radio414

The moment the lights went out, Brian had the flashlight on and ready. He wasn’t about to get got again. He shined it on Carmen first, partially to demonstrate to her that they still had a light source, but also because he wanted to make sure she wasn’t cowering in fear at the first sign of adversity. If the ghost was going to be this aggressive just because they were going through and systematically eliminating all its potential hideaway spots, they needed to both be ready to fight back. Thankfully, she’d just been spooked, she wasn’t completely out of there just yet. But he noticed the flashlight was already running low on juice, or it was flickering like it was. “Typical,” he said. They’d just have to make do.

Now that he was thinking about it, though, it made sense that the flashlight would be affected by a ghost too. It was just as much a light source as the lights in the bathroom and just as shitty too. He took a seal and wrapped it around the flashlight. Whether it worked or was just a placebo, Brian couldn’t tell, but just in case, he left it on.

It meant waving around the light, though, and when it cast over the door to the final toilet stall, Brian saw a hand retreat back into the stall. Even with the light, he had to shift around and face directly into it to even get a hope of seeing what was in there.

This turned out to be a mistake, and the really stupid kind to boot. The ghost was in there -- because who else’s hand would just be floating around the stall? -- and the moment he got a clear look at it, it leaped forward, seized Brian’s shirt, and let out a wail that could rival any banshee. It was so shrill Brian nearly forgot to fight back as it pulled him back towards the toilet and he stumbled forward before he caught himself on the stall door.

“Carmen!” Brian called out, and thankfully she had at least some wherewithal, grabbing his arm and trying to pull him back, even if that wasn’t what he wanted. “No! Fuck! Give me a seal!”

He was still flailing a bit, so it was hard to actually get the seal in his hand, but they managed, and as soon as he had it he nearly flung it at the thing. As expected, the ghost retreated to avoid actually getting touched by the seal, but it didn’t disappear into the toilet this time. It was still there.

“Fuck’s sake,” Brian said, still catching his breath. “We’re gonna stick one of these things somewhere. What the fuck do you want, anyway?”

The only thing left to do before beginning their journey proper was for Quinn to actually send their letter, but it turned out the Pokémon Center had a mailbox within its premises, so that was hardly an issue at all. Pretty soon, the three were on their way out of New Point Landing and onto Route One-Oh-One. Quinn knew the weird shape routes could take, herself growing up in the shadow of Mount Coronet and intimately aware of just how easy it was to get lost there, so it was nice to see that the world had deemed they start with an easy one instead. Nathaniel took to it like a phantasm to a new linen sheet, going this way and that, taking in whatever new sight he could. Belladonna, meanwhile, muttered something that Quinn barely caught, and even then…

“Pardon me, Belladonna,” Quinn said from just behind the woman. “You said a word I do not think I recognize. What is a ‘normies?’”

Belladonna shook her head. “If you don’t know what that is, it means you’re a normie.”

It was an odd answer, to be sure, in a self-referential sort of way, but despite everyone telling him he was an old soul (even when they were alive), Quinn was still younger than Belladonna by a significant amount, so she assumed it was simply something people older than xem just suddenly knew at some point. It was that or a piece of knowledge stripped away from you when losing one’s mortality. Quinn knew it still had some of those gaps, so maybe?

Without Nathaniel having run off, Belladonna trudged forward wordlessly, and Quinn continued to follow behind. Cassiopeia, for her part, followed behind the two of them, forming a veritable conga line cutting a swath through the generally already-swathed route. But it was not long before e found emself bored of that, and, after an attempt or two at more exaggerated motions such as swinging her arms back and forth and kicking his legs out like a proper march, they began searching for any excuse to go elsewhere. Cassiopeia was nuzzling against hir back too. One more reason, then.

It was the sight of trainers on patrol that finally got Quinn going. “Oh! Yes! I called dibs! Cassiopeia, follow me!” Not that Cassiopeia needed to be told twice, of course, or even told at all as Quinn seized the balloon by her little string arms and the two went along side by side.

The battle itself, though, left something to be desired. While their opponent’s Pidgey certainly put up a valiant effort, her trainer realized too late that Gust was a flying-type move and was more likely to buffet Cassiopeia than some simple Tackles. Even besides Cassiopeia’s Ghost-type resilience to such efforts, the balloon had no trouble keeping the air around her Gusting and active to avoid a significant amount of damage that way as well. Victory was practically assured from the outset, to go into any further detail would be rude to the losers.

Something else, then. She had just purchased these Poké balls, should they not put a few to use? Before Quinn could even wander into some tall grass to see what it could find, a Rattata jumped out! But it was not the sort to engage in a battle as Quinn (and Cassiopeia, immediately throwing herself in between her trainer and the rat) might expect. The Rattata kept moving without a thought for itself or anything in its way. Suddenly, it was fortuitous that Cassiopeia was now in front of Quinn. If the Rattata was running away from something, both Quinn and Cassiopeia had to be ready.

Unlike the Rattata, neither of them felt any fear. What was the worst thing a predatory Pokémon could do to Quinn, kill him?

Even still, Quinn was not prepared for the pack of Rattata left unconscious further into the brush. Xe even let out a small “Oh!” as ze discovered the clearing with all sorts and sizes of Rattata strewn about. Quinn knelt down and poked one in the stomach. It was still breathing, so that was good. Cassiopeia drifted down and stroked another Rattata’s fur. It was good to see she was taking this as well as she could too. But still, “Who, dear creature,” Quinn asked, “or what, could have done this to all of you?”

Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”
-1 Corinthians 15:33 (NIV)

---

Okay, the answer of “connections” was one of the vaguest answers the Spike Brother could have given, but at least it made sense. If they, as Guardians, were famous, getting in contact with them was surely something to be sought after. For a delinquent organization such as the Spike Brothers, getting a hold of their numbers would understandably boil down to “knowing a guy who knows a guy who heard a thing.” Maybe she had to be a little more careful with handing her number out, though she was still unsure when someone might have overheard it in the first place.

