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Battle Royale

Adler met Shields’ tut with a scoff of his own. “You do make googly eyes at it, then. That’s adorable. Give me that.” He reached out through his power and snatched his phone back before Dee could pocket it out of sight. “It doesn’t have to be thirty miles out,” he said. “It could be thirty miles up. I hear not a lot of organic stuff survives terminal velocity either. The calling for help, though, is appreciated. Maybe -” 

A pair of loud crashes and a “Heads up, old timer!” diverted Adler’s attention away from his banter. He turned and saw the robot Sibyl had been fighting now stumbling backwards towards him. It would never reach him, of course, especially now that it had suitably distracted him, but it did give him a chance to process the rest of the noise that he had skipped past. Sibyl had gotten herself thrown into a wall, and the wall was repairing itself, but at least Vi had overcome her Sisyphean task and gotten her hat back, which was nice.

The wall was repairing itself. That was an important detail to focus on. He looked back at Shields. “This you? No, you’re just a tinker with a wall fetish. And it’s not that guy.” Adler pointed over at the guy collapsed in the corner, even using Command Editor to reach over and poke him a few times just to make sure he really was unconscious. He wasn’t, it turned out, but he was really out of it. “So that means you’ve got a shaker too, huh? Don’t suppose you mind telling us where they might be?”

Dee just glared at him.

Adler shrugged. “Thought not, but one can hope,” he said. After a moment’s consideration, he added, “Well, I’ll take those too then.” He snatched Dee’s glasses right off of her face and clocked her unconscious too for good measure.

He focused in on the robot’s arm, gave it a yank, and stuck out a foot for its legs for good measure. The resulting trip sent the robot tumbling to the ground, leaving it without an apparent way to get back up and worse, a cracked “head.” “What’d you say?” he asked Sibyl. “We’re here to break shit? Let’s go break more shit.”

Further down the hallway was a set of two more doors, one straight ahead, and one to the left. Adler strode forward but deliberately slowed himself so that the two more excitable members of the team might get to take the lead. It’d save himself the work in the meantime.

Casino Royale

Gambling had always been a tricky subject among Scarlet City’s general populace. It was legal, yes, always had been, and nobody had the political willpower to change that, but it was hard to ignore that the one casino in all the world was run by its largest organized crime group. The Hell’s Inferno Casino was in Hilltop, a neighborhood out in the west, and served as a dividing line. The Gibbons gang controlled other areas, but everything west of Hell’s Inferno was theirs. This was obfuscated by the petty tag war that had sprung up on the outskirts. “PROPERTY OF GIBBONS GANG” a sticker would read, and someone had tagged over that in barely-legible scrawl, that tag would be covered in more stickers, and so on the process went. It petered out the closer they got to the casino – perhaps things were more patrolled there.

Hell’s Inferno Casino itself was awesome in the most literal sense of the word. “inspire awe” was exactly what it had been designed to do. In the midday autumn sun, one could tell the building was a spectacle unto itself, and there were visible light fixtures for when the evening came and it was time to make Hilltop seem eternally, impossibly bright. The central fixture of it all was a massive slot machine with reels that spun several rotations before stopping on its three-numbered jackpot of 666.

Caesar -- ˈsi zər, ˈkae̯ sar, however you pronounced his name -- was inside. Here is what G3 had to say about him:

Name: Augustine Edwards
Cape Name: Caesar
Active for: 7 years 
Power Classification: Trump
Current leader of Gibbons Gang, overseeing several operations personally along with attendants Legion and Hellhound. Of particular note are the Battle of Graceland and the Chicken Nexus Heist Job (see attached files).

As before, the referenced files had not been attached.

Goals: Caesar ascending to power has caused a paradigm shift with regard to Gibbons Gang as a whole. Previously, Gibbons was comfortable becoming, in their words, “The most influential organization in Scarlet City.” Caesar, however, seems determined to achieve nothing less than domination and rule over the entire city. Various truces and the occasional bout of overconfidence have held him in check so far, but it is clear these are still temporary measures until either the man or the gang he controls become S-class threats.

