Lugubrious

World of Light

I'm sorry things have been so rough for you. I really hope things take a turn for the better. Farewell.

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Lewa

Although Lewa sympathized with the plight of the villagers, attacked out of the blue and saved only by the chance intervention of benevolent strangers, he had his own villagers to worry about and couldn't linger here any longer. Instead he seemed rather antsy to continue on with the caravan as quickly as reasonably possible. His biggest takeaway from this whole incident was the fact that his own group didn't seem to be the only people brought here from other worlds, turning what he thought to be an isolated and unprecedented event into just one occurrence of a much larger and farther-reaching trend. Naturally this bothered him, since if his abduction wasn't a conscious and deliberate act of an individual that could be reversed and just part of an established trend, getting home might be a whole lot harder. On the other hand, it did imply that the little girl Millie whose desperate prayer had catalyzed his arrival here was probably not a person of pivotal importance to his quest, which was good since by now the otherworlders had left her far behind. The source of the phenomenon was still out there somewhere; he and the others just needed to find it. Livened up by the excitement, the re-energized Toa of Air prepared to get a move on.

World of Light

Ehh, I'm not too sure about that one to be honest. I'll have to think about it.

World of Light

I have made another lost number

Dr Amelia Yu

Name: Dr Amelia Yu ( formerly specimen 27)
Origin: A creation of Dr. Vahlen and Alex Yu combining human, sectoid and typhon dna

Appearance: Dr Yu is a human Sectoid hybrid, within whose veins squirm the black tendrils of a typhon rather than blood, giving her a rather sickly complexion, as if she is necrotized. She tends to wear form covering garbs as a result, generally a lab coat, surgical gloves and face masks, complemented by some kind of colorfully patterned head scarf.

Personality: She has generally a rather obliging personality, with a seemingly preternatural ability to get people on her goodside. Naturally inquisitive, she will attempt to examine and/or take apart anything new she comes across. A pacifist who is physically unable to be around death and violence, even if her work is often in the facilitation of such things.

Background: N/A
In the Now:

Dr Yu is the result of dubiously ethical experiments performed by the scientist Dr. Vahlen in conjunction with Alex Yu. Having both found themselves trapped in a well fortified laboratory deep within the underground complex of Black Mesa, one infested with alien horrors from dozens of worlds, the pair used the facilities there to grow numerous biological weapons using samples acquired from within and without the laboratory.

The 27th of these was the future Dr Yu , who was designed to combine her two alien components' psychic abilities into something far more potent than that of either source species. In some ways this was a complete success, as the specimen exhibited numerous psychic powers, but unfortunately to use them it needed to feed the typhon aspect of her physiology. Not only was this the opposite effect the doctors had hoped for, intending for the sectoid component to provide the power source of the psychic powers, but the act of consumption was also highly distressing to the subject herself.

This reaction, however, essentially saved her life, as Alex Yu found this level of empathy in a subject so otherwise dominated by their typhon aspects to be fascinating. That, combined with a propensity for quick learning, is what got her put in the position of research assistant rather than being used as another soldier for her creator’s war for survival.

Though initially kept at arm's length, time and proximity slowly turned her, if not into the daughter she was, then at least into a well liked colleague, which was enough for her to be able to take on a name: Amelia.

There was certainly plenty of time for this closeness to build, for it was a long, long war, with there seeming to be no end to the extra terrestrial horrors. It was so long that Amelia’s creator’s time came to an unceremonious end as their 10 year clocks ran out, and she was left to carry on their work in their stead, being granted the title of Dr and the last name of Yu in her creators’, her parents’, respective dying words.

She tried to give her own creations, own children, some of what her own creators had only given her in her last moments at first, then tried to return to the old detachment she had had before when that broke her heart, only to find she could not. The arrival of the unstoried seeking to destroy the guardian at the heart of the facility was thus the only thing that saved her from withering away behind the locked doors of her birthplace, unable to make any more soldiers to fight in her defense or to even gather supplies.

After being shown kindness and telling their story, she aided the unstoried in reaching the guardian using her knowledge of the facility and then, at their side, at last escaped the palace that had become her parent's tomb, and saw the sun for the first time.

It was a brightness in her life that could not last.

The Consul came, her new friends fell, and she was left lost and alone in a dangerous world.

She turned her skills from creation to enhancement, finding an occupation as a biomodder and ripperdoc until one of the lost numbers coincidentally came to her for her services, and she without hesitation, joined them on their quest.

Job: Scientist
Specialty: Reverse engineering and biological enhancement

Inventory: Dr Yu always has at least some surgical and engineering equipment, be it for fixing things, or taking them apart to find out how they tick. If she ever is armed, it will be a stun pistol with which she has only passing skill.

Lv: 5
Abilities:
Psionic Empathy: The doctor’s one power that does not need powering by feeding on consciousnesses is the one that makes doing so repulsive to her. It does however help in social situations a fair deal, as she can passively read other’s emotions and the impact she is having on them.
Elemental psionics: If fed, the doctor can unleash powerful kinetic, thermal, or electrical blasts as either long range bolts or shorter range sprays.
Psionic necromancy: If fed, the doctor can reanimate the dust of the fallen into Typhon Phantoms, humanoid creatures able to use psionics of a single one element. The process takes only a few seconds, and can be repeated every dozen, but if she dies, or her concentration is disrupted by something like a flashbang, the phantoms will expire.
Skills:
Surgical enhancement: able to instal cybernetics, psymods, biomods, and other such enhancements if she has the materials for such things
Surgical dissection: can ‘dissect’ a spirit, destroying it in the process but in return gaining knowledge on how to create an item that it would have given when crushed.

Weaknesses:
Typhon feeding: Dr Yu’s well of psionic power can only be fed by feeding on the consciousness of others, a thing that can only be done with skin to skin contact, and which is also absolutely repulsive to her.
Sectoid constitution: takes double damage from melee weapons
Hybrid anatomy: the doctor’s insides are not in any medical journals, and would take extensive and repeated live dissections to chart out, meaning anything that requires surgery, be it healing or enhancement, is simply not on the table.

@DracoLunaris

That's another very interesting and creative Lost Number. The only thing I'd want adjusted is the strength related to spirits. Your character can be good at reverse-engineering technology, but I would rather not involve spirits.

World of Light

Carnival Town - Minigame Roulette

Level 13 Ms Fortune (166/130) Level 8 Goldlewis (96/80) Level 7 Sandalphon (57/70)
Roland, Sectonia, and the Robot Girls’ @Archmage MC, Midna and the Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Geralt and Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man, Pit and the Octopath Travelers’ @Yankee, Roxas and Ganondorf’s @Double, Juri’s @Zoey Boey
Word Count: 1604

As the seekers sussed out the hiders one by one, the lantern-orange numbers plastered on the sky ticked inexorably downward, getting closer and closer to zero. The hunters ignored the timer in order to focus on the quarry, but their prey didn’t make it easy for them, with the vast majority running once found in order to try and waste time–some much more successfully than others. Both the seconds and the number of hiders dwindled fast, and in the end it came down to Blazermate’s aerial chase. Even with her cheeky resourceful and airborne maneuverability, however, the seekers’ speed boosts made any pursuit a foregone conclusion. Finally, with just under thirty seconds left out of the original three hundred and sixty, Rika and Kamek pulled out all the stops to take the medabot out and win the game for their team.