Melissa’s preoccupation with this new information almost made her miss the final turns of Fen’s match, but the flashy ritual animation bringing Hungry Burger into play recaptured her attention. If Melissa were the cheering sort, she probably would have, but she settled for as good an applause as she could muster being just one person instead. The fact that Sparks was the decisive card wasn’t enough to dampen things (even as Melissa wondered how she was going to get Fen to cut the card from her deck now), Fen had won her first game! That was cause for celebration enough.

Of course, the continued existence of the Spike Brothers hindered all the celebrating at least a little bit. Spike Brother Seven proved to be just as much a sore loser as Spike Brother Eight was, and the two combined started calling on an unseen boss to enter the picture and really teach Melissa and Fen a lesson. Nobody, especially not Melissa, of course, was going to tell them that after falling from literally throwing a pipe at Sandalphon to challenging its host to a card game, they couldn’t really climb back up to a threatening presence again, but Melissa still braced herself to see what horrible person was waiting for them in their next confrontation.

When it turned out to be Fiona, the woman who they had met just yesterday and had, in fact, offered numbers in her presence, everything clicked into place. Well, not the “Fiona as the leader of the Spike Brothers” part, but she hand-waved that away, so Melissa didn’t question it. And as the explanations further rolled out, Melissa allowed herself some measure of pride. Some was the key word there. “Don’t sell yourself too short, Fen. You’re picking up the game much quicker than I did,” she said. “But yes, it’s not quite the game I remember, slightly different rules and a different name and everything, but it’s more than close enough.”

Fen asked why Fiona had been hiding behind the fountain and sending her lackeys instead of meeting and teaching them herself, to which Fiona’s answer was noncommittal. “Ahaha that’s, ya know it… doesn't really fit my… vibe,” she said.

“I understand completely,” Melissa said. “I probably would have done something similar if I were in your position.” Fiona was braver than Melissa, really. The fountain was such an easy place to be spotted. Melissa would have hidden herself in a bathroom stall and watched a live stream or something, and then refuse to come out until well after everyone had left. “Which is to say, I also accept your apology. Um,” She tried to think of what sort of thing she was supposed to say next, but all that came up was more about this Spike Brother thing. Maybe she hadn’t let it go after all. “So, the Spike Brothers. One of them threw a wrench at me the other day but were they just going to challenge me to Duel Monsters then too?”

The zombie didn’t seem to react much to Chris’ approach (or to anyone else behind him who might be less used to sneaking around) so when Chris got close enough, he went up and chopped its head off. It was surprisingly easy to do so. Distressingly easy, even. Chris immediately looked up and around to try and find what trap had been laid ahead of them.

He saw nothing, though, not through all this stupid fog. The only real difference was the large building up ahead was revealed to be a mausoleum, poking its way through the fog, and just up in front of it, he could see a figure marching around. He pointed his sword at it so the others could see his intent and moved in. It turned out to be a skeleton, and maybe it had been aware of Chris and the rest too, because it already had its sword raised and was ready to strike. 

Down came the sword, but Chris quickly pulled out a dagger with his right hand to block it, and he turned inwards so he could try and cut off the skeleton’s sword arm, an attempt that partially worked. He managed to cut most of the way through the joint, but only too late remembered that he’d needed Estellise’s enchantments to fully cut all the way. He tried to find her behind him to try and give her some silent, pleading eyes, but she was hard to make out amongst everything, and with an active enemy right in front of him, he couldn’t look too hard.

He did see more figures in the distance, though, up ahead and ahead to the right. “Don’t go too far,” he said, “but look out, there are more coming in. I’m, uh -” He returned his attention to the skeleton just in time to catch it lashing out with its other hand, its fingers sharpened into a claw, almost like it had an off-hand dagger of its own. He spun back out to avoid the thrust and returned to a neutral fighting stance. “I’m a little busy,” he finished saying. “But I can handle it. Come here, you. You know how many undead we had to fight just to get here?” He took aim at another joint -- one of the knees this time -- and swung in.

Thirds!

The offer to surrender was a weird one when Arcturus was pretty sure she was winning, or, at least, not losing. Override had managed to hit her, what, like twice? And one of those was a glancing blow at best while she was distracted between splinters flying everywhere and catching a glimpse of Aeon delivering the mother of all beatdowns to Vambrace. Could she have saved him? Maybe forced her way through the splinters and pull Aeon off of him? No, she wasn’t going to think like that. Not right now.

As for the question that was worth answering, “Let me tell you something about Caesar,” Arcturus said, pronouncing her gang leader’s name exactly how one might expect. “Everything he does has a singular goal behind it: the accumulation of power. Sometimes he accumulates power by making people wait an extra few hours for a meeting, sometimes he does it by declaring war on the whole city. It’s all the same to him.

“But here’s a big secret. I had to figure this out for myself; I don’t even think that Bitch down there knows. Hellhound, sorry. Inside joke. But Caesar: There’s no ulterior motive for what he does. It’s all power for power’s sake. That’s it. Call it what you want. You can call it sad, you can call it immature, but it’s the truth. What’s he want with the Archangel? Hallowed be her name? Fucked if I know. But if you want me to guess, it’s probably just holding someone like her increases his prestige.”

Arcturus started maneuvering around the sky again, letting off more balls of energy that hung lazily in the air as she did so. “Before you ask, I don’t mind,” she said. “If anything, I think knowing all this gives me a little power over him too.”

She turned to face Override once more. “All this to say, it’s nothing personal,” she said. “We’re all just trying to get by.” With that, she formed one final bean which she aimed square at Override’s chest.

---

“I’m sorry about Damian,” Censer whispered while she and Hellhound were in the middle of the smoke.

“He’s fine.” Hellhound was much louder, and there was no hint of worry in their voice. “I would know if he wasn’t fine. Can she hear us in this?”

“Probably. I was focused more on the visual and the physical than blocking out sound, though I could try to do more if I had more time.”