Hellhound was waiting for the heroes just inside. The most notable feature of their cape costume was an oversized wolf’s head they wore like a pauldron, the rest of the costume was an amber sort of orange. They also had a purse over their other shoulder where a small dog was poking its head out, shivering as it noiselessly observed the world. “Caesar” -- ˈkae̯ sar, they said -- “has been expecting you for a good while now. Come with me, please.”

They turned and went further into the casino, and the dog shifted her position in the purse to keep her eye on the heroes. Hellhound led the two into the pit, past all the slot machines, the bar, the other various games like craps and roulette, all of which followed the Hell’s Inferno’s theme, through a back room where the poker and baccarat tables were, up to an elevator that required a special code to even access. It was still early enough for the casino pit to not have many people in it, and those that were there were engrossed in whatever gambling they had set out to do and paid the capes no mind.

The elevator took the three up to a receptionist area where a secretary was typing away. She didn’t even look up from her screen as they entered. “Please, wait here,” Hellhound said, gesturing to a sofa at the opposite end of the room from the secretary (and, more importantly, the door). “Caesar will be right with you. I’m going to go on ahead and tell him that you’re here.”

One notable feature about the room was that, like the casino, below it, it had no windows or clocks -- there was no way to tell the passage of time. Hellhound had not specified a time either. Aeon and Override were just meant to wait.


OOC

Spoiler
Spoiler

Hellhound -- Secretary

Moray Clan: If you want to do wacky things with Adler's power, I guess he's available if you ask. He won't get paged out until the fight is over, but he is going to be hanging back. He did disable Dee and Chad for the moment, though, so all that's left is to find Babs and deal with her too. The other option is to get out since you've accomplished your main mission of "drawing attention to yourselves," but you two don't seem like the type to do that. 

G3: Gambling has a complicated history in Skitty's real-life inspiration. It used to be banned outright, and people were kind of whatever about it, but about twenty years ago they changed the state constitution to allow certain types of gambling at very specific locations where the casinos wanted to build -- one in each major city, if I remember correctly. But then the locations they chose didn't work out so they had to AMEND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE A SECOND TIME to resolve that particular issue, which is a very normal thing to do. I thought about including that piece of history in Walpurgisnacht but it turned into a rant and didn't have a clear perspective it was coming from, so gambling's just always been legal now.

Hellhound's wolf head is inspired by that weird fucking lion head dress that's floating around the internet recently. I don't know what breed of dog they have with them but his name is Damian and he is currently very smol, so hopefully that helps. I don't really have hard and fast instructions for you two right now. Caesar is making you wait as a power move so do with that what you will. Bother the secretary, bother each other, try and burst through the door anyway, read some vapid magazines, the world is your oyster.

Happy posting,

-r

 

Edited by radio414

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Vi wasn’t sure whether it was adrenaline or exhaustion clouding her thoughts from the fact that their mission was a lot simpler than she assumed based on this new development of a self-repairing building. In fact, she didn’t even think about who was even controlling the drones that she dealt with at the entrance before she came down the hall to meet up with the others. 

"What does it matter? Our job is to break shit and if it fixes itself then we just have more to break!" Vi took a second to process what Sibyl said in response to Vi's question, and she couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Ah… yeah, you got a point. The fuck am I worrying about?” Vi laughed as she saw her co-worker lunge into what looked to be a robot projecting a barrier to protect itself from the impact, which didn’t seem to be effective. With the force of it causing the machine to stumble backward, Vi noticed Adler behind it as well as another girl she didn’t recognize. The lab coat and glasses seemed to speak for themselves; she must be a thinker, and also must be the one controlling the drones.

“So that means you’ve got a shaker too, huh? Don’t suppose you mind telling us where they might be?”

Despite Vi no longer caring about the phenomenon with Sibyl’s mentality, the answer to her question was still good to know. Wherever this other figure is that’s healing the building, it would be nice to know if not just to find them and incapacitate them, but as far as their intentions were with the building, it hardly mattered. Sibyl was right. They’re there for one thing and one thing only: to cause a distraction.