Before Blazermate’s confetti even settled atop the cobblestones, the Morgenstund wonderworld collapsed, crumpling into nothingness like the display on a CRT television set. Just like before, the process kicked everyone back to the lobby, that giant roulette table that acted as the liminal space between manic minigames. With all of the spectators -and several of the hunters- focused on the outcome of the game rather than the timer, then abruptly deposited throughout the lobby, not everyone could tell who won right away. Whether excitement, disappointment, annoyance, or confusion, emotions were high, and while several people started talking at once, others just looked around in search of answers.

“Maaan, I thought I did such a good job hiding!” Nadia pointed, trying and failing to be angry with Geralt for spoiling her carefully-laid schemes with such ruthless pragmatism. “Why you gotta be all smart and stuff? How’d you know I was there to begin with?” While the two had been companions all across the Deep Blue Seaside, from the sparkling waters of Heaven’s Edge to the eldritch depths of Carcass Isle, the feral and the Witcher hadn’t gotten very close. She’d been more chummy with Sakura, Mirage, and especially Ace. From Geralt’s stunt with the Helmaroc King over Blackwater Bay, and her general fighting prowess Nadia had known the Witcher was good, but sniffing her out in the Botanist’s House was downright scary.

Goldlewis rubbed the back of his head as he squinted at Kamek. Due to his remarkable dimensions he’d been up the creek without a paddle from moment one, so it didn’t come as a surprise that someone managed to suss him out pretty quickly. After all, Witch One was ultimately a magical derivative of a game for children, enjoyed by those for whom the households and items of the world were large, rather than small. And it had been a very, very long time since the veteran’s childhood. “Good huntin, partner,” Goldlewis told the Magikoopa in the spirit of good sportsmanship.

Conversely, Sandalphon said nothing to the person who found her, in part because her discovery had been an unfortunate accident perpetrated in ignorance. Though this might have frustrated the average hider, Sandalphon seldom felt strongly about much of anything, and this outcome was no exception. Given that her contingency plan ultimately came down to luck, failure in some form was to be expected. Could she have done better? Almost certainly, and in any other circumstance, abject failure would have been excruciating. This, however, was just a game. The stakes were low, and she didn’t need to spend her mental energy on a masterstroke plan. If anything, being able to fail and have it not matter came as something of a relief. If anyone glanced Sandalphon’s way after the fourth game’s conclusion, they would find her pupils in the shape of cheerful carets. “This was fun,” she remarked.

In short order, Ballyhoo arrived to sort things out. “Wow-wee! What a stupendous six minutes of hiding and seeking! Witch One usually favors the hiders, especially when the seekers don’t know the map, but you four sure flipped the script, ‘cause you four overcame some serious odds to seize victory! Congratulations on a JOB WELL DONE! Here’s a token of my appreciation–or more accurately, five tokens! APIECE!” Ballyhoo snapped his fingers, and in the distant sky behind him, four brilliant stars sparkled. The next second, five-token stakes shot down like blazing golden comets into Geralt, Rika, Kamek, and Pit, ragdolling them comedically.

Then the gamemaster doffed his hat, giving the rest of the players a bow. “But don’t feel bad, hiders! Your clever hiding spots and tenacity for survival sure were something! I appreciate you too–just eighty percent LESS!” With that he hurled his hat into the sky, which exploded into a red-and-gold fireworks display of Ballyhoo’s own face. More rift tokens rained down onto the remaining sixteen people, one each. “Now, who’s hungry for ANOTHER ROUND? You ready, Balan? Let’s spin. The. Whee-!”

“That won’t be necessary,” Sandalphon cut in, bringing the butt of her Aether Lance down against the roulette table’s center with a loud clack. “We’re done for the time being.”

Nadia crossed her arms as she sent an indignant look the archangel’s way, complete with raised brow. “Huh, why? We’re still havin’ a good time, right guys? Can’t roulette out just yet!”

Sandalphon’s pupils became inverted triangles. “Starting now, they intend to charge us all per game and present the grand total at the end.”

“Oh.” In an instant Nadia’s attitude changed, and the catgirl turned her narrowed eyes toward Ballyhoo, who’d donned his most innocent expression. “Yeah, forget that! Get meowtta here, chief!“

While Ballyhoo moped, Balan shrugged and created a white rift at the edge of the roulette table, which he guided the guests over to with a grin. Once the Seekers stepped in, they found themselves pushing out of the curtains and back into the spacious checker-floored foyer of the Big Top in reality. As soon as he set foot on solid group, Goldlewis let out a breath he’d been subconsciously holding, a hand on his slightly queasy stomach. The end of the minigame roulette came at a good time for him; he’d definitely had his fill of spatial distortions and whimsical illusions for a while. As the weight in his pocket could attest, though, the rift tokens that he and the others received were very real, and now that the gift exchange lay before them, everyone could put their hard-earned rewards to use.

As everyone stepped away from the curtains, a forlorn Ballyhoo waved a handkerchief. “I hope you all enjoyed yourselves! Please come again sooooon!” he called after them. Still smiling beside him, Balan tipped his hat, and like streams of paint washing down a drain the bizarre pair spiraled back into the surreal realm of whimsical wonderworlds just behind the curtain.

Given her tendency to scan her surroundings, it didn’t take Sandalphon long to notice the presence of someone else in the Big Top’s foyer. Having just obtained a fantastical Hundred Layer Sundae (Zero Calories) from the Big Top’s snack bar, a familiar thirty-something woman wearing black, white, and a good-natured smile made her way toward the gaggle of heroes and villains fresh from their minigame extravaganza. “Hey everyone!” Dawn greeted them. “How’s it going? You guys have fun in there?”

Sandalphon nodded. She couldn’t speak for everyone, and a couple of them certainly seemed to be in a rather foul mood, but the archangel had experienced something that would reasonably fall within the standard definition of ‘fun’. “Yes. However, further engagement would incur payments, so we declined to continue.” she told Dawn. “May I ask why you’re here? Has something occurred with the Avenger?”

“Straight to the point, huh?” Dawn chuckled before downing a big spoonful of ephemeral ice cream. “Well, nothing just yet. Our long-distance scanners picked up movement down near Zurvan Amp Station though. That’s Consul H’s territory, and he’s got a serious ace up his sleeve. Some of our poor Alcamoth survivors know it firsthand: a gigantic carrier ship, packing more soldiers and military vehicles than you could shake a stick at. Probably headed toward Midgar, but to get there it might fly right over Carnival Town, and we don’t want it anywhere near the Avenger. After a little scrying, that Mona girl said we shouldn’t risk it.” She took a big bite from one of the chocolate bars, then shrugged. “So, I figured I oughta come down and round everyone up. No big rush, but no dilly-dallying, okay? Grab a snack, some clothes, spirits, whatever you want, and let’s Fulton outta here.”

As Dawn spoke, Goldlewis listened in rapt attention. Even if he hadn’t witnessed the ship for himself, he knew firsthand just how much of a military powerhouse anything called a ‘carrier’ could be. “Got it. We’ll wrap up here ASAP.” He turned to the others. “Y’all heard the lady. Let’s grab whatever we can and extract on the double.”