“You don’t have more time,” Hellhound said, now making it clear they didn’t care whether Sibyl could hear them or not. “If she’s smart enough, she’ll probably just squeeze her way in -- probably already is, actually -- so we make do with what we have.” They reached into their bag and pulled out a small device, just about the size of a tennis ball. Their voice lowered to a whisper as they described their plan. “So, she’s got the range advantage on us, so we close in, you use enough smoke to block but not enough to get in the way, and when you can, try and get some on her head so she can’t see or even get out of the cloud quickly. On my mark…”

Censer sounded worried. “Doesn’t that-”

“Yeah, this is going to hurt,” Hellhound said. “It is what we have, though. Mark!”

As they called out their signal, the ball let out a flash of light that pierced even through Censer’s black smoke and, with a “FWUMPH” sound, expelled both the smoke in the area and disrupted Sibyl’s surrounding limb. Hellhound winced but quickly recovered to charge Sibyl, and though Censer took a little longer, she fell in behind all the same.

---

Finally, Lailah was finally able to manifest one of her angels, a standard archangel wielding an equally standard longsword replacing one of her little orbs of light. The angel took a few swings at Lucky Cat as Lailah pulled herself back to her feet. Unfortunately, the angel was just as affected by Lucky Cat’s aura as everything else, and though luck was returning to normal, certain factors such as increased gravity still lingered, and the sword strokes were not as strong nor as precise as they could have. Lucky Cat dodged them with ease.

“You’re running out of time, you know,” Lucky Cat said. “We weren’t expecting you to have guests, let alone capes, but I’ve got some Legion on me all the same. If Caesar’s paying attention, he’ll already have sent more people to help. And if those don’t work, he’ll send some more. And some more.” Her aura changed again and suddenly she and Lailah had switched places, narrowly causing the angel’s sword to strike its mistress, though it managed to catch itself in time. “It’s purely a numbers game. If I were you, and I somehow managed to get away from all this, I’d get out of here as soon as possible. Run somewhere and hide and never peek your head out again. Sure, I guess that means the end of your religion and therefore the world or whatever, but it’s a small price to pay to -”

“No!” Lailah shouted. And with that burst of willpower, the angel disappeared and from her other orb of light came forth a six-winged being. It covered its eyes with two of its wings, its feet with two more, and only flew with the other two, hovering inches off the ground. “No,” Lailah said again, calmer this time. She was finally on her feet once again. “You will not have me.” Her new angel removed its wings covering its eyes, and from those eyes, it fired a beam of pure light that struck Lucky Cat square in the chest and sent her flying all the way to the back wall.

Now it was Lucky Cat’s turn to pull herself back up, but she did so with a smile on her face. “Ahh, now things get to be interesting, huh?”

---

OOC

 

Quinn had not been offended by Nathaniel’s assertion. If they had, it would have said something earlier. He was glad, then, that Nathaniel did not take it too seriously, even as Quinn added on a little rider at the end: “Do not forget, no matter how hungry you are, you are still alive. You can always be hungrier. Or thirstier. Or-” They were interrupted by Belladonna slumping over in her seat, still mumbling something about rainbow vomit. “- or sleepier.”

She took a bite of her granola bar, appreciating its bland, nutritive value. If asked, Quinn would probably say something like, “Ghosts subsist on the flavors that are not there. It is a meditative process. Spiritual fare, you understand,” even if, in reality, it was just an appreciation of food in general. What little flavor was there was still enough for zir. It also gave Quinn some time to contemplate Nathaniel’s question.

What sort of Pokémon did they hope to encounter? It was a difficult question, especially since the one Pokémon Quinn had ever gotten to know was floating right next to her, still attached to xir hand. Cassiopeia had been captured by someone else and later given to Quinn, of course. Though Quinn had purchased a set of Poké Balls at the store (and even been rewarded with an extra Premiere Ball for buying everyone’s at once), he had only read about Pokémon catching in books and the SS Rising Sun’s informative pamphlets. The Korova region seemed vast and unknowable to Quinn too. Even if she was a Pokémon Master, with a full Pokédex and a suite of badges to their name, Quinn still would not know what to look for in a Pokémon companion.

But that did not really answer Nathaniel’s question, now did it? Even if it was a non-binding and off-hand remark, they still had to make some sort of decision. Quinn swallowed the granola and said, “It all sounds very exciting. I will not be so naïve as to think that every Pokémon encounter we have is a friendly one, but I hope for such things all the same. I suppose I will accept any Pokémon that is willing to have a wayward soul for a trainer, and they can add to the bond I keep with Cassiopeia that keeps me on this mortal plane.”

With that said, with supplies secured and Nathaniel’s Pokémon brought to full health after a successful battle, there was little else left to do in New Point Landing besides disembark. Quinn stood up and gave Belladonna another good poke in the arm as Cassiopeia tried to pull the woman by the other arm up from her seated napping position. “Let us go, Belladonna. As they say, the early ghost haunts the most,” e said, ignoring both that nobody else said that at all and that it had been already well into the day by the time they had even arrived in town. “We can rest later. Perhaps once we are out of the city and into the wilds, into areas with little light pollution I can read the stars to you and tell you your fate. How does that sound?”

Brian groaned. “I don’t know if that pun needs to be better or worse,” he said. “It got a reaction out of me, though, so I guess that’s something.” Still, to complete the joke, he reached out and flushed the toilet. It worked fine, if a little weak. The sound also served to tune out the whimpering that was now coming from the toilet. “Quit your whining,” Brian told the ghost.

He looked up at Carmen. “I bet that means the thing is still around, though,” he said. “We probably have to seal up the other restroom too and then see what happens. Whenever you’re ready.”

As they both exited the men’s restroom, Brian took a moment to stretch, cracking both his knuckles and his neck. It was a dangerous job. Nobody was denying that. But Brian hadn’t expected to be wrestling with school ghosts in cramped restroom stalls, stalling for time (pun not intended) as the mother of all scaredy-cats had to run around taping seals up where the ghost wasn’t. At the very least, he thought, he should be doing something productive too. “Here’s an idea,” he said. “If we both have seals it should be easier to stick one on the ghost itself. You saw how distracted it got when you pulled yours out; it completely changed its focus to trying to stop you. What’s it gonna do if we both have one, huh?” He went to the box of seals and jammed some into his pocket just in case. “Either way, my turn to be the pervert,” he said. “Let’s get it over with.”

