you decide to go? I mean, I really thought you were smarter than this, Drac. And the funniest part is that you thought you could blackmail me with what you know, like I'd just throw up my arms and do what you wanted? Stunning, such arrogance." Blue Bob crouched down next to Drac, smiling down at the seething God of Time as she tapped her chin playfully. "So tell me, Drac. What's going to stop me from ripping out your soul right here and right now, and then forcing you to kill your family while I watch? I'd be killing two birds with one stone. Because your bitchiest of sons is currently trying to hunt down my daughter, with the concept of blackmailing me into giving you back. So wouldn't it be ironic if I had them all slaughtered by their own father?"
Sighing, Blue Bob stands once more. She stretches, before turning to Mithy. "Don't worry about it. Being indebted to a magical being is a beautiful thing, really. Think of it less like the enslavement of the essence of your being, and more like.... a partnership. Your soul is a democracy now, but I just get more votes than you." Smiling brightly, Bob poked Mithy in the face, and it was impossible as always to tell to what extent she was serious. But it was also clear that Mithias would be retaining his body, at least for now. "Speaking of our esteemed friends from an alternate universe, would you like to say Hi?" Suddenly, the black muscle-bound form of Alucard would appear, hovering opposite Mithias in complete stasis. "I can see the resemblance. He has your eyes."
@kishin asura "Yes, it's Omega being set loose, and everyone dying...permanently." Ozzy says. ----------- She rushes in to a factory filled with strange humanoids, all of them looking the same, pretty much, firing at Tiny, and then Theta, with laser based weaponry. Tiny is already firing gernades left and right, sending gibblits flying. ---------- "...Well, wants some..coffee?" She asks, a bit timidly.
@thewizardguy "........Grrrr...Simple......We're already in agreement that you won't....that contract, strung on the wall of the home you've got me in, right now...the fallacy you created, to keep me docile..I know what it reads. It's an agreement....I let myself be destroyed, to save your daughter...you agreed, while I was held, you'd not harm them. Besides, I came here, not out of arrogance...but out of kindness. If I wanted to, if I was truly that..evil...I could of let things as they were....leaving you, and your daughter to die...leaving..almost everyone, to die....But I didn't. I came back, to help everyone..including you." Drac manages to whisper out, before something strange started happening. A dark power began to seep from Drac, as slowly, he began to work against Bob's power. His gauntlet began its work, converting the very magical fabric of the theater into a pitch black power, one that simply destroyed itself. The energy was not converted..but destroyed, entirely, leaving nothing left. As for anyone who knew the normal physical laws involving energy..this was terrifying. "...However...." Drac growled, as he stood, obviously strained...but able to move. He shambles over, and stands before Bob, his eyes filled with a darkness that would mayhap even strike terror into the heart of the nigh immortal creature of creativity. "....If you do harm my family...Omega will be the least of your worries, as I will destroy you...myself..." Drac huffs, the anger in his voice, very, very, apparent.
Mithias stepped to the side as blue Bob flattened Drac. Indeed Drac was arrogant, quite like Bob explained. Granted, he did sincerely come back to this time period for the reasons he claimed, but he really could have been more... hm, apologetic?
Bob's anger flared as she threatened to make Drac slaughter his own family. Harsh though it was, Mithias had to consider it fairly on par with what Drac and Ozzy had been, and were still, trying to do. He couldn't hold it against Bob entirely, although God help him if Mithias wanted to try to stop him. He stood by, merely vigilant as the two had their exchange.
The sight of Alucard was enough to make Mithias grit his teeth. Alucard was a hideous fiend, and a source of shame for what Mithias had not yet become, but could have. The eyes were the same, and he could not deny it. It wasn't something he really wanted to see ever again, such a reminder of his own flaws, his limited resilience against hopelessness and despair. "Ah. I thank you for the reminder, Bob. I realize, you have been good to me." He looked upon the hovering form of his alternate self once more and furrowed his brow at it. "All that this vision inspires within me is the desire to surpass it. I will not give up, as he did, and I will one day become stronger than Alucard ever was." Alucard had been incredibly strong, possibly enough to destroy even Bob outside of the chaos realm, or Drac on a good day. Then Mithias said something that was rather amusing, "Until then, my soul is yours, 'partner.'" Oh, did Mithias have intentions to eventually win back his freedom? Hilarious.
Then Drac began his psychosis-fueled resistance of Bob's magical control. Mithias stood blinking in disbelief. Was Drac's future self even stronger than in the current time?? Resisting Bob in his own dimension was unheard of, even if all Drac could manage was a staggering drudge. The beings he had allied himself with in this multiversal existence were absolutely, gods.
@kishin asura "Oh really? Who? You've got my curiosity..." Ozzy says, leaning against the door. -------------- It's a slaughter, the strange people all being mowed down with ease. It ends when Tiny fires a gernade into a large tank of some sort, before quickly grabbing Theta, and portalling out with speed she's never seen from him before. Judging by the small amount of fire coming from the portal, it's a good thing he moved so fast... ------- "Tea, soda? I can get you whatever you need." She says, smiling.
@supertinyking@Wraithblade6 Bob sighed, as Drac slowly fought his way to his feet. "So it seems you learned something from Omega. You were always powerful, and you've grown in power since I saw you last. If this were anywhere else, I might fear for my life. But as it is...." Bob gestures, and the very laws of reality altered themselves. Drac's arm was ripped off of him, it and the gauntlet launching themselves across the vast room and landing in someone's dinner somewhere. "There are some beings that would be able to face me here, in my nexus of power. But you are not among them, Drac, and we both know it. Here, there's nothing you can do to me." Drac found himself unable to speak, as all that left his mouth was blood. Bob was proving a point, and Drac would feel every organ in his body collapsing in on itself. "Those who enter this place subject themselves to my will, and if my will is to kill you then there is nothing that can stop me."