Sandalphon nodded once more. Her expression had relaxed somewhat over the course of the minigames, but she looked totally serious now. “Let’s save usage of the spirits until we’re aboard, as well.” With that, she made a beeline toward the Orb Machine, ready to extract her allotment of spirits. Though her solitary victory and three consolation prizes in the minigame roulette had awarded her a total of eight rift tokens, she only planned to spend three on spirits, enough to reach ‘pity’ once. The rest she planned to spend on clothes, since outfits that could be quickly equipped or unequipped offered a lot of utility, and there was no telling where this journey would take the Seekers next.

World of Light

Minigame Roulette - Witch One

Level 13 Ms Fortune (163/130) Level 8 Goldlewis (93/80) Level 7 Sandalphon (54/70)
Roland, Sectonia, and the Robot Girls’ @Archmage MC, Midna and the Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Geralt and Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man, Pit and the Octopath Travelers’ @Yankee, Roxas and Ganondorf’s @Double, Juri’s @Zoey Boey
Word Count: 1596

Having never participated in a game like this, Sandalphon absorbed the rules of the upcoming game from Ballyhoo with an expression far greater seriousness than one might expect of someone about to engage in a game of glorified hide-and-seek. Concentrating completely, she internalized both the tasks and objectives of the two teams and the advantages both brought to the table, since she couldn’t be sure which side she’d be on until the competition began. Her daily operations in DespoRHado had demanded subversiveness from her from time to time, but never had she been obliged to hide her physical form. Even without the potential spirit rewards, this minigame roulette offered a lot in terms of novel experiences.

Her powers of perception had made her wise to one other important detail about the Witch One minigame as well: that this would be the Seekers’ last one on the house before Ballyhoo’s Big Top started demanding recompense. Having immersed herself in the modern world of computers and software since her arrival in Midgar, and found herself remarkably suited for it, the archangel had experienced her fair share of shady free trials. If he considered that little aside -barely a slip of the tongue- sufficient warning and planned to pull everyone into a fifth game right after this, Sandalphon would need to intercede. Without full knowledge of the price point per person per minigame, she and the others could not afford to be caught up in all the excitement. With that in mind, Witch One would be the group’s final minigame today, and after doing poorly in two of them Sandalphon wanted to end on a strong note. With only two teams in play, after all, this last game was for all the marbles.

When she and the others arrived in Morgenstund, the archangel spared only a moment to look around. Given the quantity of allies at her side, it looked like she’d been assigned the role of ‘hider’. While Sandalphon would have preferred the role of predator versus prey, she could only play the hand the gamemasters dealt her, and that meant finding the perfect spot to hide.

Despite the festive autumnal atmosphere, Sandalphon scoped out the town through a strictly tactical lens. Theoretically it would only take one hider to win the game for the whole team by avoiding the seekers for six minutes, but this town didn’t seem that large, and its overall quantity of sufficiently sized objects would be limited. While using the unicorn horns on ordinary items would endanger the Seekers, she didn’t see any reason why they couldn’t use their hands or other weapons to sniff out illusions, blitzing through all the viable objects in each building one at a time. This would not be as easy as it seemed, especially given the roster of Seekers. By process of elimination she identified Kamek, Rika, Geralt, and Pit as her opponents. The first two she knew less about, but one could fly and the other could at the very least jump high and fall slow, which ruled out hiding on rooftops. Pit certainly had a lot of energy, and if his light arrows could seek targets, hiding in an isolated spot could be a bad idea. Geralt, as mentioned by Zenkichi, possessed superhuman senses, and of the four she most likely wielded the greatest intellect, making her the biggest threat. My apologies, Pit. With all that in mind, a target-saturated environment or a hard-to-find nook indoors would be best. Of course, finding somewhere sizable enough to accommodate her -not to mention her halo- would be difficult.

Around her, the other Seekers scattered. For a moment she considered trying to rally everyone to actually fight the Seekers rather than hide from them, given the hiders’ far greater numbers, but after Ganondorf’s outcry Sandalphon quickly decided against it. Time was not on their side. As the others spread out around the town, the archangel gravitated toward the library, the building with the most indoor space. Moving with unusual vigor -for her at least- she followed in the footsteps of Bowser, Midna, and Junior, a contingency plan forming in her head. Zenkichi, Goldlewis, Roxas, Roland, Blazermate, and now Ganondorf…perhaps even Pit or Geralt, if need be. Once inside the library, she ignored the chaos caused by the Koopa Troop and headed up to the second floor to search for a suitable prop. Unfortunately she could not find many good options, especially given the second floor’s limited area. Most of it happened to be a balcony that ringed the central atrium. In the reading nook above the doorway, however, Sandalphon’s ship came in. She found a grandfather clock, blocky but tall and thin, perfect for her to hide inside. She couldn’t say the same for her halo, though.

“Hmm,” the archangel mumbled, eyeing the rug next to the coffee table. With reluctance she took it and threw it into the air, draping it over her halo. Doing this felt a little sacrilegious, but Sandalphon knew of no specific prohibitions, so it should be fine. After that, she used her Mimic Veil to assume the appearance of the grandfather clock, then headed over to another reading nook to get some distance from the original. Two in the same area would be highly suspect, after all, and any attempts to destroy or displace the original would be clumsy and obvious. The archangel did not feel confident about this disguise, but hopefully this strategy would give her contingency plans the buffer they needed.

Compared to Sandalphon, Nadia did a lot less planning and overthinking. Instead she grinned at Therion, told him “You too!” and darted off the moment she arrived, scouring Morgenstund for the perfect hiding spot. While typically the cat instead of the mouse, she figured she could play the part of prey well enough–after all, she just needed to think like the hunter. If I were a seeker, where would I look…? Of course, compared to the average hider Nadia wielded one major advantage: she could make herself very small indeed. Instead of a hidey-hole, she needed the spot that would allow her to pull off her idea the best.

Her first stop was the Potter’s House. All those jars, vases, urns, and pots would be perfect for the scheme she had cooking–a plan so simple and yet so devious that she could not help but snicker as she scampered around. Unfortunately, there turned out to be a couple problems with her first choice, and their names were Roland and Therion. Both of them turned up at the Potter’s House as well. Even if it seemed to be a promising location, too many hiders in proximity only worsened the chances for everyone. That would be putting too many eggs in one basket, and while Nadia wouldn’t hesitate one nanosecond to give away a friend if it meant escaping, it would be better not to give herself any disadvantages.

Leaving the guys to it, Nadia skipped the workshop and moved on to greener pastures, literally. The moment she slipped into the Botanist’s House, a gleeful smile spread across her space. “Purr-fect.” This building, half a residence and half an overgrown greenhouse, was just what she needed. With plants and pots of all shapes and sizes it presented a lot of visual clutter, but that wasn’t the only sense it stymied. This place was a smorgasbord of earthy, floral, and herbal smells, cut by the heady aromas of burning incense that also contributed to a smoky haze. Those smoldering spices, gums, and resins made for a potent mixture; just one deep breath of the dwelling’s funky bouquet proved enough to confound the feral’s own sense of smell. This was going to be easy.