The girl’s restroom was about what he expected. Maybe once upon a time in his youth, Brian might have expected a land of sunshine and rainbows and happiness contrasted against the men’s drab and dreary mundanity but nah, he was pretty sure they were all the same except with more toilets instead of urinals and he sure was right this time. Carmen had even placed all the seals in the same spots he had put his, like there was a single uniform look for this school’s restrooms even while it was under maintenance for ghost haunting. The one unsealed toilet was the same too; it was the one in the corner.

Brian checked Carmen had the flashlight on and ready, braced himself, and went in.

Thankfully, just like the aesthetic and the seals, the encounter with the ghost went much the same way as well. It was just as harrowing and all, but Carmen was still able to sneak by with a seal, and when Brian fought through and grabbed his own seals, the ghost indeed was stuck without a good way to defend itself anymore. That’s what Brian thought anyway, as the ghost fleed back into the toilet leaving itself whimpering once again. It was a pity -- he wanted to have managed to actually get on the thing, but this was good for now. Once again, he reached out and flushed the toilet. “Well,” he said, stretching himself out again. “Any more bathrooms in this school? You think those are haunted too?”

 

 

On 7/14/2023 at 12:13 AM, LordCowCow said:

 

nice but kinda just there 6.5/10

---

OP Suggestion: Justice rereleased their † album and it's still great obviously. They also included some demos and some of those are great too 8/10

 

 

Z. noted Jirachi’s use of the word “person” instead of “Pokémon” as he answered Z.’s question just as much as they stored away Jirachi’s actual answer. The frequency part of the answer got stored away too. It sure said a lot that that wasn’t a common question, even if the world had ended in the meantime. So really, every part of the answer was useful, then, which made it a good question as opposed to all the other questions flying fast and furious around a Mythical Pokémon that flew fast and cheerily all around them. “Cool, gonna go do that now,” Z. said. “Talk shit, I mean, not the other thing. Make no mistake, I’ll help because, like, whatever, but my Maslow Hierarchy of Needs chart’s skewing pretty heavily towards the more primal sections like nourishment and shelter, maybe a hint of self-actualization as I continue to work my way around this body you stuck me in. Certainly not ready for any of this transcendental reshaping of the world stuff yet. It sounds like Ears and Clobber are figuring out one of those needs now, though, so maybe later I’ll get on that ‘saving someone else’s world’ thing.”

As they spoke, the sound of a coconut splitting into pieces rang out from over by the river, and Z. gave a curt nod to Jirachi and almost everyone around him, and they wheeled around and headed over that way.

“Oh, you actually got one,” Z. said as they surveyed the scene. They just managed to hold back a laugh or two at Clobber staring helplessly at his new shards of coconut, but only because they had another line come to mind that deserved the laughter more: “I could have thought they were date palms but you’ve probably never had a date in your life, huh?” Unless whatever they were interrupting counted as a date, but Z. could certainly make some fun out of that too if these two said as much.

Wait, hold on. Something was off about the way Clobber was just holding the shard of coconut shell and doing nothing with it. “Do you actually not know how to eat these?” Z. said. “Here, give me a piece.” They didn’t actually wait around to be handed one, instead just sitting down next to one and balancing it in their paws. “You’re just after the white stuff now -- the ‘flesh.’ If we had a knife or something we could just scrape it off, but in a pinch, you can just…” They bit the shell and pushed it away with their paws, scraping off a bit of the flesh right into their mouth. It was not the most glamorous way to do things, especially without opposable thumbs, but it got the job done. “Yeah, just like that,” Z. said.

“I mean, I guess you need teeth. You do have teeth, right?” There was almost a tone of genuine curiosity in Z.’s voice there hidden in the mockery. “I guess you can suckle a shard for a bit of juice that you haven’t wasted all over the ground yet. I dunno, figure it out.” They grabbed another shard and tossed it the Noibat’s way. “Hey, Ears, want to try?”

mimikyu

zorua

starly

whimsicott

torterra

girafarig

fennekin

kyurem

“Oh,” Quinn said as Belladonna made her final clothing selections and as he returned the unloved and unchosen garment back to its place on the shelf. It was more an “Oh” of relief than one of disappointment. The shirt was too colorful for Quinn as well. Quinn, of course, wore only white linens, except for in cases where one had been stained by spirit wine or discolored through general use. Just because they were a being of the ether did not mean the clothing she wore was ethereal as well. Quinn did like to pretend, though. Perhaps an appreciation for muted clothing was something they could bond over.

When Belladonna asked her question, Quinn held up the shopping bags. “We should have everything,” they said. “If we have forgotten something, it likely was not important in the first place, no? And we did manage everything Nathaniel asked for, so he should not be too disappointed in us either. Speaking of, we should probably go meet up with him. If he is finished battling, he will be waiting for us, and if the fight continues, some of our purchases may be beneficial to him.”

It still took a moment for Belladonna and Quinn to find Nathaniel since following that train of logic meant it made sense to go all the way back to the docks first before looking anywhere else. Once they had made it and found Nathaniel absent, it stood to reason to look for the Pokémon Center, which was back across town again. The one saving grace was that there were signs all over town pointing in the Center’s direction, so there was no need for anyone to have to ask, they could just look up. Still, Belladonna had already requested a nap, and despite Quinn’s adventurous spirit, they were ready to join her, almost collapsing over eir own shopping bags. Cassiopeia did her best to keep at least one of the bags above ground by pulling up on Quinn’s wrist, but as full of hot air as she could be sometimes, she still only barely helped. Find Nathaniel they did, though -- they stumbled into the Pokémon Center and collapsed into some seats near the door right as he and his Bearble were checking out.

Quinn pulled out a box of granola bars -- as a ghost, Quinn could not handle flavors very well so they were the nutritious kind, not the sweet kind -- unpacked one for herself, and offered another to Belladonna by shaking the box in her direction and staring at her until she took one.

