radio414

Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool

Before the skeleton’s sword could strike Chris’ flesh, he pulled back on his string and returned to the entryway to the room. Things were moving a bit quicker now, so Chris took a moment to reevaluate where things were. “Where things were,” it turned out, was on the left wall. Ziun and Lana had dealt with the skeleton over there and one of the coffin lids opened up, revealing some new type of undead monster inside. It was not something Chris recognized, though, if he thought about it, he really shouldn’t expect to recognize any sort of undead creature. That wasn’t his, or anyone he associated with’s, line of work. He saw Lana cut a gash into the creature and how ineffective that was. Maybe if a blow went all the way through it would work? He didn’t exactly want to tell Lana to just do it again but better this time, though. Chris unwound the magic string again. It felt like he needed to be in two places at once, and this was the best way to do it. The skeletons were only going to get closer while everyone wasn’t looking. He took one or two steps back before breaking into a run towards that corner. When he reached the coffin, he leaped up onto the edge and used that to propel himself higher He still had his sword in his dominant hand, and as he jumped he held it high above his head before bringing the blade, his body, and his entire weight down on the wrapped thing’s raised arm, right in the shoulder. He teleported away before he had to experience the consequences of such a reckless leap, though he still had to brace as he hit the ground back where they started again, eventually falling to his knees. Still, he was quick to pick himself back up. “Try hitting that with magic!” he called back to them. “That or, uh, I dunno, aim for a joint? Or where a joint should be, anyway?” He turned his attention back to the skeletons coming his way and readied his sword.