With only so much time on the clock, Nadia moved quickly. She selected a hanging pot by the entrance, reached down, and detached her lower leg to stow her foot out of sight. After hopping over to a tall, grassy shrub, she planted her tails inside it. Bit by bit she scattered herself throughout the interior, ferreting away each part of herself in a plant or pot just large enough to contain it. Her torso, the largest part of herself, she inserted between bags of dirt and fertilizer beneath a table, where she hoped nobody would look. Finally, she hopped her head into an empty spot on a shelf of succulents, wearing the Mimic Veil stripped off her now-discarded witch’s hat. Once her hand -hidden in a potted rosebush- snapped, the illusion of a clay pot appeared around her head. Just in time, the cat burglar was good to go.

Meanwhile, Goldlewis had a much tougher time. He couldn’t find any objects anywhere both big enough to hide in and not hilariously obvious. Keenly aware of the clock ticking down, he jogged around and examined several abodes in quick succession, but he couldn’t find any feasible spots. After a couple tries he gave up on the houses and headed for the central tower, the largest building not occupied by Bowser. In addition to a small dormitory with bunk beds, the barracks included an armory, and it was there that the veteran found his best bet. Arrayed within were suits of armor of all shapes and sizes, and when Goldlewis used his Mimic Veil in there, a suitably corpulent armor appeared around him. This wasn’t great still, but with time running out he couldn’t find a better option now. He just needed to stand still and hope that whoever stumbled in here was…well, stupid.

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Lewa

Happy to leave conversing with these people of interest to his fellows, Lewa stood by and absorbed what they had to say. Anne had already given the Spirit of Air the impression of wittiness, but when her intuition about Gwen and Maokai turned out to be correct, the toa could help but be impressed. Her arboreal companion chimed in with some insights about the strange enemies that everyone faced, and since Lewa didn't expect him to be able to talk at all, he found the creaky timbre of the treant's voice particularly intriguing. While he didn't understand Maokai's reference to something called the Mist, Lewa did feel alarmed when his new acquaintance posited the existence of mortals inclined to harm the natural world.

Such a concept was utterly foreign to him; on Mata Nui, there was nothing that could be called civilization, just isolated pockets of tribal Matoran eking out an existence on their island home. While they didn't always live in total harmony with nature, its rules and patterns governed everything, an inescapable fact of island life. Really, Lewa didn't really know what going 'defiling nature' could even mean. At most he could conceive of harmful ramifications of say, Ta-matoran living in Le-wahi, where they might be inclined to fell trees to feed their forges. Or Ko-matoran living in Ta-wahi, where the cold-weather Matoran might seek to tame the lava flows' uncomfortable heat. But even a whole tribe working as one still probably couldn't inflict lasting damage on the ecosytem. Mata Nui was a wonderful land, but its natural forces were powerful. Here, though, Lewa had no idea. Could people really bend their environments to their will? Lewa looked around and the rolling fields, scarcely able to imagine it. 'Defile' was a scary word to him.

Some of his comrades had separated from the rest of the group, heading into one or another of the town's humble buildings. Hopefully Remilia would be able to help any locals who suffered injury during the attack, but Lewa didn't know what the others meant to do. If they'd resolved the crisis here, it made sense that everyone would continue on their way. Naturally the thought of sticking around to make Maokai's acquaintance occurred to him, but trees had nothing if not time, and while Lewa's homeland was under siege from the Bohrok his own time was precious indeed. "I don't imagine that the caravan would stay-wait here," he ventured after a few moments. "Perhaps we should say our goodbyes."

World of Light

Minigame Roulette

Level 13 Ms Fortune (160/130) Level 8 Goldlewis (90/80) Level 7 Sandalphon (51/70)
Roland, Sectonia, and the Robot Girls’ @Archmage MC, Midna and the Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Geralt and Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man, Pit and the Octopath Travelers’ @Yankee, Roxas and Ganondorf’s @Double, Juri’s @Zoey Boey
Word Count: 1035 (Goldlewis) 1191 (Ms Fortune)

After putting Nadia and her spectacular wreck in his rear-view mirror, Goldlewis tried to pick up the pace. The timer in his cab’s dashboard marched ever closer to zero, after all, and if he meant to win he couldn’t afford to waste any time. So far his strategy had been a blend of speed and control, reasoning that any crashes or spin outs that resulted from an overabundance of haste would cost him a lot more time on the clock than caution. He didn’t overdo it like Sandalphon, but he still got outpaced by the likes of Captain Falcon and even Zenkichi. Now, though, he knew that he would need to pick up the pace to stay in the running. A little more familiar now with the city layout and the overall shape of its streets, he cranked up the music in his radio player and began to drive a little more recklessly. He flew off hills, skidded around sharp corners, and even took out small objects.

Goldlewis reached Payback Square, dropped off his current passenger, and drifted to a stop in a red zone just narrowly missing his next customer. “Southpaw Junction, and step on it!” the female NPC demanded. The veteran obliged, slamming his pedal to the metal to the sound of screeching tires. His arrow pointed him back toward Grapital Central, but while he knew he could weave through those twisting streets, the broader southbound avenue offered more room for acceleration. It featured one other bonus, too: ramp trucks. As long as he didn’t soar straight into the elevated railway, Goldlewis knew he could use those strategically-placed stunt vehicles to perform tricks, which he’d avoided in favor of solid fundamentals until now. “Better buckle up, ma’am!” he grinned, still not familiar with the concept of a non-player character. “I’m gonna take you for a ride!”

Now, with his engine roaring as the cab sped down the roadway, Goldlewis could really feel the wind in his hair. His heart pumped with exhilaration, and he couldn’t suppress a smile. Suppressing his common sense, he steered his taxi toward the first ramp truck he saw, and a second later he was in the air. “Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaw!” he hollered, easily drowning out the screaming of the passenger in the back. All too soon the vehicle touched back down, with a quick rightward veer necessary to avoid a collision with a building. Just after getting the vehicle back under control, though, Goldlewis saw another ramp, and deftly drifted over to fly off it as well.

He reached Southpaw Junction ahead of schedule, his passenger shaken but still in the vehicle. “Thank ya kindly!” After snatching his cash from her shaking hands, he rounded up another customer that requested a quick trip to Jobber Flats, back where he last spotted Sandalphon. Goldlewis got there on the double, a little shaken by several near misses and a run-in with Junior’s paint hazard but satisfied with the extra dough. He didn’t see any sign of Sandalphon and reasoned that she must have barely left the area with the time she had left, though overall he had noticed fewer and fewer competitors around. Those with less driving skill, especially the few inclined to sabotage others instead of trying to win for themselves, were all getting eliminated. Already the relentless decline of the timers had thinned the herd by half or more. Those last two trips had bolstered his own time somewhat, so if Goldlewis could last just a little longer, a top spot could be his. Unfortunately, the saboteurs only got more dangerous once eliminated, using their own abilities to wreck havoc rather than their vehicles.

