Bless This Mess - Junior, Rika, Juri, Edelgard, Pit, Roxas, Witch
Word Count: 2918 (+3)
Having been fairly quick to get to the head of the queue, by virtue of feeling no shame in making a run for it, the Koopa Kids got to make their choice of table. They picked an empty one, foolishly thinking that they’d get to keep it, but that would not last.
A plate full of sausage and eggs was set down and quickly stuck into by jr, while the lone pogofruit that had been forcibly added to the plate was sternly ignored. His second plate was meanwhile full of fruit, which was for his motley crew of minions. In a great contrast to her brother Rika had gotten an omelet with every weird vegetable in it, alongside having prompted the creation of, and then received the first portion of, a wonderfully odd fruit salad, both of which she began taste testing to see what all the new foods were like.
Thanks to the boon of poultry that the kitchen had at the moment, Pit was about to enjoy the amazing combination of fried chicken and waffles. Doused in sweet maple syrup, with a few of the chicken sausages and a veggie omelet on the side, he had a full breakfast awaiting him to dig in. And an apple juice to go with it. Despite often saying he was not a kid even if his appearance was youthful, Pit did usually seem to gravitate toward the younger Seekers. Like in mind, perhaps. So it didn't come as a surprise that he ended up at the third table. His wings were drawn up close to his back so that he didn't take up much more space than usual, and he didn't waste any time before starting to eat.
After privately seeking counsel with Lady Palutena, he felt a little better about the whole BB situation. He had to wonder how Junior felt about it though. Was he really fine with it besides just the fact he thought the babies were being lazy?
And they really let babies drive go-karts? Babies and Link get to race and I still can't get an invite? Before he could think to ask, a noise cut through even the din of the mess hall.
A loud screech announced the Witch as she noisily dragged an extra chair up from Sandalphon’s table to the kids’, completely ignoring the seats already in place. She’d brought with her a portion of fish—specifically, an entire eight inch long dead fish, which lay flat on its plate alongside a mound of spinach and stared out at the world with cold, empty eyes.
Shortly after, Edelgard arrived with a picture-perfect breakfast consisting of assorted fruits, nuts, smoked meats, and a pair of eggs over easy. She sat and, the picture of noble grace, began to cut into and eat tiny, easily-consumed portions of each food, savoring the breadth of choices the Avenger had to offer. The morning's briefing lay heavy on her thoughts, especially the idea that any one of them being grabbed by these invisible foes would spell the entire group's immediate demise. She’d take Rhea again over that horror. As she took her seat, Pit shot her a smile. They'd missed her (and Edward and Midna) back at Palutena's Temple as the goddess and her army commended the commanders; he'd have to fill her in sometime.
Humming happily to herself, the Witch sliced the fish open lengthwise and began to pick out the bones. Her gaze eventually found Junior, however, whom she regarded with not a little curiosity.
“Now what kind of thing are you? I didn’t think dragons were actually real.”Oh, one of the new people? The angel had seen a few new faces at the meeting, but he hadn't given any of them more than a passing glance at the time. Inching away slightly from the woman's wide, dead-eyed fish plate, Pit left explaining what a Koopa was to the actual Koopa and instead let the Witch in on a universal truth.
"Everything's kinda real," he said casually,
"even if it's in a different world from yours. Cool, right?"”No.” Juri answered bluntly, on the Witch’s behalf.
”At least not when it’s the eleventy billionth time we’ve had the conversation.” For Juri it was more like three, counting this time. But they were on the Avenger, for crying out loud, who wasn’t with the program already?
Juri didn’t seem to have any mind for breakfast at the moment, instead she dropped her tommy gun on the table, and then leaned over it at Junior.
”I wanna see if you really are some kinda genius turtle, or just a regular dumb kid. You said you can make my gun shoot flaming bullets?” Juri asked.
”You’re not gonna eat?” Came the voice of Roxas sitting down more or less next to Pit, but his question was directed at the spider lady.
”I would if I were you. There’s no telling when we’ll get to eat next once the mission starts.” He sat his own breakfast onto the table, a plate containing a stack of three pancakes drizzled with syrup and topped with minced cuberries and a glass of pogofruit juice to drink. He’d gotten here a little later than some of the others mostly because of his three Pokemon nearby who were digging into their own meal consisting of nutritious Pokemon food. Clearly the Nobody was making sure he got them their food before he secured his own.