“What’d you say?” Alder asked Sibyl after breaking off the robot’s leg and causing it to fall over. “We’re here to break shit? Let’s go break more shit.”

“Shit, if I knew you two had this handled, I’d have already moved on!” With a wide smirk, she took a second to take off her hat and put it in her backpack before she swung her umbrella behind her with another wave of energy emanating from her, widening the doorway into the hallway. With more force accelerating her, she dashed further down towards some more doors, one to the left and one at the end. She barely took any time to ponder on which one to smash, as she was already at the nearest one before she just decided to smash that one before the other. They were both being smashed anyway. Mid-dash, she turned to swing at the door on the left, blasting a wider opening as the shockwave sent more debris scattering throughout the space.

As the dust settled, Vi got a glance of the room ahead. A sofa facing a TV, a foosball table, a treadmill in the corner… just a casual lounge area. Vi huffed in slight disappointment but couldn’t help being slightly amused by how mundane it was for a gang warehouse. Then again, she supposed it wasn’t much different from the Clan’s hideout. Still, what’d be better to come across in a rival gang’s hideout than spicy secrets? She figured that’d be something to find deeper inside, which carried through with her unhesitating advance onto the next doorway at the end of the hall. Just like the one before, this one met the same fate as another blast of sound, debris, and air pressure shook the building.

Vi took this time to settle as she went into a casual walk into the new room. Looking around, it wasn’t hard to recognize it as the place’s kitchen, another mundane and boring thing that made her frown a bit. With another huff, she submitted to the reality that she wasn’t there to discover weird secrets anyway. Hell, she was in a kitchen at least, so there might at least be some snacks to grab and - fuck it - also munch on while she’s there.

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She'd been here before and she was still amazed how over the top it all was. It went with perhaps a childish version of a dark theme yet it was so much that Thessa couldn't help but be impressed.

She wasn't much of a gambler. Once she figured out how it worked it had sort of lost its luster. But she could still appreciate the idea behind it and felt herself drawn towards the gamblers themselves. What were they here for? What did they hope to do if they somehow managed to strike it rich?

Unfortunately she had a job to do and while it was starting to drag on she intended to see it through to the end.

"Oh hey this one talks." Thessa said as Hellhound met them, comparing them to Cassiopeia in her mind. The whole way there Thessa smiled at the little dog, waving at it as it watched them, and wondered what it was about the animals today.

“Caesar will be right with you. I’m going to go on ahead and tell him that you’re here.”

"Oooh a sofa. Don't mind if I do." Thessa said as she made her way towards it. "Been real busy today haven't really had a moment to really rest. All this diplomacy is hard work!" She declared with a loud laugh. As she got to the sofa, instead of sitting, she threw herself onto it. Sprawled out across on her back and laying down on it she put her hands behind the back of her head. Thessa looked over at her partner in anti-crime and grinned. "If I actually fall asleep lemme know when the Big Cheese finishes his crossword or whatever he's doing."

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Two down...next on the docket was the Gibbons, the one that their boss told Morgan exclusively to avoid. Truth be told, the negotiations...or at least them getting the gangs to sign off went easy enough. However, now he and Aeon had a favor that they'd end up having to cash in with the Fates if and when the time came, as well as pass information towards the Zodiac in regards to the situation they found themselves in. Either way he looked at it, it was them giving something to those they would call their enemies...but in a situation like this...desperate times called for desperate measures.

"P.I.X.E.L., bring up the next individual's stats." Override simply said, soaring overhead once more.

"Aye sir." Just like before, the information began to show up on the side of his HUD...

Name: Augustine Edwards
Cape Name: Caesar
Active for: 7 years 
Power Classification: Trump
Current leader of Gibbons Gang, overseeing several operations personally along with attendants Legion and Hellhound. Of particular note are the Battle of Graceland and the Chicken Nexus Heist Job (see attached files).
Goals: Caesar ascending to power has caused a paradigm shift with regard to Gibbons Gang as a whole. Previously, Gibbons was comfortable becoming, in their words, “The most influential organization in Scarlet City.” Caesar, however, seems determined to achieve nothing less than domination and rule over the entire city. Various truces and the occasional bout of overconfidence have held him in check so far, but it is clear these are still temporary measures until either the man or the gang he controls become S-class threats.