Unwilling to waste time hunting down a red, he settled for a yellow, only to find that the customer demanded a trip over Grapital City’s connecting bridge to Low Key Key. With Half-Nelson Highway a hotspot for saboteur activity, and too much of a detour anyway, he opted to go for the much narrower, much trickier southern bridge instead. He managed to avoid a drop into the drink, but he felt anxious to make up for the time spent on his cautious crossing, and after turning south Goldlewis entered the little town where he dropped his passenger off at a poolside. He spotted a red fare up the street, picked the NPC up, then had to pull off a three-point turn to head south again to get to the giant ice cream come. Unfortunately, this particular customer’s timer turned out to be incredibly strict, and just moments before Goldlewis reached the monument his passenger bailed. “You gotta be kiddin’ me. It’s right there!” He got no response, of course, and the veteran had to swallow his pride in order to find someone else.

Thanks to that incident, his timer suffered a blow that he never recovered from, even after two back-to-back yellow trips in Low Key Key (during which he saw, and waved to, Primrose and Therion in the latter’s parked car). His hesitation to attempt more reds ended up spelling his doom. Just as he drew near the tropical island’s lavish southeastern hotel, his taxi cab began to give up the ghost. “Gaghhhh, don’t you quit on me now, you stinkin’ clunker! Just a hundred more feet, c’mon, c’mon!” Unfortunately, his timer read zero-zero-zero, and no amount of coaxing would add more seconds to that fateful number. With a final sputtering cough, the car ground to a halt. “Awww, hell.” He smacked the steering wheel with the bottom of his fist in disappointment, only for the airbag to explosively deploy and flatten Goldlewis against the seat. “MMMPH!”

It took him a few moments to extricate himself, after which the veteran heaved a heavy sigh, shook his head, and moseyed down the road toward the hotel. While he waited for the game to wrap up, he could at least see if the drinks in this wonderworld were real enough to taste. Fortunately, he didn’t have long to wait; even if Falcon had the others beat by a country mile, only the person in second needed to run out of time for the game to reach its end. The moment Goldlewis reached for a mimosa, the tropical paradise around him began to collapse.

---

The moment Nadia got warped back into the giant roulette table that served as the Seekers’ minigame lobby, the feral looked around. All of her fellow competitors from Kooky Cabbies had reappeared alongside her, their positions seemingly random, but right now she cared about just one unfriendly face in particular. With almost everyone more or less relaxed after their taxi cabs stopped moving, it took only a second to identify her target by movement alone, given the warp-induced disorientation that led to directionless aggression. Now that Juri and Nadia were back in the real world -or a more real one than Grapital City, at least- they could give their feud a proper conclusion, and the feral planned to keep her word by showing the bully how dangerous a serious Ms. Fortune could be.

“Okay, let’s do this right,” Nadia muttered, drawing her dagger Athame from her belt with one hand as she sprayed blood on the floor from the other. When she hopped onto it, she could deploy her rigging, the mechanical arms unfolding from her backpack to swivel their cannon batteries in Juri’s direction. “I won’t miss you!” She fired missiles of condensed hydro energy like watery corkscrews, two salvos at once, and as all four shots homed in on Juri’s position Nadia transformed her legs with Fluffy Soft and sprinted after the missiles in an animalistic burst of speed.

Juri’s good reactions meant that she could turn and block the missiles the moment she spotted them, but burnout prolonged her blockstun long enough for Nadia to pounce. She lashed out with her tiger legs, first with a scratch and then with a knee. “Saved the beast for last!” A high guard reduced the empowered blows to chip damage, but the Marks they applied reduced Juri’s defense by a combined ten percent, which spiked to 40% when Nadia followed up with a wicked slice from Athame, even when blocked. “Knife knowing ya!” Finally, Nadia used her dramatic tension to unleash her classic blockbuster, Cat Scratch Fever. “Furserker Purrage!” She advanced with a relentless series of slashes, dishing out remarkable chip damage as she pushed Juri back. The final hit caused the martial artist’s back to slam into the roulette table’s central tower, stunning her. As Juri reeled and Nadia’s teammates looked on, either alarmed or just curious, the feral stepped forward with a Friend Heart in her hand.

“Haah,” she gasped, grinning. “You’ve had quite the slumber party. But it’s time to wake up!”

She drove the Friend Heart into Juri’s head, setting the vagabond free in a burst of light.

In just seconds the commotion was over, thanks to Nadia’s underhanded strategy. As Juri recovered, fully healed but also fully possessed of her memories, her attacker waved the others away with fingers crossed behind her back. “Nothin’ to worry about guys, just freeing my friend here.” Once she’d assuaged the others’ concerns, Nadia turned back to Juri. She didn’t bother insulting her with an offered hand to help her up. “Welcome to what I’ve been dealing with,” she told her old rival. Would the truth inspire her to rethink her ways and fight for the future, or sink her into a depression? Maybe it wouldn’t change much of anything. Regardless, the choice was Juri’s to make. “...Enjoy.”

By that time, Balan and Ballyhoo had appeared. “What an incredible, action-packed ADVENTURE!” Seemingly ignoring the violent confrontation, the gamemaster looked more animated than ever. “Good work transporting those travelers, everyone, but alas! There can be only one winner! And then several RUNNERS-UP!” His associate Balan provided a drumroll as Ballyhoo snapped his fingers, summoning a cloud of wallets with all the competitor’s pictures on them that contained their collective earnings. Cash poured out of them -though in a couple cases, a single butterfly fluttered out of them- and one by one they quickly ran out until only three remained. “In third place, Goldlewis Dickinson! In second place, Zenkichi Hasegawa! And in first place, Carnival Town’s very own CAPTAIN FALCON! CONGRATULATIONS!”

Though getting third took Goldlewis by surprise, it did lift his spirits. In the end, his focus on the objective had given him the edge over Bowser, who'd committed a bit too much to chaos.

Ballyhoo held out his empty palms, then turned up his hands, revealing rift tokens between gloved fingers. He hurled them like throwing knives, five at Falcon and four at Zenkichi, then did a backflip before launching the last three at Goldlewis. Finally, he took off his hat and threw it, which whirled through the air above the crowd dispensing consolation tokens to everyone else. Sandalphon received hers with a nod of approval. Now even those who had yet to place in any of the minigames could reach that slot machine's much-lauded ‘pity’ and get what should be a valuable spirit. The games weren’t over just yet, however, so everyone had one more chance to earn a real payout.

For the fourth time, Balan and Ballyhoo spun the roulette wheel. When the boo ball finally stopped, it lay in pocket number thirty-four. “GASP!” The gamemaster cried, using the word itself instead of the actual sound. “Could it be? The fourth and final minigame in your collective free trial session before we start charging you is none other than WITCH ONE!” He declared it with such bravado that it echoed through the lobby, though as it petered out the rising sense of anticlimax forced Ballyhoo to clear his throat. “...Ahem! It’s a fun new twist on an old classic, a favorite among gamers of all ages, time periods, and IQ levels! So listen up!” After landing and leaning on his cane in a saucy pose, Ballyhoo began his exposition. “The rules are simple. You will be divided into two teams. Four of you will be seekers…”

“Aren’t we all Seekers?” Nadia muttered.