She did the same to Nathaniel when he and Peat walked over to meet them. “Consider this either a celebratory reward or an offer of commiseration, depending on how your battle went,” Quinn said. They paused for a moment, recalling something, then added, “I believe you said you would become a Gastly or some such Ghost-type Pokémon because you had not eaten in half a day. I would like to correct that assertion. I myself made it almost a full seven days before my passing, and I have heard tales of those who have pushed their bodies even further.”

But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
-1 Corinthians 15:57 (NIV)

---

Melissa made it over just in time to see Fen’s Rush Recklessly play, and she clapped her hands as soon as she saw it. “Well done!” she said. She also made a note of the Spike Brother’s Vorse Raider; it appeared there were still reasonable cards even in decks like these. Well, her deck had felt alright, but that was probably just because she had won with it. Even just recalling the list on the back of the box, she was pretty sure she could imagine some particularly clunky opening hands. That was something to improve on. She’d have to figure out just what cards were available to her in the first place, though, especially at her price range. She had an income and room and board, but it certainly wasn’t enough to justify some of the prices she’d seen already, and besides that, there were still so many other things to explore.

She wanted to give advice. Melissa wanted to be as useful as she could be to Fen as she navigated her way through her first real test in this game Melissa knew. She couldn’t, though. For one, the sheer awkwardness of going up behind someone and looking over their shoulder to get a good look at all of their hidden information was too great, not to mention the nebulous nature of the sportsmanship involved. The stakes involving these Spike Brothers was a little nebulous in Melissa’s eyes. What was the nature of their challenge? If Melissa had somehow lost, would that have meant she got beat up? Mugged? Or would they have just laughed at her and continued to bully her for the duration of her stay on Prana? Both were equally bad options, but one of them was a little more open to “outside interference/win at any cost” than the other.

Another thought Melissa had was one that had come bubbling back up to the forefront of her mind, pushed onward by one of the Spike Brothers making a comment making an allusion to the Brothers’ enigmatic “boss.” “How did your boss know we were coming?” she said before she started running after the Spike Brother she had just beaten, looking for more answers. “Hey!” she said as she got nearer. “Hey! Um, sorry but things are just going to keep coming up, I think. I know you don’t have to do any of this, but, like, how did your boss get our phone numbers? Or do they just go through random numbers and challenge whoever might pay attention? Are they just you but with a slightly different hairstyle? I'm not mad, just, like, it's kind of a freaky thing to do, right?”

It took some time and more than a little of Estellise’s magic to get everyone back to normal, but things worked themselves out in the end. Chris was glad to be rid of all those cultists and their massive undead spawn, even more than the other floors. Fighting was exhausting, he didn’t need to be made even more exhausted through magical means. They made do, though, and found themselves on the final floor of the run, once again, shrouded in fog.

Chris instinctively got closer to his companions. He could still see them -- the fog wasn’t thick enough for that -- but he still wanted to feel their presence. He also kept his sword out, alternating pointing it at the room’s three big points of interest. Two out of three of them were things they had seen before, which was reassuring, though Chris didn’t like how the one he didn’t recognize was looking at them already, eyes piercing through the fog and right into his soul.

No sooner could he make that thought, though, as he spotted one final creature walking through the fog. Chris immediately shifted his sword to point it out, though by the time he had done so, it had disappeared, and he started to doubt that it was anything more than a greyer patch of fog than the rest. Still, his intuition told him otherwise. How many times had he evaded a particularly dim-witted guard because they thought an errant heavy footfall was “just the wind” or “probably just a rat?” No, he saw something, and even more than the ghoulish creature, just a glimpse filled him with dread. They would probably have to fight it at some point, but for now, he just wanted to avoid it.

He pointed back over toward the zombie. “This way, I think. Get them one at a time,” he said. “And watch out for anything that might come out and get us. One thing already disappeared, no reason to think there aren’t any more.”

 

22 hours ago, LordCowCow said:

 

oh are we just doing songs based on old starlets now 7/10

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OP Suggestion ooOOooOO oo oo oo oo oo oo oo barbra streisand 7.5/10

 

 

On 6/15/2023 at 1:42 AM, LordCowCow said:

 

the moments where what i assume are the vocal track splits into chords are pretty strong but it's kinda forgettable otherwise 6/10

On 7/2/2023 at 12:46 AM, yui said:

 

real video game soundtrack hours in the thread huh

soundtrack really has a guy going popipopipopopipo in the background huh 7/10

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OP Suggestion: Had Jesus Christ Superstar on the brain again. 7.5/10

 

Quarters!

Vambrace flew parallel to the floor but not too far above it before lowering himself to the ground a good distance away from Aeon and pushing himself to his feet. The first thing he did was check his equipment. It wouldn’t be good if she broke it with just one punch, but she also stated her intentions of doing just that the second time it got in the way like that. Its thrusters had activated properly and the diagnostics he could run in what time he had were coming up green, but it was better safe than sorry.

What did he know about Aeon? Only what he had heard, and the rumors were various. He’d had her wiki page once upon a time while waiting for a new update to compile, but hundreds of years of history would not fit in his brain no matter how much he read so he mostly skimmed it. Everything else he knew, he learned from Legion and his recounting of Aeon’s meeting with Caesar, which was not exactly helpful from a combat perspective. For fighting, he just had to go by instinct. "Punching’s going nowhere," he said to himself, which was a problem since punching with a tinker-tech gauntlet was his thing. "Just going to get grabbed and thrown or who knows what else. But she is still just a Brawler at the end of the day."

He pumped his fists, boxing the air a little as he turned back towards Aeon, who was still standing there, patiently waiting with a goofy grin on her face for him to return to the fray. "Trust the plan," he told himself. "At least keep her busy."

And he charged back in.