"Ah right...he was the one that led the heist job on the Fried Chicken Nexus..." Override nodded, remembering hearing about some strange and criminal activities occurring at this intersection where three fried chicken establishments at the corners of said intersection. "Continues to boggle my mind at why they even attempted a heist job in the Chicken Nexus..."

"Criminals such as these tend to have motives beyond some's comprehension."

"Be that as it may..." Override sighed. "It's obvious that Augustine here simply wants nothing more than domination...but a chicken establishment."

"Perhaps look at it within the bigger picture, sir." P.I.X.E.L.'s Scottish cadence spoke. "If one controls the Chicken Nexus, that would be a monopoly on that corner and thusly, possibly reduce food services to others aside from his gang."

"...that's a fair point and assumption." he nodded, touching down in front of the Hell's Inferno Casino. There's more to it, I can feel it... Brushing that aside, he made his way inside once Aeon arrived. Override wasn't a gambling man, but he had to admit, this casino was a happening place for others. The general aesthetic was an impressive one...it was a sort of Hell, in every sense of the word. Regardless, he ended up seeing Hellhound, Augustine's assistant...right-hand person...something along those lines.

“Caesar has been expecting you for a good while now. Come with me, please.”

Override simply followed, his clunky armor making noise with each step he took as he was led into the elevator and into a...receptionists room...with a secretary who seemed to pay them no mind...he wasn't thrilled about this.

“Please, wait here Caesar will be right with you. I’m going to go on ahead and tell him that you’re here.”

And then...they just left. Override grew a tad bit concerned, but thankfully his armor allowed him not to be noticed as being worried. But with no windows or clocks, it seemed they were just going to be waiting here without the knowing of the passage of time. That would be the case, if Override didn't have anything to say about it.

"Been real busy today haven't really had a moment to really rest. All this diplomacy is hard work! If I actually fall asleep lemme know when the Big Cheese finishes his crossword or whatever he's doing."

At least someone's having fun... Override thought, looking around and surveying the area. It was just the normal receptionists area...but he took his chance to do something. Looking at the computer the secretary was on, he began to make a move. Without her knowing, he began to establish a link with it...not with his suit...no...this was his own abilities. He stood there like a sentinel on the outside, while inside, he was communicating with the computer itself. Of all things he could access, ironically was the calendar app. Hmmm, guess it's not willing to allow me to go deeper...no matter...the fact that I can get any information at all is good. he thought, seeing what the app said. The boss of the gang had them down for a meeting fifteen minutes ago...and he hadn't shown up.

Hmmm...so our meeting is all. No tricks, no plots...nothing. Override thought, breathing a small sigh of relief. With this information in hand now, Override casually made his way (or roughly made his way due to armor) towards the secretary. "Sorry to disturb you, miss...?"

She looked up from her screen but kept typing and didn't say anything. She simply acknowledged that she's the one Override was talking to.

This perplexed him, but regardless he cleared his throat and kept going. "Right...Caesar" -- he pronounced it ˈkae̯ sar, -- "was scheduled to meet with us fifteen minutes ago...and yet he nor Hellhound have shown back. Is everything okay?"

The secretary leaned over and pushed a button on her desk. "Sorry to bother you, sir, but one of the heroes out here wants to know if you're okay?"

It took a few moments for the intercom to crackle back to life, and the response was a single word. "Peachy."

"Hmmm, simply peachy? I must say, he seem to be taking this meeting in a different direction than I originally thought." Override sighed, before backing up, his gaze going from the intercom back to the secretary. "Thank you for your assistance..."

"I'm sure he'll be with you in just a few moments."

Hopefully... Override thought, continuing to survey the area to the best of his ability. Was he seriously going to have them wait here the whole time until he saw fit to meet with them? He surely hoped that wasn't the case.