“...And the rest will be hiders! The hiders will have ninety seconds to find somewhere to hole up in our quaint little town. When that time is up, the seekers’ hunt begins! They must find all the hiders within six minutes to win, and if they fail, the hiders will be victorious! How to find someone, you ask? Simple! Just poke ‘em with your very own unicorn horn! Just don’t poke something that isn’t a hider ten times, or you’ll eliminate yourself. And be aware: the hiders have a trick up their sleeves! The MIMIC VEIL!” Ballyhoo opened wide and coughed out a classic witch hat with a veil of cloth wound around it. “Snap your fingers while wearing it, and you’ll create an illusion of the nearest valid object around yourself to hide inside! You can adjust it a little, but too much movement will break the illusion! Use it to hide yourself in plain sight! Especially because we’re disabling all abilities that would RUIN THE GAME by making yourself unfindable! And the seekers will get faster the longer they chase someone, so you can’t run forever! AHAHAHAHA!”

Nadia couldn’t help but smile. “So it’s just hide and seek, huh? ‘Find’ by me!”

The terrible pun earned her a look from Sandalphon, her pupils briefly in the form of targeting reticles.

Goldlewis, meanwhile, rubbed his head. “There ain’t much I can fit inside, I reckon,” he muttered. “Maybe a wardrobe, or somethin’...?” Well, after unexpectedly placing in the last minigame, he couldn’t complain too much.

“Get ready to hide and/or seek then, gamers!” Ballyhoo exclaimed. “Let the minigame begin!”

---

Once immersed in Balan’s new wonderworld, those designated as ‘hiders’ found themselves wearing witch hats in a whimsical old town of cobblestone streets and wooden cottages at nighttime, decorated thoroughly in the pumpkins, hay bales, candles, and props of Halloween. The flickering flames inside oil lamps and jack-o-lanterns illuminated crimson leaves, orange grasses, and colorful candies nestled inside bowls on the cottages’ doorsteps. All these buildings, however, featured fully accessible interiors, furnished with a selection of small and large objects. Which ones counted as ‘valid’ turned out to be based on the size of those who used their Mimic Veils; a valid object was whichever one could completely encapsulate the user in his or her current configuration, which ruled out the small props for just about everyone.

Still, this own offered plenty of places to hide. The Potter’s House, full of ceramic pots and jars of all shapes and sizes as well as ovens and bushels of coal for firing them. The Weaver’s House, full of quilts, blankets, and tapestries hung all over the walls and furniture that filled the abode with ghosts of cloth. The Mason’s House, full of statues of various people and creatures plus slabs of uncut stone. The Botanist’s House, an overgrown dwelling with plant pots and pantries full of magical flora and fragrant incense. The Ironworks, with all sorts of cauldrons and safes on display. The Tavern, laid out for a feast, with its many barrels and cloth-draped tables bowing beneath the weight of giant fruits, vegetables, meat slabs, and pies. The Stables, where sacks of feed and storage crates surrounded pens where fake animals lay. The Barracks on the bottom floor of the tower, with various suits of armor and crates of ammunition. And in the center of town, the two-story Library, its bookshelves towering over sprawling study tables.

Meanwhile, the four seekers wound up in a waiting room to hang tight while their opponents hid themselves. This took the form of the otherwise inaccessible potion laboratory at the top of the town’s tower. It featured a large brewing table with a cauldron and wealth of magical ingredients that could be processed and combined to all sorts of amusing effects, as well as a talking skull that could offer explanation or advice when prompted–or scream when hurled out of the window. Each prospective seeker also got a rainbow-striped shank, evidently their ‘unicorn horns’. And if none of that tickled their fancy, the four soon-to-be-seekers could just talk with one another, though given who’d been selected -Pit, Ganondorf, Geralt, and Rika- any chat between the four of them was bound to be interesting.

World of Light

Minigame Roulette - Kooky Cabbies

Level 13 Ms Fortune (164/130) Level 8 Goldlewis (88/80) Level 7 Sandalphon (47/70)
Roland, Sectonia, and the Robot Girls’ @Archmage MC, Midna and the Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Geralt and Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man, Pit and the Octopath Travelers’ @Yankee, Roxas and Ganondorf’s @Double, Juri’s @Zoey Boey
Word Count: 3254

With a shake of her head, Sandalphon cleared up the last of the dizziness that accompanied her warp into Balan’s wonderworld. When her pupils blinked back on, she immediately took stock of her surroundings, and the archangel couldn’t help but be impressed. The first minigame began in a cozy penguin village at the foot of a mountainside, featuring a climb that turned out to be much larger than it looked but still fairly self-contained. Then Film Those Freaks deposited her in a vibrant sky garden and demanded that she explore the horrific Old World below, the length and breadth of those murky depths unknown. Now, however, she appeared to be in an actual city. Sure, it seemed to be limited to an island in the middle of the ocean, but its hitherto-unseen scale offered a whole little world to explore–or drive around, as it were.

Right now, Sandalphon stood in a four-way intersection with her designated taxi cab, and around her lay the small, hilly suburban neighborhood of Trophy Heights in Grapital City’s well-to-do northeastern district. She couldn’t help but be interested in a residential area like this, given its sheer novelty to her. Wherever she’d lived, space had always been at a premium, with skylines and sightlines dominated by the architecture of mankind, choked by stone or concrete to the point of claustrophobia. That went for both Midgar and her long-lost City of Grams, differentiated only by their relative heights. Here, though, there seemed to be plenty of room around the houses, with well-kept green lawns, healthy trees, and flowering shrubs. It struck her as rather pleasant, refreshing even, but in the end she wasn’t here to sightsee. Most importantly, this neighborhood lay on a hill, and from here she got a good view of the city. It featured a very irregular layout, the sort that grew over time rather than got made all at once, but the only people she could see were those who stood in color-coded zones awaiting pickup. Already the sounds of engines echoed through the streets, drowning out the breeze and birdsong. It was past time Sandalphon added her own voice to the chorus.

Once Ballyhoo’s thunderous voice announced the game’s commencement, the archangel jumped into her cab’s driver’s seat, light as a feather. Cars had been an inescapable fact of life in Midgar, especially down in Detroit, which as she understood it boasted some history in the world of automobiles. By that same token, though, she’d never owned nor operated her own vehicle, instead relying on public transport. Still, few denizens of medieval worlds could claim to have adjusted to modern life better than Sandalphon, and if she could figure out supercomputers or social media, she could figure this out too. Beneath the hood, it might as well just be magic; what mattered was how well someone could use it. After spotting the manual, Sandalphon calmy flipped through it, speed-reading each page. “Right…right. This should be simple.” With graceful fingers she turned the key in the ignition, put the car in drive, and then pressed her heel against the gas pedal. The taxi cab lurched forward like a hungry beast, eager to tear up the pavement, and came just short of hitting a stop sign before Sandalphon slammed the break. “What power,” she murmured, smoothing her hair. No wonder Midgar suffered so many car accidents. After one more jumpy start, Sandalphon reigned the monster in, and set off at a brisk cruise through the burbs. A green trip would be a good place to start.

If Sandalphon respected the power of an automobile, Nadia craved it. On many of her ‘expeditions’ from Little Innsmouth to New Meridian’s affluent uptown she’d seen motorcars parked or driving around, and a few on the silver screen, but she’d never gotten the chance to so much as ride passenger in one. Such luxury items were elements of a world foreign to her, so far out of her wheelhouse that she’d only ever been able to dream of cruising the city streets herself. Now, however, she couldn’t avoid it. Her very own vehicle lay right in front of her, sitting pretty on a little parkway surrounded by the cherry blossom trees of Mixed Martial Park, just south of the Gainsville Swole Foods Market. And as far as she understood what Ballyhoo said about fares and stunts, she just needed to drive around faster and crazier than anyone else. Plus, it sounded like she couldn’t crash her car, nor injure herself in the process. This minigame really was a dream come true!