---

Names, to Arcturus, really did matter. To have a cape name taken directly from the stars only meant one thing in Scarlet City: an affiliation with The Zodiac in general and Ophiuchus in specific. To keep it after defecting, as she had, was a massive insult, and a calculated one at that. Arcturus wanted that fucking snake to know exactly how much she despised him. It was smothering, working for the Zodiac. Everything had to be done just so, exactly the way Ophiuchus wanted, and if it wasn’t, then you might as well not exist to him. A small-time group might be assimilated all at once only for Ophiuchus to, despite the group's natural chemistry, tear the group apart because he "knew better." It was like buying a car, a perfectly good automobile, just to scrap it for parts.

To continue the metaphor, she was like the catalytic converter. Maybe it was the pride talking, but Arcturus had been the most valuable member of her gang. Ophiuchus saw her as valuable by herself. A car can still run without its converter, of course, but not as well, and after everyone else went on a fatal mission she wasn’t there, well, it was a pretty heavy last straw.

Caesar, though, let her do whatever the fuck she wanted. Some of that, she was pretty sure, was just so she could parade around wearing her newfound allegiance on her sleeve -- her name was as much Caesar’s insult as it was hers -- but also, as long as she did the occasional errand like this, she could fly up as high as she could and mourn absent friends in silence for all Caesar cared.

Override’s threat was empty. He was clearly grasping at straws. It was almost a pity. She could have stood to play with him a little longer, but no, now was the time to go on the offensive. She sent her next ball of energy up to the ceiling. The ball’s shunt was targeting the rafters, breaking off one of the church’s many support beams, and, with accuracy only someone who had done this all her life could demonstrate, she sent it and some of the nearby ceiling crashing down on Override’s head.

---

Hellhound and Censer found themselves in quite the predicament, or Hellhound did, and Censer wasn’t about to leave her teammate behind. “More smoke,” Censer said. “Better smoke. Uh.” She threw out some more, but it still didn’t have much effect on Sibyl’s shadowy appendages whipping around Hellhound’s dog/cat/thing. “Give me a second. Uh.”

“You don’t really have a second, but I’ll do my best,” Hellhound said. They let out a little whistle, reverting their dog back to his normal, diminutive size, but at least without tentacled appendages interlocking and throwing everything into chaos, he and Sibyl were separated, and the dog was safe to recover for a moment at least. 

“Take cover behind the pews then, just buy whatever time you can!”

Censer wasn’t exactly hiding as she let out the occasional “Uh,” or “No…” and shot up the occasional cloud of smoke behind one of the church’s many pews, but Hellhound did indeed do their best. It only took a second for their dog to leap out in a new form, full of confidence and without any of the damage Sibyl might have inflicted on him by swinging him around as she had. The dog still flickered in and out of reality, though; it appeared he had not entirely left the world of illusory tricks behind.

---

“Nice place you got,” Lucky Cat said as Lailah picked herself back up from Arcturus’ shunting. “I was never really a church person, but I might change my mind if these are the sorts of hangout spots you got. You hiring?” She was still sitting back in one of the pews, legs propped up on the one in front of her, not making a move toward fighting at all, but it was still quite clear to both parties that the question was rhetorical at best.

Still, Lailah responded as best she could. “It’s… I am sure we could find a congregation who would welcome you with open arms if you wanted,” she said. “It would be no trouble at all.”

“Mm, I dunno.” Lucky Cat stood up and stretched, rubbing her shoulders and twisting around. “I’ve got a pretty sweet gig going on right now with the Gibbons, would hate to give that up. You know Caesar’s posts little bounties? Want to bet who’s gotten most of them?”

Lailah didn’t respond. She was trying to access her power, but Lucky Cat’s aura was throwing a wrench in things. It wasn’t that it was completely disabled, no, the little balls of light were still there orbiting around her, she wasn’t cut off, but the mental effort required was more than she was used to. Every so often, an angel would flicker into view, but it was only for a moment, it was never long enough for it to actually do anything.

Lucky Cat only laughed.

Lailah switched tactics, giving up on her power and instead running in, but as soon as she took a few steps, her foot got caught on her dress and she fell back down to the ground.

“Ooh, bad luck!” Lucky Cat said. “That seems to happen often to other people, but never to me. I guess a cat always lands on her feet, you know?” She made a little cat paw motion with her hands and walked forward towards Lailah. Despite her bravado, her steps were shaky too. “But this is fun! What do you think’s going to happen next?”

---

OOC

 

Quinn was confused by Belladonna’s insistence on staying. Not that there was anything wrong with cheering on a friend, of course, especially on a momentous occasion such as this, but there were so many extenuating circumstances that called them elsewhere. “Nathaniel has already given us his purse,” he said, naming one of them as they held up the Snorlax bag. “It would be rude not to at this point.” Quinn grabbed at Belladonna’s wrist and tried to guide the girl along, ignoring her flinch as their skin made contact. And yet, pulling still got them nowhere. Belladonna had proven herself to be not only sedentary but the stubborn sort of sedentary as well.

A second tug on the wrist proved to be equally ineffective, as did a third. “Come, Belladonna,” Quinn said. “You will feel much better with some fresh linens on you. I know this from experience; it is the first thing my parents did when I was brought back down the mountain.”

That finally did it. Belladonna’s shoulders drooped down to a surely-uncomfortable posture even by her standards. “Fine,” she said. “I do need new clothes.”

As Quinn found out, this was easier said than done. New Point Landing was very much a tourist town, and most of the stores they could find were targeted towards that demographic, so while the Poké Balls, Potions, Antidotes, and, yes, even stamps (with a fancy stamp book provided for purchasing a set) were easy finds, clothes proved a bit more difficult. The bags full of stuff weighed on Quinn as it looked. She had had Cassiopeia wrap her tethers around her and Belladonna’s wrists to free up a hand for shopping bags, but eighty-some pounds of ethereal presence could only do so much.