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Sibyl had gotten back to her feet, letting out a small whistle as Alder had managed to disable the robot with his weird spacey powers. Giving a whistle at the sight the girl said, "damn, nice work man!" The girl went to give a congratulatory pat on the back with one of her enormous clawed hands. Naturally the hand never actually touched him but the girl didn't seem to mind that. Instead, with the robot and the woman being dealt with and no one else in the immediate area Sibyl's giddiness seemed to calm a bit, the third arm she had growing out of her torso receding back into her. Walking along with the others, they eventually ended up finding both a break room and kitchen. While there was certainly stuff to break in there, nothing looked especially enticing to Sibyl at the moment and so she continued to just look around the base. 

Opening one of the doors in the kitchen she found that it had lead right back to the break room, and now that she was looking at the room properly she saw a bunch more doors leading to who knew where. Walking up to one, Sibyl grabbed the comically undersized knob in her large shadow hand, saying, "alright let's see what's behind door number two!" And forcibly yanked at the knob, easily tearing open the door only to see a large log coming down from the next room over swinging at her. She seemed more happily surprised by this then anything else, letting out an, "ooooh," before bringing up her free hand to catch the log, bracing herself as it impacted into her. Shoving the log back, due to it being tied to the ceiling, physics did its work as it came moving right back towards her. Catching the log again, Sibyl knew enough that if she shoved it back it would just get in her way of going into the next room, and so this time she grabbed it with both hands. Gritting her teeth, the girl tore the log out from its bindings attaching it to the ceiling and tossed it on the ground before proceeding into the next room over. 

It seemed to be some kind of laboratory with a bunch of weird machines and a computer hooked up to all of them. More than that, though, the room seemed incredibly weird. For one, it was only now that Sibyl had realized that what was holding the log trap in place was actually vines that were somehow growing out of the ceiling. There was also a chair spinning up there as well. But most curiously of all was the walls. Sibyl wasn't exactly sure if the wall was real or not, looking as it was if it had some kind of TV static going across it and like it was glitching out of reality, though still obviously there. A work bench in the room shared a similar glitchy look to it. 

Curious about the wall, Sibyl went to start knocking on them, only to find that they were in fact still solid. With this discovery the girl started rap against the wall even more, hearing that it actually sounded more hollow then anything else. Smiling, thinking that there was more to this wall then just its interesting choice of aesthetic, the girl started to punch the wall, cracking it a little. It was clear that her fists were doing damage to it but the girl shook her head, "nah, this is taking too long." The girl stepped away from the wall. 

The wall crumbled and fell apart as a log was sudden tossed into, revealing the closet that it was hiding. Pleased with herself, the girl looked inside and saw that the room was filled with a bunch of doodads and gizmos, some retro looking and some more modern. "These were hidden away so, I guess they must be important." Her grin widened as she started to swing her arms wildly in the room, smashing everything she could. 

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Emergency Trap

Babs really wished that her power gave her an enhanced ability to multitask. She had so much control over any building she was in, and there were so many ways that control was held in check, the least the universe could give her was the ability to do two things at once. Alas, it seemed like she’d gotten even worse since her powers had manifested. As it stood, even rubbing her stomach and patting her head was almost out of her reach. It wasn’t fair.

Worse still was how this was only her third encounter with invaders coming into her building! The first was how she’d manifested her powers to begin with, and the second was when The Zodiac came looking for protection money she didn’t have, sending her all the way across town to The Gibbons’ welcoming fold. When Caesar had set her up out on the outskirts of Scarlet City, she’d found a bit of companionship between Dee’s always-on-the-clock professionalism and Chad’s weird laid-back never-do-anything-right (except for when he did) nature. Both of their tinker powers benefited from her ability to shape things to their specifications, no matter how strange the request. They’d done combat drills, sure, but that was clearly not the same as the real thing.