The feral practically dove into her cab head-first. While she did see the instructional pamphlet, she proceeded to ignore it. She’d seen people drive these things in movies, so how hard could it be? She twisted the key and pushed the lever as far as it would go, then slammed on the gas. Her cab shot forward, tires squealing, and obliterated a little flower stand in an explosion of multicolored petals like confetti. “NYAAAAAAAGH!” As she panicked, her heart pumping adrenaline-spiked blood through her veins, her vehicle rumbled right across the grass and onto the sidewalk, at which point she took a sharp turn and screeched sideways into the metal poles out in front of Swole Foods. The loud, violent impact jolted it to her core, even if it didn’t actually inflict whiplash, and Nadia’s head flew from her shoulders into the passenger’s seat. For a moment she just lay sprawled across the seat with her fur on end, hyperventilating. Only after a moment did she reach over, grab her head and set it down atop her shoulders, still bug-eyed.

Then a giant grin covered her face. “Wow, I almost ate shit already! That was in-car-edible!” With her head back on her shoulders, though, she could see the big digital display on the dashboard, the yellow numbers counting down. “Oh, right!” She’d almost forgotten the game’s strict time limit, which meant that if she wanted to maximize her fun, she’d need to hurry up and start driving people around. As luck would have it, a pickup zone lay only a few hundred feet behind her, its unmistakable yellow flashes nestled between a burger joint and an apartment with an unused billboard on its roof. “I tax-see you!” Nadia yelled. “Be right there!”

Not knowing how to reverse, she hit the gas and swung around to the left to perform a wide loop. Her path took her down the red-brick street, then back into the park, where she immediately ramped off a rock and flew straight into the trunk of a cherry tree. “GUH!” As the tree snapped in half, her car slammed down right back where it started, on top of the flower cart’s wreckage. Nadia shook off her discombobulation as best she could and accelerated once more, her tires sending splintered boards flying behind her as she zipped down the park path, through the arch, across the street, and into the pickup zone where the power line brought her to another abrupt stop. Nadia’s head spun, her eyes rolling around in their sockets. “Ooh-hoo-hoooo,” she slurred, trying to slap some sense into herself. “Hunka junk…stop when I let off the ‘go’ button, would ya…?”

“Get me to Haymaker Park!” a voice announced suddenly, the surprise helping jolt Nadia from her stun state. When she spun her head around she found someone sitting in the back of her taxi, probably the person who’s zone she’d crashed into.

“But there’s a park right there…” Nadia informed the man, pointing over at the cherry blossom grove she’d partially demolished. When her passenger didn’t respond, her gaze shifted to the numbers above his head, also counting down, then at the yellow arrow above the taxi itself that seemingly pointed her where she needed to go. It looked like her first trip had already begun. “Uhh, you got it champ. Just hold tight!” The feral pressurized and then released two blasts of blood from her arms, just enough to push her cab backward, and just like that she could veer to the left and get moving. Every couple seconds, she looked straight up to check the arrow so she knew where to go.

After a premature right turn at the end of the street that resulted in a destroyed fire hydrant and sky-high water spout, Nadia shook the water from her hair and pushed eastward through a straightaway that included the extra-large parking lot of the Squared Circle Outlets. While she needed to weave around some slow-moving vehicles, the feral quickly found that she could just bounce off obstacles like billiard balls, using each impact to get her back on track. Her passenger started complaining, but Nadia barely heard him. She left the parking lot looking like a junkyard and headed around the Backspin Courts apartment complex, if by ‘around’ one meant ‘straight through’, since she turned the place’s tennis court into her personal shortcut. “Screw it, we ball!” A less ingenious driver might have opted to go through the parking lot, but Nadia went through the complex itself. After squeezing out from between the bleachers, she motored between the apartments, narrowly missing a dive into the central swimming pool. Of course, she clipped the edge of a building on the way out the other side, tearing out a chunk of bricks. “Whoops, left a resi-dent in that one!” When she emerged from the second passage, she found a vibrant green park in front of her, surrounded by a low wall. “That’s gotta be it!” Cranking the wheel, she slid to another stop against it, her heart still racing as she smiled ear to ear. “Whoo, I wheelie did it! And in record time!” She turned around in her seat aglow with triumph. “Here you are, mister-!”

There was nobody there.

“Huh!?” Nadia stood up, peering down into the footroom to see if he’d hidden himself -or gotten lodged- down there. Unfortunately she could find no sign of the man, and she realized that he must have flown the coop. “Come on, what a wimp! Un-cab-elievable!” She plopped back down on the upholstery, dejected, as the car continued to creep forward. Had she been too rough…? “I was just following the arrow.” Well, she couldn’t afford to overthink things now. As she saw with dismay when she looked at the timer on her dashboard, her clumsy joyride had cost her precious seconds with nothing to show for it, so she needed to pick up another passenger, and fast. Luckily she could see another pickup zone in the parking lot for the apartment complex, just down the street and to the right. This one appeared to be red, but the feral knew that beggars couldn’t be choosers. She propelled the taxi down the road, grinding along the wall the whole time, then veered into the red zone where she used a parked car to stop. “Hurry hurry hurry!” Nadia yelled at the dude as she hopped out to shove her taxi away from the obstruction. Once the NPC sprinted over and vaulted into the back seat, she dove back into the front. “Where to?”

Her passenger said something, but the cat burglar didn’t really hear it. Instead her eyes lay on the timer, having noted that she got a few seconds of extra time just for picking someone up. After a moment, the part of her brain responsible for evil deeds connected the dots, and a suitably mischievous smirk spread across her face. “Yeah, whatever,” she told her NPC. “I got a better idea.

By the time Nadia initiated her new strategy, Goldlewis had already hit his stride. Unlike many of his comrades, the veteran boasted plenty of experience navigating a vehicle through tricky city streets, and if he could handle a huge hummer just fine even a large taxi cab would be no problem. While he did enjoy driving his Mammoth around Midgar’s Sector 07, especially the occasional solitary nighttime cruise along its highways, Goldlewis always felt like a bull in a china shop, unable to unleash the beast. Now, with a disposable cityscape and no repercussions, he finally found catharsis in a taxi cab styled like an old Cadillac. Goldlewis sped through the streets with just one hand on the wheel, the other casually hanging over the car door. He commanded his vehicle like a cowboy would a horse, knowing when to speed up and when to slow down, calmly muscling aside other cars when necessary, and almost never broke stride except to pick up or drop off. For the most part he stuck with yellow trips, sometimes spending a couple seconds to pass up reds or greens to do so, since they seemed to be the best blend of risk, reward, and time. Though neither as quick or daring as the likes of Captain Falcon, nor as inclined to do stunts to boost earnings, his rock-solid performance paid dividends in terms of time and money alike.