The Korova region, it turned out, or at least the New Point Landing part of it, only really had two shirt designs. They were plastered on all different kinds of shirts, sure, from sweatshirts to long-sleeves to tees and every other kind a merchant might think would sell but they were these: The first had a lavish design (even if it was still clearly printed on) of a lush and wild landscape capped off with a rainbow arching over it all. Within the rainbow were words, printed in nice big friendly letters:

~KOROVA THE RAINBOW~

and then below the design, in smaller yet no less friendly letters, just in case somebody didn’t get the joke

(over the rainbow)

The other shirt was much simpler. It was only text, so no big fancy image getting in the way of its message, and the letters were blocky and firm.

i visited the korova region and all i got was this dumb t-shirt

“Oh my,” Quinn said upon realizing just how limited things were. They held up the two options to Belladonna. “I might suggest alternating between the two? That way neither gets too dirty, and I am sure we will be able to find hostels that can provide the right amenities to clean them.”

“Thanks,” Lana said.

“Welcome,” Chris said. He was so drained, he couldn’t manage much else. Now that all the cultists were dead, leaving just that one bloodhulk still rampaging around, it was a lot easier to let that come back to the forefront. At the same time, he wasn’t in immediate danger, so he had some time to catch his breath.

He did not want to fight this thing. He’d tried already and each sword stroke didn’t seem to affect it at all. Estellise had come the closest with her magic, but her best strike had still needed Ziun to distract it first, and there was no way the bard was going to be able to do that forever. He still felt like he had to fight, though, for that very reason. Maybe one more swing was all it took. Maybe they needed to aim somewhere specific.

His sword still felt heavy in his hand, but he could heft it now. Before he charged in, though, he saw the open door at the other end of the dungeon out of the corner of his eye, and he remembered why he had directed everyone at the start of the fight the way he had. The door had always been open. And yeah, they’d been waylaid when the enemies in the room proved faster than, say, the mushroom people a few floors back, but that had always been the goal.

With his current fatigue, the door seemed so far away, but they could make it. They had to. “Come on,” he said to himself. “Just one more burst.”

Chris took a deep breath, gathered what little energy he had left, and called out to Estellise and Ziun. “Hey, the door’s open! You don’t need to kill it, just stun the thing and let’s get out of here!”

Estellise’s bow immediately disappeared, replaced instead by the magical ball of light she’d used to distract the village full of goblins which she threw at the monster’s face. It didn’t actually manage to stun the thing, but as she got out of the way and headed towards the door, the magical enchantment encouraging her own movement working double-time now, the bloodhulk still charged towards where she had just been standing a moment ago. The thing was blinded, at least for a little bit.

“Come on,” Chris said to Lana, “we need to get going before it figures itself out again.”
 

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.
-Deuteronomy 31:6 (NIV)

---

Melissa bit her lip as Fen made her first turn. It wasn’t the play she would have made. She didn’t get a good look at Fen’s hand to see the rest of her options, though -- maybe it was the only play? The biggest worry in her eyes was the eight hundred attack, but then again, it was a card Fen probably wanted to get into the graveyard anyway, and if cards like those in her starter deck were common to all decks -- if this version of Duel Monsters was actually balanced around starting with four thousand life points -- Fen couldn’t even be punished all that hard for it.

The Spike Brother wound up having to equip an otherwise normal monster just to crack through, confirming Melissa’s suspicions, so while Melissa did make a mental note to go through the differences between combat with Attack-position monsters and those safely in Defense-position, she didn’t want to keep her opponent waiting. He said he had a movie to catch, and there was a competition between the two brothers besides. The least she could do was be courteous and respect that.

“You know, there were legends back home of people with multiple consciousnesses inside them, switching personalities the moment they started dueling,” she thought to the computers in her head.

Would you like us to try this activity for you? It would require some reconfiguration on our part to avoid our manifestations, but it could be done if-

“No, no,” Melissa thought. “I was just- I don’t know what I was doing. I should be fine.” It was all coming back to her. She liked to be like the Brothers, at least in the “wanting to finish duels quickly” way, anyway. In her case, it was so she could get it over with and move on before she could get trapped in a rematch. She’d end up a bit reckless and uncaring about the result. But she was still riding a familiarity high with the confidence to match.

“Before we start, I worry I haven’t made something quite clear,” Melissa said as she drew her first few cards, cradling them in her left hand like she was used to back home. “I have played this game before. I don’t want to shark you into thinking our duel is going to be easy. I want to be upfront about that.” She surveyed her hand. “I, um, I suppose I will play this Spirit of the Fall Wind.” It was a different Fairy than the type she was used to, this one more pagan in its inspiration, but it was the face card of her deck, and with an apparently hefty eighteen hundred attack points, she was happy to have drawn it so soon. “It also has an effect that lets me add a monster with a FLIP effect to my hand,” Melissa said. Now she just had to remember what was all in there!

As the Spirit waited patiently, Melissa tried to go through the list of cards on the back of the box in her head, making sure that she didn’t include any of the cards she had cut in the meantime when she was slimming the list down to forty. None of the cuts had been flips, right? One card stood out in her mind, and she settled on that out of want for anything else. “Magician of Faith, I suppose,” Melissa said. The card popped out of her deck and she shuffled it in with the rest of her hand.

“Now, Battle Phase. I’ll have Spirit of the Fall Wind attack your face-down.” And just as she spoke it, it occurred. The Spirit took a deep breath and blew a gale out ahead of it. The wind picked up the Spike Brother’s monster and spun it around briefly before it finally shattered into pieces.

“Okay, okay. Maybe your monsters are a little bigger than I expected,” Spike Brother Eight said, “but how about this!” He held the card up for just long enough for Melissa to vaguely recognize it before two more cards popped out of his deck and he slammed them into play. “I get two more of these D-boyz out onto the field! I guess I take damage or something, but prepare to be outnumbered!”

Suddenly, Melissa wished Jun were here. There were obviously ways to deal with a D-Boyz, especially two that had been summoned in Attack position -- they only had one hundred Attack! -- but Melissa’s mind still drifted to the Masked Piper incident. “Civil servant and God’s little chosen,” she muttered under her breath. “The real deal, a darklord that ain’t posin’.” She was in a bit of trouble, though, from what being outnumbered represented elsewhere. Two monsters that she couldn’t attack and didn’t want to spend cards removing could be turned into one big monster, and if it was the right big monster… well, she supposed she’d have to get to that if it got to that. She had tricks still, and the D-boyz had dealt two thousand damage to the Spike Brother in the meantime, halving his life total. “I will, uh, set two cards and end my turn,” Melissa said, and the face-downs materialized behind her.