Jr, who had somehow been taught to not speak with his mouth full, but not to not shove his mouth full of food, had taken a while to clear up his tongue so it could be used to reply to the questions.
”I’m a Koopa, not a dragon, which is way better!” he first insisted, before reaching for his chest and tossing out a trio of pokeballs while explaining that
”and Mimi, Dazzle and Peeka are all part ghost” as he did so. The mon then promptly grabbed fruit he offered them and hurried off to join the others, Rika added that
”and I’m part ship” The ship girl also had a mind to ask Juri
”How can you just, like, not try out this neat food? It’s all real weird” which in her mind was very much a compliment.
Juri made a defensive hand gesture at Rika and Roxas.
”You wanna get the hell off my back? I eat when I want. Right now I wanna see if dragon boy can really make my gun better.””Sheesh. Excuse me for living.” Roxas muttered. It was just a suggestion, not worth getting his head bitten off for it.
Pit suppressed a snicker, then leaned over to quietly tell Roxas,
"Juri just pretends to be a sourpuss." He really didn't know the woman too well, but since she'd played minigames with them and seemed to actually want to be part of the group despite the attitude, he figured that she just wanted to make sure people knew she was tough. Then again, he hadn't been on the receiving end of said attitude yet, so his opinion could still change.
”Also yeah I can for sure do that! Easy!” Jr then replied to Juri as well as he grabbed the gun, and set about doing some on-the-table tinkering, snapping open a toolbox to do so. The modification was, as it turned out, pretty simple, as the prince removed the gun's magazine, and then into the slot below the chamber carefully inserted a hair from his magical paintbrush which would coat the tips of the rounds being pulled past it with burning ink as they were pulled past it.
”Probably won’t work while we’re in that magic suppression field, but after, you’ll be burning things up!” he informed her, a little annoyed that his work wasn’t going to be useful right away, before having an idea and asking
”Hey, do you want an even bigger gun for that bit? Got this crank operated thing that’s thiiiis big if you want it” as he spread his arms to denote the length of the Maulcher rotary gatling gun that he had strapped to his clown car at the moment.
Juri tilted her head, looking at her gun. Grabbing it by the back end she looked right down the barrel, taking in the now almost imperceptible adjustment made to it.
”That’s it?” She wasn’t sure what she expected.
”I coulda done that. I thought you were gonna hit it with a hammer or something.” ”On the contrary, Edelgard interjected.
”What may seem simple to those without the gift of magic or artifice is often the result of years of study to simplify an incredibly complex process.” A bit put-off that the many months she'd spent learning magic, and the years after refining that process, could be so thoughtlessly deemed ‘too simple’ was simply galling to the empress. She did her best to keep the derision she felt for Juri out of her voice, but such a monumental task was impossible even for somebody of Edelgard’s willpower. Juri was just
that annoying.
Juri then reached her hand into Rika’s fruit salad, scooped up a bunch of it, and shoved it into her mouth. Dusting her hands off she looked at Roxas and Rika as if to say: ‘Happy?’ Then she kneeled one knee on the seat next to Junior, not quite sitting down.
”Nah. That’d just slow me down. We gotta be quiet if we wanna protect our creepy fetus machines from the antimatter ghosts.” Juri said. She glanced around, slung her gun over her shoulder, and promptly stood back up and buzzed off to the breakfast line.
”Well that was rude.” Roxas muttered under his breath. She didn’t ask permission or anything. And who knows if she washed her hands or not. He probably should have confronted her or something, but also thought it wasn’t worth picking a fight over. So instead he slid his plate in Rika’s direction.
”You can have some off the top of my pancakes if you want.” Essentially offering to let her replace some of the fruit Juri took.
A well made offer, which prompted the lengthy spear with a set of cannons at its base that had just teleported into Rika’s hand to be dropped in favor of a fork with which she could spear the peace offering alongside an
”ooo thank you thank you” The Witch had been watching with eerie intensity while Junior disassembled the gun. She’d read up on killing machines like this on her telephone device, but to see its inner workings displayed so clearly before her…
“Ingenious,” she whispered. And then, louder:
“I’d like a big gun.” She met Junior’s eyes.