Abyss Angel “Where’s DEUS?” someone asked. “Short North,” was the answer. “But he was headed north from there, so if he takes the right turns from there, maybe?” Clotho was in charge of the front lines facing off against Project Rubicon. She had an earpiece on, and if one was really paying attention, they’d notice a few more capes going around with similar paraphernalia. She broke off from mumbling into it when she saw Sibyl arrive, though. “Did you win?” she said, in the sort of tone that made it clear there hadn’t really been any doubt. “You’ll have to tell me all about it. Later, obviously. Right now, well…” Her tone made the conclusion of that sentence obvious too. “We’ve got two things to worry about: Figuring out what’ll actually shut that thing down… or kill it? I guess figuring out which of those verbs is the right one is step one of that. The second is keeping it from being able to focus on the main bulk of Scarlet City. That’s what all the fliers are for.” She gestured upwards. Flying around Project Rubicon’s face were all sorts of airborne capes, some winged, some with tinker tech, some with some other power. They were like tiny mosquitos to Project Rubicon, though. Every so often, the behemoth raised its arm to cut a swath through the swarm, and they all scattered, but they came back just as determined. One of them streaked right across its eyeline, and it turned its whole body to try and follow. Project Rubicon took a step. It was away from the main hub of Scarlet City, though that flier still had to get completely out of the thing’s sight. A voice blasted over her earpiece so loud that it was audible to everyone in the vicinity. “Maybe we could lead it to where DEUS is?” Clotho winced. “Levels, watch it,” she said as she tapped her headset. “We’ll call that Plan B.” She returned her attention to Sibyl and produced some Tinker tech that Sibyl would hopefully recognize. It was two of the items she had pilfered from Dee Moxley’s warehouse a week ago, the toy-looking ray gun one of them had wielded, and what looked like a puzzle box with a bright red button on top of it encased in a safety glass dome. “Catch,” Clotho said, though she only held the items out for Sibyl to take. “Maybe we’ll try these too, whatever they are. Can’t hurt.” Project Rubicon took another step. Clotho turned to watch this one, and one could practically see the gears turning in her head. “Oh that’s a thought,” she said. She turned back. “Hey, gotta run and find a Tinker or a Thinker or… something, but yeah, we’re in ‘throwing stuff at the wall’ mode right now. If something does work, make sure to let someone know, yeah?” And she went off. But Sibyl was not alone for long. In Clotho’s place, drifting down from above, was Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia looked like she had just fallen across the sky about as fast as her power could manage, though her clothes still somehow looked no worse for it. She gave Sibyl a light smile and tapped her cheek like she meant to say, “You sounded like you really want to punch that thing in the face. Need a lift?” The Killer Battle Labs was a pretty unassuming building just looking at it from the outside. It was of the brutalist school of architecture -- an all-concrete exterior that had been painted white to give the faintest impression of an aesthetic beyond that. It was mathematically interesting in that the part of the building that was above ground was a perfect cube, but only the sort of nerd who eventually wanted to work there cared about any of that. Many of the windows on the ground floor were broken, but it was safe to assume that, on a normal day, they were perfectly intact. Roy was in the middle of his second lap around the makeshift perimeter surrounding Battle Labs when the capes arrived. “Lavender… Ochre…” He kept mumbling even more colors to himself as Sarah and Lachesis trailed behind. Lachesis had altered her gait into an exaggerated lockstep, arms swinging wildly back and forth. She was just careful enough to not whack Roy in the back of the head but was more careful not to distract Sarah, who was taking notes on Roy’s musings on a legal pad. They passed by the original strike team, who had pulled themselves back out to the perimeter and were in the process of licking their wounds -- metaphorically in most cases and literally in one. It was Lachesis who noticed the two heroes first, somehow, despite her blindfold. “Heyyyyy,” she called out, making sure to pronounce each and every one of those ys as one of her arm swings turned into a lazy wave. “World’s ending and Captain Rainbow over here thinks we have time to go cross-checking every entry point. Atropos is by the main entrance back that way, if you care, which, you know, apparently we don’t.” Roy stopped and sighed. “We’re not going in the main entrance. I don’t care if you mistrust my power or not, that’s also how they -- the original strike team -- went in, and look where that got us. Azure.” He made sure Sarah made a note of the new color and kept walking. Lachesis put her hands up, and her tone and posture immediately changed. “Hey, I’m not doubting anything. We’re both Thinkers. I get it. Rubicon’s first beam hit near the old fairgrounds and went north-north-east, right? I know you don’t think I- my sisters and I can be altruistic, but at least believe my selfish desire to protect our territory, huh? And we’re not just that strike team anymore. We’ve got an actual force now, and we know where we’re going.” “A larger set of capes is all the more reason to have a plan in place,” Roy said. “Especially with you two here. That’s two extra sets of orders when we need continuity of motion.” He took a few more steps and grimaced. “Gamboge. No, Amaranth.” Roy still wasn’t looking at Lachesis, so she stuck her tongue out at him before turning her attention back to the new arrivals. “No hard feelings about me being right about where Caesar was, right Override? That Tinker guy built a cool trinket, we were just looking at two different things. But I know you were hanging out with that guy, I’d understand if you were upset on his behalf or whatever.” Lachesis turned around and started heading the opposite way to Roy and Sarah. “There’s a side door back around this way,” she said. “There is kind of a plan. We’ve arranged a couple of waves, one after the other. That way if someone needs to fall back again, they can do so with confidence that someone is right behind them to take their spot. And if someone –” she looked over her shoulder at the heroes again, a clear knowing look on her face even through the blindfold “-- cuts a swath through whatever Gibbons are down there for us, well, we’ll all be that much closer to apprehending Caesar down there. Not that you need me telling you what to do, right?” She smirked. “Wait!” Minos’ voice rang out running after the three as she tried to catch up with everyone. “I’m coming too!” she said. “Sorry I’m late, had to make sure A.V.D. was okay and talk to Ophiuchus a bit, but I’m here now. I know Override’s got those floor plans like he had for the casino, but I can help too. Hey, were you just standing around? Let’s go!”

some of them! some of them are girls too! andy

feng

idk, idk what fate is stanley

yeah i play a gatcha game too what of it yes it's also a fighting game but i'm bad at it