She could sense them, no matter where they were in the warehouse. That, at least, her power afforded her. She could feel every bit of machinery falling apart against the blows of a single woman, or the other woman pilfering whatever food she could find in the kitchen. The man who was with them was a bit harder, what with how the space around him always seemed to reshape itself. It was cheating when other people did it, Babs thought. But there had to be something. There had to be some way to at least hang on until Caesar could send help or… or maybe they could just leave? No, that was wishful thinking. The invaders had already incapacitated Dee and Chad and were clearly willing to tear down the whole building.

Babs took a deep breath and sunk further into her bed. There was nothing for it. All she could do was her best. She focused her energy on the girl in the kitchen. Each drawer, each cabinet was an opportunity for something to throw at her. Maybe opening this one triggered a dart trap, or checking the fridge made the light fixture overhead fall down on her. It was quick work, nothing complex, but also she had to move on.

Meanwhile, in the workshop, that one was both harder and easier. It was harder without as many nooks and crannies she could hide things in, and easier in that at least she could shut the door again and give herself an enclosed space to work with that way. She could reinforce it too, so it’d be harder to get out, and then, if she tried hard enough, she could shift the walls inwards. The ceiling, too, hopefully ending up giving the woman inside one hell of a squeeze.

Stop Coming To My House

All in all, it took just over an hour for Caesar to finally buzz his secretary back and let Override and Aeon into his office. It was significantly darker in there than in the reception room, lit mostly by a projector casting several images towards the back wall. In one corner, a flier was making their way westward, their arms outstretched in front of them. In another part of the projection, someone was washing their face and hands. The one next to it was completely dark, as was just under half of the rest of the projection.

Caesar was sitting behind his desk, the back of his head blocking some of the projection, not that he seemed to care as he looked up at the other panels. Any actual first impressions, though, were doomed to be severely affected by his aura. Knowledge that it was there helped, of course, but there was still an extra weight on the heroes’ shoulders. “This man is important,” the weight seemed to say. “Listen to him!”

“Look at this,” Caesar said with a voice that similarly demanded attention even if it was otherwise completely unremarkable as he gestured to the collage of images. “How am I supposed to deal with this, hm? I’ve got a failed operation in the middle of town I’ve got to pick up the pieces of, I’ve got whatever the fuck is going on out east, and now some ‘heroes’ are knocking on my door insisting the world’s about to end. Any one of these could hold my attention, and all of a sudden I have to deal with three of them, not to mention everything else Gibbons manages in the city.”

A man someone attentive would identify as Legion was standing by the projector, operating it with his power, saying nothing. Hellhound was nowhere to be seen.

Caesar wheeled around in his chair and put his elbows on his desk. “I’m a bit distracted, you understand. I’m only curious about two things here: How fast I can put this particular encounter out of my mind and what the other two gangs, especially the Moray Clan, have had to say about me.”


OOC

Spoiler

Caesar -- Legion

Subtitles are Mogwai songs

Moray Clan: Vi has to contend with a kitchen suddenly made more dangerous, as small booby traps now line every possible place she could check. There's the two mentioned above, but I can think of some others too if you want. Sibyl has to worry about becoming a Sibyl sandwich. I'm giving both of you access to Adler for your posts as well as a sort of wild card, so feel free to use him within reason.

In terms of actually dealing with Babs, well, her morale's already pretty low. You can try and navigate the remaining rooms of the warehouse to try and find wherever her bedroom might be or you can trash the place even more and frustrate her to the point of surrender, or you can leave now that you've trashed the important parts and grabbed some tinker tech that might surely be useful, or all sorts of other options. It's a bit hard to actively communicate with the characters what state their opponent's in when she's not in the same room but I hope that's helpful for you the writers.

G3: This is the first bit of crossing the streams this RP is doing so I guess I should mention time is a little weird in Scarlet City that's just canon now that's part of the 'verse i said it and it just happened. Just a little though, don't worry Aeon. In terms of things that might actually be useful, surprise, Caesar is probably the most amicable to your mission, even if he held you in his reception room for an hour and change and is distracted besides. I imagine there's still a small bit of dialog you might need from me, though, so feel free to ask whenever and I'll get to it when I can.