“If you have one to spare anyway…””Huh?” the prince replied, seemingly a little confused by the request, though not at all put off by the spooky gal’s eye contact it seemed. Instead he started by unintentionally insulting her
”The Multcher’s probably too heavy for you” before asking the question that had caused his confusion
”Wait, who are you again?” His sister meanwhile was entirely chipper again thanks to pancakes, and so said
”Oh are you new? Hi, I’m Rika!” before offering actual useful information by telling the Witch that
”The Avenger’s got an armory with all sorts of stuff in it. Probably got a couple of cannons in there. I think there was this energy blasting pistol? Oh and a shotgun that fired snakes.” “I only showed up yesterday. I’m still adjusting to this place.” It was as much an excuse as an explanation, a way of playing off her behavior and curiosity.
“As for who I am… Most people just call me Witch.” If her experiences so far were any indication, they’d probably start coming up with awful pet names for her right about now, and she could do little but grin and bear it.
It wasn’t all bad news, though.
“A gun that fires serpents, you say? That sounds nearly too perfect to be true.” She leaned in closer to Rika, trying her best not to smile too creepily for once.
“Would you help me find it before we go?"Snakes? Why wouldn't you want one that shoots lasers or something? It would be way stronger," Pit chimed in as he polished off the last of his waffle.
“What a bold chicken you are! But no, I think I’ll stick with the snakes.” A laser-light could burn you once, but an angered serpent would strike time and time again, with noxious venom in its fangs. The Witch knew well which of the two she feared more.
"Wha- how come he gets to be a dragon but I'm a chicken?" came the complaint, along with a bark of a laugh from the (not) dragon in question.
Rika meanwhile just nodded, confirming that
”Mmm. Or. at leasts that it looked like it did? The monster it came from was really weird and just, full of snakes” Rika confirmed, smiling back with the social graces of someone who’d only learned she could do so a few weeks ago, which in this case meant very enthusiastically.
”and yeah, we can do that. We were probably gonna swing by after crushing a pair of spirits, coz I don’t think a weird sausage man and a really really really big crab are gonna make stuff we can really use. Maybe. Probably” she informed the Witch, before recalling how manners worked and adding
”Oh, and my name’s Rika. I picked it myself” to introduce herself.
With his pancakes gone now, Roxas just focused on his orange juice instead. He listened to some of the conversation about guns shooting different things but most importantly getting a proper introduction from Witch.
”I’m Roxas.” He said after swallowing down a big gulp of orange juice.
”I think I’ve been around for about… two weeks? Give or take a day or two?” After this he felt some nudging against his shin and looked down to find Scamp looking like he was trying to climb up.
”What? You want to meet everyone too or are you just looking for a chance to sneak a bite?” Roxas teased, but picked up the Yamper anyway and sat him on his lap before adding,
”Alright, alright, but I’m watching you, buddy.””Sorry about that, he’s Scamp, my Pokemon partner. He doesn’t bite but he likes to get up to mischief if I don’t keep an eye on him.”Seeing that now seemed to be the time for introductions, Edelgard joined the round.
”I am Edelgard von Hresvelg. This is all…very different to me, I must admit. Before…whatever happened, I was an emperor. Now I am without a home, and all I know is that this Galeem creature is responsible.” Edelgard had stopped eating, setting her silverware down and crossing her hands atop one another as she spoke, her tone even and somber.
”Yeah?” Jr replied, misinterpreting this as an attempt as boast before laying out the smorgasbord of royals the seekers had among them
”Well our Papa’s the Koopa King, Sectonia a queen, Ganodorf’s the ‘King of Evil’” the prince paused his pointing to put air quotes around the gerudo's name
” and Midna over there’s a princess. But like one of those ruling princesses like Peach or Zelda, you know? Also she hates Ganondorf’s guts or something I dunno.” Names, names, names. People put too much value in their names, and the Witch found it hard to really care. She preferred the dead, who didn’t talk so much and mostly didn’t care about what they were called. Maybe she’d get lucky and all these people would die in the upcoming mission, leaving her free to raise them all up as obedient and convenient servants.
Her expression remained eerily blank, but she did at least respond to them all with a small nod.
“What a delight,” she said, without emotion no inflection,
“it is to meet you all.”She’d better hurry and prove herself indispensable before they all got better acquainted with her.
”And to meet you too!” Rika replied cherrily, not at all picking up on the meaning behind this lack of emotion, before asking
”Do you wanna head out now to get that gun? I’m basically done,” almost guaranteeing they were about to get at least a bit better acquainted.
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