Goldlewis covered a lot of ground, burning rubber from the Offsides to Brawl Street, from Brawl Street to ABS Tower, and from the Gazebogon to Southpaw Junction. While on the move he focused only on the road, but while waiting for customers to climb aboard he could take a quick look around, and marvel at Grapital City’s many sights. From the incredible Grapital Building, where a giant statue of a wrestler held the highest part of the building on her shoulders, to the ancient-looking bell tower of Old Abseil, this place constantly amused him. Naturally, the antics of his fellow Seekers stood out most of all. Some of his allies turned out to be absolute menaces behind the wheel, like the Koopas and Juri, though they menaced their passengers almost as much. Goldlewis managed to dodge Blazermate not once but twice, and at one point he caught a fleeting glimpse of Sectonia as he zoomed past her. Of course, right after that Captain Falcon zoomed by him. Man’s probably got this in the bag, the veteran reckoned. He saw Zenkichi doing rather well for himself and, judged by his enthusiastic whooping, having the time of his life in the process. Even if he wasn’t as vocal, Goldlewis had to agree: this was fun.

Nothing tickled his funny bone more, though, than what he saw after drifting to a safe stop in Jobber Flats. After spotted the distinctive triple halo of Sandalphon, he noticed the archangel herself as she came to a halt at a stop sign, where she proceeded to wait for an NPC driver to make a left in front of her. The sight left Goldlewis gobsmacked. “Are you…obeyin’ traffic laws!?” he hollered.

Hearing his voice, Sandalphon turned to look his way. “Of course,” she told him, her voice deadpan. Goldlewis could just barely see the timer on her dashboard that indicated just under twenty seconds left. The passenger in her back seat, an old woman, seemed to be sound asleep. “Proper observation of vehicular protocols is vital for the safe and efficient conduct of modern society.”

With neither the means nor the time to respond to that, Goldlewis could only stifle his chortles and drive away. “Bless ‘er heart.” From there he went west, driving around Old Abseil and then into Grapital Central. According to the arrow overhead, his current destination lay somewhere around Payback Square, if he had to guess. With his focus on the road and its obstacles, he didn’t notice the steadily growing roar of an engine -or the increasingly loud yowls- until a taxi cab flew off a stopped ramp track and sailed over the roadway, Nadia Fortune behind the wheel. Shocked and unable to look away from the airborne vehicle until it smashed with a deafening noise into the office building on the other side, where it got completely stuck. “What in tarnation!?” As glass shards rained down Goldlewis instinctively lifted his arm for protection, trying not to swerve into anything. He managed to salvage the situation without any major collisions, but a couple glancing blows left his passenger on the verge of quitting, so he needed to be careful. “Girl’s off her damn rocker,” Goldlewis grumbled, shooting one last look up at the crash site before he sped away.

After a moment, Nadia sauntered out of the hole in the office building and across the body of the car protruding from it. She seated herself on its rear bumper like the edge of a diving board, hundreds of feet above the ground. She exhaled slowly, delighted but battered and exhausted from her reckless journey through Grapital City. Ever since she enacted her strategy of picking up and then squandering passengers as fast as possible to game the system for all the bonus time it was worth, she’d wreaked havoc all over the place. Her number one priority had been to seek out all her friends as they drove around and give each a love tap (or a ‘car-ress’, as she called it) with her vehicle. In short order she’d turned this round of Kooky Cabbies into an impromptu game of bumper cars whenever anyone ran into her, or her into them rather, which happened much more often. All good things must come to an end, though, and her strategy couldn’t ultimately beat the inexorable march of time. Better to go out on a high note, she reckoned.

As she sat surveying her territory, however, one of the competitors currently in Grapital Central piqued Nadia’s interest: a woman with short black hair styled in horns, wiry of build and foul of temper. Back in the minigame lobby the feral got a brief glimpse of this woman, but that hadn’t been the first time. Half-forgotten memories were resurfacing from her time spent in Carnival Town, all centered around a certain aggressive vagrant who always waltzed around town like she owned the place: Juri. “Well, well. Look who the cat dragged in~” Though technically a criminal herself, Nadia always stood up for the little guys, while this churlish martial artist preferred to beat them down, so naturally the two had come to blows. Neither definitively got one over on the other, however, and their rivalry came to an end when Nadia finally skipped town. Now that she’d returned, however, the feral had half a mind to pick her feud back up where the two left off. As Juri’s cab drew near, Nadia gathered herself up on her own cab’s bumper, and when the time was right the cat burglar pounced.

Nadia struck like a bolt from the blue, dropping directly onto Juri’s hood with her Mantreads. With her effective weight nearly tripled by her fusion with Massachusetts, the impact partially cratered the indestructible front of the car in the much more destructible roadway and launched Juri’s passenger straight from the rear seat to the pavement. “‘Scuse me for dropping in!” the catgirl announced, grinning mischievously. Despite her changes in form and fashion, she still looked enough like Nadia Fortune to jog Juri’s memory and reignite old flames. “Well if it isn’t my ol’ pal Juri! It’s been so long since we’ve scrapped, you’ve got me Han-kering for a rematch!”

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Lewa

It didn't take long for the otherworlders to completely exterminate slimes both small and large. The wide open area gave Lewa a good view of both hamlet and surrounding countryside, so when he saw that no enemies remained, he told the merchants and guardsmen of the caravan that he'd be right back and made for the beleaguered village. Gali or Kopaka might have remained cautious in a situation like this, taking time to assess the aftermath of the battle before relaxing, but the toa of air felt pretty confident that no stragglers had managed to slip through his allies' fingers. By the time he drew near, the villagers holed up in the town's center had begun to reemerge, at which point they found no trace of the slow but inexorable horde that had driven them into a panic--only the collateral damage to the terrain left behind by their inexplicable saviors. Fortune really had favored these people today, delivering them heroes that made those menacing monsters look like gnats in comparison. It was a good thing, Lewa reflected, that all these people brought to this world alongside him happened to be altruistic, and not at all the sort to take advantage of the clear power gap in play here.

Of course, now that he arrived, Lewa didn't really know what to do or say. He couldn't take credit for saving these people, so any attempt to follow up on the others' efforts now would be too little, too late. Plus, he couldn't be sure that his appearance would go over well with them in the first place. Gripped by despair at the brink of destruction, the inhabitants of Aventon had been desperate for any help, and they'd witnessed his heroism firsthand. If a big biomechanical warrior showed up out of the blue here, his reception might be a lot cooler. Then again, they seemingly had no qualms putting their safety into the hands of that huge tree monster, so who could say? And right now, nothing interested Lewa more than Maokai. Since his arrival in this world he'd been forced to accept the existence of purely organic people and animals, but plants were nothing new to him. Mata Nui featured plentiful plant life, and nowhere was the flora larger or lusher than Le-wahi, but in all his days Lewa had never seen a tree stand up or walk around, much less fight. If there was an upside to getting snatched away from his island home and leaving his people undefended, it had to be marvelous sights like this.

While the others spoke to and followed up with the townsfolk, Lewa remained at a distance in the vicinity of Maokai, fascinated and bent on further examining the twisted treant. If he and Gwen, as the blue-haired woman introduced herself, harbored some degree of familiarity with one another, he hoped that even if Maokai preferred to remain uncommunicative, the scissor-wielder could shed some light on who the strange pair were and what they happened to be doing here, other than coming to the aid of some helpless humans.