OwO

Expedition to Isekai

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The Inaba junkyard was always full of treasures. The bits of sharp dented metal and broken vehicles--things that could hurt a child--were far away from where Rin had been cordoned off. The Inaba family was always busy. Always something to do, always something to fix. They could only give Rin a watchful eye and whatever cleaned up junk a child would enjoy. The young Rin didn't mind, however. She didn't really feel frustration when her family couldn't play with her. Even as a youngling, her mind wandered away from emotions and towards the objects in front of her.

Still, she wanted to get over that barrier. She wanted to see what objects lay beyond the wall. Her body was too weak and stubby to climb or push it. The most she had was the objects in front of her. A circular thing, a length of rope, and a bunch more bits that she enjoyed playing with. Her mind immediately went to work. The weakness of her stubby little form had been overcome with instinctive mechanics. The wall had been torn down. Of course, her mother was watching the whole thing and immediately ran out to grab her before she could explore. Ever since that day, Rin was intoxicated by the power mechanics could bring.

...

Rin waking up was always a strange thing to watch. Where normal people would stew in their bed on the verge of consciousness, Rin would rocket to a sitting position with her mind functioning at 100% capacity. Unfortunately, for Sohei, his moment of gentle bonding was cut short. Her head glanced a strike against his and her body straightened until he was forced to drop her.

"Sorry it happened again," Rin said with an anxious look on her face. Not because she had impacted Sohei's head again, but because of her tools. She had her hammer, but not having anything else made her feel naked. Immediately, she ran back to the dead beast that had launched her sky high. She needed her tools.

Her bag was donezo, but that didn't mean she had no way of storing it. She had pockets and socks. If she needed to, she would tuck her pants into her socks and use her entire set of overalls as a new bag. Recollecting her tools were of the upmost important. It was a good thing she kept spares in her bag. Even if one was permanently lost, she might luck her way into its double.

...

Collecting what she could, she returned to the group with her mind calmed. She did her best to ignore the screams and sobs. She'd join up with the shelter-team. Building was always one of Rin's forte. Even if the concepts to her blueprints weren't sound, her techniques were. Her role was more leaning towards advisement. How to tie knots, how to put the structure together, etc. What she was really doing was sharpening sticks that seemed particularly strong.

She was making simple spears. Just in case.

Decibitus

Lucian

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~1444 | PARIS | FASHION SHOW VENUE

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Slipping on his own balls was mildly embarrassing. Well, it would have been if Lucian had been aware of what happened. From his point of view, his face was suddenly touching the floor. He wasn't the type to stare at his own feet, so how could he tell that he owned himself like that?

"C-curse you!" He yelled out as though the skeletal dragon had attacked him. He rose from his position, ready for his next move.

After all that, it was apparent that object permanence wasn't exactly one of Lucian's fortes. Apparently, neither was attacking the enemy. Lucian did what Lucian did best: stand there and look pretty.

Moral support was his big idea for helping in the fight.

He cheered and clapped on as his teammates fought the beast. He probably should have attacked or tracked down the monkeys. He did neither, of course.

Persona ~ Alone at Sea (PERSONA WITH A BOAT 𓊝)

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Unsurprisingly, Maive did not wake up when Verity let her fall nor did she wake when Imogen half-dragged her and submerged her in water. She only woke when Imogen nudged her; a holdover from having early-rising children nudging her awake. From Maive's perspective, she had summoned a persona, been flung into a tree, had a fuzzy conversation, then woke up in a bathroom. A normal person would take it all as a dream induced by some toilet-related disaster were it not for the sand and water.

The first words out of Maive were not of existential dread as Imogen would quip. Instead, it was of worry.

"Is everyone okay?"

She shot up from Imogen's side and glanced every which way. Just her and Imogen. It made sense that it would be that way. After all, having two people in a stall together was already a tight fit. Cooperative toiletry was not exactly an spacious experience for either party.

Like a bat out of hell (more accurately, a magic roach in a public restroom), she quickly sprinted out of the stall. Her worn-down and wet soles squeaked as she slid into a stop. Then, she turned and faced Imogen. Their eyes met and Maive's body bent into a fierce bow. Then she spun again and ran out of the washroom.

Of course, she didn't exactly think her next move through. Traumatic brain injuries did that to a person. It would be her first time storming a men's washroom. Thank goodness there was nobody there to watch, save for the group being put through the way-home-randomizer.

Or maybe it wasn't a good thing they were there, considering how Maive immediately ran into a sopping wet Swim McTrunks.