Brian was in the middle of peeling off the pickles on his second burger, considering between throwing them in the sink or yanking open the door and throwing them onto the open road, when Carmen asked her question. Was whatever was in that building a ghost or a demon? It wasn’t any sort of ghost that Brian had heard of, so the answer was obviously the latter. Besides, it sure seemed like the whole building had been possessed, which sure seemed like something a demon would do. Once he was satisfied his burger was pickle-free, he opened his mouth to respond and set the record- “If it were a demon, you would have had a much harder time.” …and thankfully he was in a position to eat some of his burger instead of his words. “That’s what I was going to say,” Brian said in between mouthfuls. Thankfully, Shiki kept talking before anyone had time to interrogate that. Not that the follow-up question was any better, though. What the fuck was a “Relationship Value?” “What the fuck is a Relationship Value?” Brian said, still chewing. His focus shifted between Shiki and Carmen, trying to determine any further clues as to what was going on. “Like, have I gotten to know Carmen better? Shiki, until like ten minutes ago, I was dealing with a fake Carmen, and she with, well, I don’t know if Carmen was dealing with a fake me or not, but I assume she was. You think I know Carmen any better because I had to wrestle a demon version of her to the ground tonight?” He sized the real Carmen up. “It was even weaker than you are,” he said. Having said that, and looking at Carmen more closely. If she had been stuck in that room with a demon or whatever it was, she did manage to get out of it all by herself. She’d even managed to get out at about the same time Brian had, like, yeah, he’d spent a lot of time going through some really stupid potential solutions that went nowhere, but he hadn’t taken that long, had he? And like he’d told the fake Carmen, hell, like he'd told Shiki late last night, she’d been almost okay when they were dealing with the school. Two times in a row reduced the chances of a fluke significantly. It was some measure of respect. Some. It still had to be couched in, you know, the rest of her whole deal, though, and he wasn't about to admit anything out loud anyway. “I don’t know,” Brian said. “I don’t hate her, I guess. Somehow, despite watching whatever that was in that building dance around in her body.”

is touhou like fate

is blue archive like fate

Chris didn’t think about Estellise’s absence anymore once they all crossed the threshold and headed back down into the dungeon. He just didn’t. If it popped back up into his mind, he just ignored the thought until it went away. It wasn’t even his fault; her mother had sent her away. It was a totally unrelated set of circumstances. Nope, that was thinking about it again. Focus, instead, on the task at hand. Ziun had looked like he wanted to say more, but it wasn’t like he’d made the prediction Chris had desperately asked for, so maybe he didn’t and Chris was just being paranoid. Speaking of predictions, though, Chris was pretty sure he wouldn’t have guessed “more skeletons” if he had to make one of his own. But, then again, it made sense. Behind them was what should have been a stairwell and was just a solid wall instead. They were in the crypt from their last run. These skeletons were just an extension of the last ones they had fought. Right? Just because their weapons were different didn’t mean they didn’t match thematically? Maybe he was expecting too much continuity. Maybe he was desperately holding on to whatever he could grasp. Ziun had certainly changed in the meantime. It was only then that Chris realized that Ziun didn’t have a sword anymore. He wasn’t flailing about trying to get at whatever he could, he cast a set of spells that distracted the skeletons and coated one of them in acid. “Cool new tricks,” Chris said. He tried to say it without a hint of disparagement because he meant it. Right, time to focus now. They had a long crawl ahead of them, no need to think about anything else besides the present moment. Chris wondered if he could get the next door open like he had the last one, and a few of the other ones besides it. There were only six skeletons that he could see, and they were pretty spread out. If no more monsters showed up, he could see himself putting his trust in Lana and Ziun to keep him safe a bit longer. Of course, if this was the tomb from their last dungeon run, it would be another strong test for his lockpicks. There could also be, you know, a key lying around somewhere. Maybe it was in the coffins? Whatever the case turned out to be, There were two skeletons in the middle column between everyone and the door, and though they were both distracted by Ziun’s conjuration for the moment, they had to be dealt with before they could try any of this. Chris’ sword was already in his hand, but he unwound his string in the other to give himself a safer retreat once the distraction stopped working. He charged forward, picking out the closer one on his left. He slid low to the ground when he got close enough and hacked at the skeleton’s knees.

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