Bob waited for a moment, feeling the resistance in Drac's mind. Feeling the old God's anger. Normally, she would have forced Drac into submission, but she knew Drac would not subside. There was no torture at Bob's disposal that would break Drac's will, not with his family at stake. So she merely healed Drac, leaving him with the realization that there was nothing he could do here. "I have no intention of letting the Multiverse die Drac, you know that better than anyone. After all, a destroyed universe would be stagnant. It would be a boring bunch of nothing, with no new things ever coming along. Truly, the epitome of wasted potential." A tendril of thought reached into Drac's mind, as the God of Madness penetrated his brain. "So let me show you something. Hold your butt, this may sting a little."
Drac's eyes were opened, and they were burned away. Shattered upon an unbending wall of screams, cast among an infinite pit of sorrow. His very soul was pierced by the cries of lament, as the suffering of a billion worlds was forced upon him. His mind filled with the purest agony, his body blazing with a thousand curses. He could feel grief reaping his very being, as if his family had already died. Certainty of failure, a hopeless abyss that dragged him down into infinity. The fear, suffering and grief of the multiverse itself, an unending sea of sorrow where time itself became a meaningless concept.
Then, a pillar of light. He ascended, vessel to a light a billion times greater than the sun. An unstoppable force, a surge of unspeakable ecstacy. The joy of a child just learning to ride a bike, the unbridled love of a newlywed couple, the glee of a man whom's life's work was finally bearing fruit. True joy, lifting from the sorrow, a happyness equal to the sorrow he had been subjected to mere moments before. And on this wave he soared, far above the abyssal depths of despair. And he ascended, ever higher, until he moved into the clouds themselves, and beyond them, into the vast space between worlds.
An infinite black, filled with points of light. Ideas, concepts, flew around him at the speed of thought. Realizations both stunningly simple and impossibly complex. A truth written in the fabric of reality itself, as the multiverse scrutinized itself. Every atom, broken down, every universe placed in it's rightful spot. The thoughts of a being beyond both time and space, barely intersecting with perceivable reality as it pondered the meaning of existence. Insanity, beauty, and knowledge. And Drac realized that he had merely ascended into another sea, waves of thought striking him from all sides as he was submerged in the thoughts of another. Slowly losing himself, filled with memories not his own, and thoughts he shuddered to think. Until 'Drac' was merely a meaningless concept, a word attributed to describe a particularly complex pattern of matter and energy among the many wonders of the multiverse.
Drac emerged, in time, pulling himself out of the water. Tunes and epiphanies clung to his clothes, slowly falling into the sand. He straightened himself, worn out from the worries of the world, before slowly ascending. He looked down, and he witnessed the complete being below him. He witnessed the sum of the Multiverse's emotion, and he saw the vast oceans as they circled each other. Whirlpools the size of planets formed as waves like nuclear explosions crashed into one another. Calm and storm were one and the same, intermerged in this chaotic sprawl that touched every aspect of mortal existence. What was below him could be seen as Life itself, every moment from birth to death embodied in a single contained infinity. This was the true form of the Theater. This was the true form of Bob. And Drac realized, staring down at the tempest, that the Bob he knew was but a fragment of the true being. A tiny shattered particle of a multiversal constant, a force every bit as essential to the Multiverse as the Primals themselves. The very heartbeat of conceptual life.
But as he stared down, a single concept clung to him. A single idea worked it's way up his clothes, and into his mind. It was a fairly simple idea, two realizations he had yet to have. It told him that the white orbs were a portal. And, much like another portal, their destination could be changed by a sufficiently skilled being. The second thing it told him was that the being that would march through these portals was the being that the Omegans wished to stop, a being so powerful that they'd unleash Omega just to fight it. A being so powerful there was only one cage in the Multiverse capable of holding it....
Done with Drac, Bob was now able to give Mithias the attention he deserved. "So, you want to become stronger? Interesting. There are many ways to gain power, but for you.... you're going to have to learn how to use that power of yours." Bob lifts a long finger, and places it gently on Mithias's chest. "You're filled with energy, and you've already seen it's potential. Alucard chose to gain power by absorbing lesser lifeforms, gaining their abilities and adding their strength on to his own. This potential is within you as well, although I doubt you'll use it." Bob smiles, revealing a row of pointed teeth. Unlike her red clothing, the teeth were a bright red. "If you want to become more powerful, you're going to need to learn how to use your powers. The internal power that Aono granted you, the Demon Energy. Or, if you want to call it by it's proper name, Ki."
"From what I hear, it's probably one of the strongest weapons out there." Asura explains "a glaive capable of reducing entire planets to dust. But it won't be easy to get." --- "Well... that was fun." Theta says --- "Tea's fine." I reply
Mithias didn't flinch, or shy away, or glare, or react with any surprise or offense in any way as Bob placed her finger on him. He let her touch him, like he would have let rain fall upon him. He accepted Bob and was at peace.
He listened to what Bob said about Alucard's methods for gaining power. Bob was right in that Mithias would never allow himself to use the same methods as his black-souled alternate. He'd have to gain power in his own way, Aono's way, by self discovery and practice. Mithias had no idea what Bob had shown Drac in private, and he didn't question it. Whatever she said to Drac was meant for Drac.
His voice softened and he spoke with sincerity, "I want to learn. I am *trying* to learn. I have things I want to protect now as well, those I love, and potentially now the future itself." He glanced again at Drac, who was probably pulling himself together at this point. "Bob, if there is anything you can tell me, any way you can help, I am listening. I will always heed your words, and I will repay you."