Sleepless Nights\\ Iron Cages

CLEANERS Honest Tough Love: Refuses to act unless ??? or ??? Yasu Cam Niid Emma	TARGET LIST Lion-headed Ringleader [BLINDED; NEUTERED] [2] Beast of Rage: Gain strength as wounded. Nemean: ??? Half-Man Sized Car [EXPLODED] Clown Car: If possible, creates another clown. Elephant-headed Unicyclist [POPPED] Elephant-headed Trapeze [VERY MUCH FUCKED] [1?] Clown with Accordion Arms Clown with Oversized Axe Clown with Undersized Mallet Clown Covered in Party Poppers Clown of Normal Human Size
Special characters have special qualities that may be hidden until they become apparent. Undetected characters can freely act until detected, but can only take one action that would reveal them.	Elite entities require multiple actions to fell and have special (possibly unknown) characteristics. Greater entities may require multiple actions to fell. Lesser entities can be slain by a single action. Destroyed entities are usually out of the fight [state] denotes their current state and [#] denotes how many actions they can perform each round. > {Name} denotes who the enemy is currently focusing on.

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Yasu's blade met the whip as she charged forward. Each Yasu felt the full strength of what they had faced. Their shoulders screamed out in agony, desperate to pop out of their sockets. The vibration melted their hands, even if it was just sensory. The air pressure cut into their faces, small rivers of blood forming and clotting in an instant.

But Yasu won. The whip was cut before Yasu was torn asunder. The beast could only respond with its anger, its muscles continuing to bulge larger with rage.

They all had an opening.

Niid, on the other hand, was less fortunate. What had been cut remained in motion. Disconnected from its handle, a portion of the whip quickly spun its way over to him to strike him in the skull. If it struck his skull, there would have likely been a fracture. Fortune favoured metal more than bone, however. While his brain rattled around in its cage, the remains of the whip only wrapped around his head and pulled him to the ground. He'd live, even if his pride was continually wounded.

The snake-like clone that Emma birthed from the cyclist's own shadow was enough. No matter how fast one could be, one couldn't outrun their own shadow. Well, one could provided they were sufficiently airborne, but a single metre was not enough. The unicyclist was dragged back towards the ground, its wheel millimetres away from grinding Emma's face to the bone. The shadow constricted the cyclist. It tightened and tightened. Did the supernatural feel pain? Its writing certainly made it seem so. Its joints popped. Its bones cracked. Its head rattled and shook until finally...

Like a grape.

Cam's kick put a firm dent into the door. Another clown appeared within and pushed against the dented door. It wouldn't open. Her plan to block the door seemed to work. A second clown appeared and went for the opposite side. The door that Cam was eagerly awaiting at was, by some miracle, locked. The car spawned another clown. No luck opening the doors. Rapidly, the car became filled with malformed and underdeveloped clowns as it struggled to spew more at the beast who had killed its brood. Again and again, clowns of progressively worse development filled up the supernatural compartment until the car began to bulge, the metal--if it was even metal--weakening under the stress of so much pressure.

The windows gave way first. The glass pane was pushed out by a torrent of cream, confetti, and clown consistencies. The pressure inside was enough to destroy the hardened entity from the inside. While the frame was undamaged save for the Cam's dents, the synchronized detachment of each wheel signified its demise.

There would be no more funny business on this day.

Of course, with her focused on the car, Cam failed to notice what remained of the trapeze. With surprising agility, it leapt at the bestial woman from behind and subsumed her upper body within its butterflied flesh. It tightened around her and...

Well, that's all it did. Unlike the unicyclist, it didn't have a heavy spinning wheel that could grind others with. It didn't have the strength of the ringleader. It certainly didn't have the comical weaponry of the clowns. It would seem that the trapeze's main purpose was to pick someone up, throw them around, and be a general nuisance from the ceiling. Fortunately for the cleaners, they had dealt with it before it had come up.

Cam only had to deal with the death rattle of a sad performer who hadn't had a chance to shine.

Sleepless Nights\\ Iron Cages

Alright, finally making an update.

This week _should_ be the last combat post and we're back to ordinary narratives. The trapeze is pretty much dead, so Cam can just straight up kill it. Besides that, just the Ringleader needs to be dealt with.

Sleepless Nights\\ Iron Cages

I'm going to delay my posting for a week, mostly because I am in the fuckzone with an essay right now.

Sleepless Nights\\ Iron Cages

How many coins do we have per clash?

@ERode

fourteen on each side

Sleepless Nights\\ Iron Cages

Alright, update post.