“Ha! That’s all? Alright, draw!” Spike Brother Eight said. “Now, check this one out. I’ll sacrifice one of the Boyz to bring out this bad boy!” He did just that, and out came a hulking machine with flails instead of arms. It was a Spikebot, and Melissa noticed that it, like her Fairy, had eighteen hundred Attack. The Spike Brother had done all this with much more confidence than he should have, though at least he wasn’t finished. “I’ll equip it with this Big Bang Shot and attack your weak little spirit. Crush it, bro!”

One of the flails on the Spikebot’s arm glowed with power. It was only four hundred Attack’s worth of power, though surely the additional piercing added some aesthetic when the only attack target wasn’t in Attack Position already. The Spikebot whirled its flail around and around, then above its head before crashing down on Melissa’s Fairy, who bravely tried to guard against it, but couldn’t stand up to the extra energy.

“Losing four hundred life hurts, but I have a response to my creature getting destroyed,” Melissa said. “I’ll activate Setup- er, cut? Set uppercut?” She got it on the third try. “Setuppercut. Because a monster of mine was destroyed by battle, I can Special Summon a monster from my hand or deck in face-down Defense position. I’ll choose…” This one she remembered. There were only so many tribute monsters in the deck, and not all of them could even be grabbed by Setuppercut most of the time. “uh, Nobleman-eater Bug,” Melissa said. The card briefly flashed on the field before folding down in front to guard its controller.

“Tch, fine, guess D-Boyz don’t get to attack. Guess I’m ending my turn, then.”

One thing Melissa noticed was Spike Brother Eight actually pronounced the word “Tch,” he didn’t just tisk as some sort of interjectory sound. Another thing was that he didn’t switch his one hundred Attack D-Boyz monster to defense position when he had the chance, so maybe Fen really was okay even with her Interceptomato play. She’d have time to check in just a moment, the writing was on the wall over here. Melissa drew a card and said, “First thing: I would like to Flip Summon my Nobleman-Eater Bug. It destroys two monsters, so I’ll choose your two.”

The description of a giant bug devouring a group of gangsters and their pet giant combat robot was too graphic to comprehend, much less put into words, but the end result came out as expected. “The other thing I would like to do is Summon another monster,” Melissa said. “This one’s just a Normal monster. It’s Shining Friendship.” It was another Fairy-type, this one even less like the ones Melissa was used to. Shining Friendship was more of an abstraction of what it even meant to be a Fairy-type monster. It was a small little blob with wings and a friendly smile plastered across its body. What mattered here, though, was that it had thirteen hundred Attack, and that combined with the Nobleman-Eater Bug’s… “I would like to go to my Battle Phase now,” Melissa said, “and I will have my monsters attack your Life Points directly.”

If the Nobleman-Eater’s attack was indescribable, Shining Friendship’s was even worse. Spike Brother Eight reeled as the two attacks struck home and the holographic images of the cards fizzled and went out. “I can’t believe you. You got so freaking lucky!” he said. “What the freak are those crappy cards doing winning, huh?”

“Um, good game,” Melissa said. “I hope you enjoy your movie.” She couldn’t stay to do much more than that, though. She had to go check on Fen.

Belladonna was staring at her, so it was only natural for Quinn to stare back. Quinn had always been good at staring contests, even before their death, and he was pretty confident he could win this one too if push came to shove. That was to say, if it was a staring contest, anyway. It was also quite possible that zey just had something on their face. Quinn wiped her mouth with her arm but maintained eye contact all the while. Even as Belladonna took a few careful steps, Quinn kept at it just to make sure. Cassiopeia was staring too. She was mostly hiding behind Quinn just peeking out over the ghost’s shoulder but Quinn could feel her stare all the same.

Really, Quinn was not sure what to make of Belladonna. Even besides the times Belladonna pretended to be dead, which was always confusing -- who could pretend something so terrible? -- what struck Quinn the most about the girl was how she seemed entirely unprepared for any of this. Did Belladonna not know what she was signing up for when she came aboard the SS Rising Sun? Was she cognizant of what awaited her in the future? She was quite inscrutable, or perhaps that was just her ragged, seasickness-stained attire. Still, she was nice to be around, if only because she seemed more accepting than most about Quinn’s… condition. Nathaniel was too. Most people would have at least asked to hear an explanation a second or third time, but these two just went along with everything Quinn said without even a single question.

“I need to buy stamps,” Quinn said, repeating himself a little bit as they finally broke eye contact to give Belladonna a once-over, “and you need to buy new clothes.”

Quinn’s first sign that there was one more person on the docks was feeling Cassiopeia jerk suddenly, alerting her companion to the young girl with shorts and the attitude to match. The youngster was actually much more polite than Quinn had been expecting of rival trainers. The way her parents had put it, it was frequently a dichotomous choice between two different types of violence, the Pokémon kind or the physical -- a physical kind that, to their parents’ insistence, could even affect ghosts. It was nice to see that the first encounter was with someone who was a bit overly excited at most. Fae was ready to accept, but Nathaniel got the jump on them. “If it’s a battle you want, I’ll take you on,” he said, but then he seemed to hesitate. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to just claim dibs on the first battle.”

“No, it is alright,” Quinn said. “Just because this is your first battle does not mean you are superseding my own. I can have my first some other time. Here, I will pre-emptively call ‘dibs’ on the next battle, and Belladonna and I can go prepare for the odyssey ahead while you two scrap. You said Poké balls, antidotes, potions, and what else?” That plus clothes, plus the other miscellanea, they would likely go clean through the small stipend Quinn had received as part of winning that art contest, but they could pool their resources, could they not?

gonna be in a car for like six of the next nine hours for a concert ama