Thanks for the posts so far, hope everyone's still having fun as we venture into page two proper,

-r

 

Edited by radio414

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The wait wasn't nearly as long as Thessa thought it might have been. Aided by the fact she nodded off partway through. As soon as they got the okay to head in she got up and made her way through the door as if she hadn't been laying down for the past hour or so.

The room was...somewhat odd. She didn't really get what the projector was for but honestly it didn't really concern her much. From what the man said it must have been some other business that didn't have to do with what they were here for.

What did concern her was this gross feeling in her head. The urge to listen to this man. She didn't feel good having the thought that anyone was so important that she had to pay attention to them. Knowing it was due to an ability didn't make her feel any less grossed out by the feeling.

“I’m a bit distracted, you understand. I’m only curious about two things here: How fast I can put this particular encounter out of my mind and what the other two gangs, especially the Moray Clan, have had to say about me.”

She didn't really know how quickly this would end, but the second part of his questions sparked a vague memory in her mind. "I think they said something about you being short?"

Caesar frowned. "I should have expected them to lie like that." he said. "Five seven is a perfectly normal height, you know. But no, I meant tactics. Did they give any indication they knew about my operation? The little upstarts have been remarkably prescient lately."

"I dunno, maybe they know but I wasn't trying to figure out if they knew anything about you was I? Don't you guys have spies or something for this sorta thing?"

"They're teenagers." Caesar slammed his fist into his desk. "What are they going to do besides gossip? Here, look at this. Legion?"

Legion pressed a button on the projector and the tapes started to rewind. One by one, the blank spaces came back to life until the grid was entirely full. They told the story of a battle in reverse, Gibbons against the Moray Clan on the outskirts of the fairgrounds. Caesar watched the screens intently. "Here, pause it here," he said. Legion did so.

Caesar pointed to three different screens. One member of The Fates was on each of them. "Look at this," he said again. "Slow-motion, Legion."

Simultaneously, each Fate on each of the screens reached out and grabbed... something from underneath the view of the screen, then the screen shifted to what must have been the Fates' point of view. For a split-second, it looked like each of them was taking a selfie, giving a peace sign into their phones in front of a now-collapsed measure of Gibbons, but then the screens went warped and static-y before going out entirely.

"See? They're stupid, naïve creatures, but that's not supposed to happen to Legion's power. They know something and they're taunting me about it. That cannot be allowed to continue."

The sudden outburst was surprising but it served to make the girl more interested. What was shown was...amusing yes but it only gave her more questions. Thessa gave the guy with her a confused look then looked back at Caesar. "So what? Is this something I'm supposed to care about?"

"Do you want to get in my good graces or not?"

"Me? Not really. We just need a..." Thessa thought about it a moment before the reason she was here came back to her, "a signature."

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An hour...a literal hour. Override wasn't too thrilled about having to wait this long, but it was obvious that Caesar had is reasonings, at least he hoped to God that he had some. Regardless, they were finally ushered in...and there he sat, watching a projector. And unfortunately, while he did have prior knowledge of the aura surrounding this man...Override fell victim to it all the same. The urge to listen to him...he honestly hated the feeling.

“Look at this. How am I supposed to deal with this, hm? I’ve got a failed operation in the middle of town I’ve got to pick up the pieces of, I’ve got whatever the fuck is going on out east, and now some ‘heroes’ are knocking on my door insisting the world’s about to end. Any one of these could hold my attention, and all of a sudden I have to deal with three of them, not to mention everything else Gibbons manages in the city.”

A collage of images were what the man was looking at and it seemed they held his attention more than anything else...which could've been either good or bad.

“I’m a bit distracted, you understand. I’m only curious about two things here: How fast I can put this particular encounter out of my mind and what the other two gangs, especially the Moray Clan, have had to say about me.”
"I think they said something about you being short?"

Smooth...very smooth... Override thought, sighing silently as Aeon spoke first. He really needed to learn to anticipate when she was going to speak and make the first move next time. Alas, it happened, so there was no point in trying to live in the past. Still, Aeon and Caesar spoke, though the armored hero kept watching the screen, seeing the Fates from the Moray Clan. It seemed that he was being perturbed by these three young girls...which to an extent, given their power and the fact they were teenagers, did make Override smirk under his helmet.