Combat will probably be finished up in the next 1-2 weeks. On defending: you can either take a chance and respond with an attack which may or may not win the clash, use an action to dodge/block, or just eat it. I'm not going to really police damage unless it goes against something outright stated. If it's not enough, it'll balance out at some point. These are still just vague guidelines of how I'll respond to things.

Sleepless Nights\\ Iron Cages

CLEANERS Honest Tough Love: Refuses to act unless ??? or ??? Yasu Cam Niid Emma	TARGET LIST Lion-headed Ringleader [BLINDED; NEUTERED] [2] Beast of Rage: Gain strength as wounded. Nemean: ??? Half-Man Sized Car [UPTURNED; DENTED] [1] Clown Car: If possible, creates another clown. Elephant-headed Unicyclist [DISMEMBERED] [1] Elephant-headed Trapeze [VERY MUCH FUCKED] [1?] Clown with Accordion Arms Clown with Oversized Axe Clown with Undersized Mallet Clown Covered in Party Poppers Clown of Normal Human Size
Special characters have special qualities that may be hidden until they become apparent. Undetected characters can freely act until detected, but can only take one action that would reveal them.	Elite entities require multiple actions to fell and have special (possibly unknown) characteristics. Greater entities may require multiple actions to fell. Lesser entities can be slain by a single action. Destroyed entities are usually out of the fight [state] denotes their current state and [#] denotes how many actions they can perform each round. > {Name} denotes who the enemy is currently focusing on.

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The shadow that Emma had called leapt and chomped down on the unicyclist. While it had not been as loud as Emma had hoped, the sound of flesh tearing and bones crunching filled the stage. What Emma had discovered, however, was how much mobility a single wheel gave. Alongside the noises of flesh came the screech of a flesh-tire and the smell of burning flesh. While the maw closed, the unicyclist had reversed course and leapt. The maw had only caught part of its torso; its arm and a good portion of its chest had been taken. If the stage was shrouded in darkness, then her creature would likely have been fast enough to snag the unicyclist in its entirety.

The unicyclist would not stop and lick its wounds. Its flesh splattered and sputtered as the wheel spun faster. It skirted around the shadow beast. What remained of the unicyclist's body painted the stage with flesh and blood as it made an impossibly agile corner. It was attempting to run down Emma.

Yasu's blade further cut the trapeze. While it had not been finished, its body became unrecognizable. Its familiar form had been gashed and bashed into a blob-ish bloom of cut flesh and spurting blood. Awakening from the pain, it crawled towards the only target it could see with its blade-mangled face pressed against the stage floor: Cam.

The bestial shifter had been dealing with the clowns. In her brief moment of respite, she found enough time to attack the car. The car's undercarriage rattled as Cam struck it. Metal--if it could be called that--became dented and connections came apart. However, it was not enough to destroy the vehicle. After all, she was still only one person. What chance did a single person have at destroying a car by hand?

The clowns, it would seem, arrived as easily as they left. The doors of the car opened once again. A clown quickly crawled out, its body noticeably larger than the previous ones. Immediately after standing, it leapt at Cam in an attempt at delivering a flying punch directly to her dome.

Niid and Yasu's tag-team attack worked well. Niid's shots bore holes in the ringleader's visage. While they did not penetrate beyond its skull, a twin pair of flowery blooms replaced one eye and dripped foul blood above the other. The shots were enough to get the ringleader to one arm in front of its head and change its attempts at stopping Yasu to desperate blind swings. Her blade cut through the groin of the ringleader. Not the deepest cut, but enough of a cut to wound the beast. It roared in response; perhaps one was expecting it to purr instead.

What Niid learned from leaping at the ringleader, however, was that lopping a limb off was considerably more difficult than a makeshift neutering. If his blade had been wreathed in chains or had been a refined blade, then he could have made it. However, a machete made to hew would only become stuck within the dense flesh of a lion-man. Niid could only dangle awkwardly as the blinded ringleader's muscles seemed to thicken with each wound.

Niid's hang-time was cut short as the ringleader responded with a powerful shoulder check. The close distance meant that Niid was thrown--not struck--towards Yasu. Nothing would be damaged, save his ego.

Of course, that was only if the ringleader stopped there. It didn't. The ringleader pulled back its whip-holding arm.

Visions of death. Niid and Yasu both understood that, if they did not move, they would be bisected where they stood.

And the ringleader's arm, bulging and ripping with power, swung the whip at the two.

Sleepless Nights\\ Iron Cages

Woo posts, will toss something up tomorrow (probably just Cam squaring up with the car man thing horror).

@Abstract Proxy

Alrighty. I'll update right after you do.