"See? They're stupid, naïve creatures, but that's not supposed to happen to Legion's power. They know something and they're taunting me about it. That cannot be allowed to continue."
"So what? Is this something I'm supposed to care about?"

"Do you want to get in my good graces or not?"
"Me? Not really. We just need a...a signature."

Override cleared his throat. "What my colleague means is..." he began, taking charge of the conversation. "In regards to the situation last night, we've come on the behalf of G3 to get a signature from you..." he said, sliding the file in front of Caesar. "That said, you are a man of business...seeing as you seem preoccupied with both your casino as well as the operations of the Gibbons...so this would mean you want something in return for all of this."

He stared at the man, his eyes hidden behind his helmet. "So...what would it take to get you to play ball with us...Caesar" -- he pronounced it ˈkae̯ sar, again --.

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After having had her fill of destruction and mayhem in the lab, Sibyl was ready to get on to finding another room to destroy. However, as she took a step out of the secret closet, she realized something was off about the room. She wasn't quite sure what it was at first but everything felt...smaller? But it wasn't like anything was out of place nor was it like the objects in the room were any smaller. No, it had to be something else. The girl continued to ponder on it, until she realized that she was in the closet that she just stepped out. Confused by this, the girl took a step out and looked at the closet, blinking curiously as she tried to figure out what was going on here. And then, as she was suddenly in the closet again she figured out what was going on. "Oooooh, I'm going to be crushed." The girl had no idea what was actually going on in this building, but it was clear to her that the building itself was now trying to kill her. Of course, Sibyl wasn't one to just stand around and evaluate the best of course of action and instead decided that if the building was going to try to kill her she just had to kill the building first.

She slammed her shadow fists against the wall a few times to see if it would give way, to be a bit disappointed that it didn't. As it turned out there were no more secret closets behind these walls and that seemed to mean that the walls weren't about to give way to just a few punches. Sibyl thought about what would be the next best thing to punch and looked up to see the vines growing out from the ceiling. That was another weird quirk of this murder building, one that she hadn't paid much mind to before but now was very curious about. She wasn't particularly knowledgeable about plants but she had a rough idea as to how they took root in things, and since it looked like it was growing and not just placed there, she wondered if she couldn't just tear down the ceiling if she could pull out the roots. And so, extending her arms to the base of the plant, she grabbed at it and yanked. While at first it didn't give Sibyl wasn't about to give up, and so she continued to pull harder on the vines until finally the entire plant was torn from the ceiling, with parts of the ceiling coming down with it. 

"Alright! Let's see what's..." The girl trailed off as she saw, from the fruits of her labor, behind the ceiling was in fact more ceiling. While perhaps a normal person would've thought to try the door - be it by opening or breaking it down - at all, Sibyl had already gotten into her head the fascinating idea of breaking through the ceiling and seeing what was above her. And so, if part of the ceiling could be broken, she reasons that more of the ceiling could be broken. Gritting her teeth and clenching her fist, the girl slammed it into the ceiling a few times before instead going to claw at it. Her claws shifted to become more akin to mole paws as she attempted to go from just punching to digging through the ceiling until finally a light could be seen coming from the hole. Elation crossed her face, clearing happy that her one track mind had lead her somewhere and with the walls closing around her and a path opened she decided to get out of the room. Dismissing the shadows around her arms, they instead began to creep across her legs and extended upward propelling the girl into the air. Grabbing at the edges of the hole the girl pulled herself into the new room...which was an old room. 

"What in the hell is going on here?" Looking around, Sibyl had noticed that she was in the rec room. One that was identical to the one that she entered the lab from. Looking through one of the doors in the room and seeing Vi in the kitchen, she figured out that it was in fact, exactly the same rec room. She had gone from the rec room to a lab. And then, despite going up, had ended up in the original room. After being befuddled by this for a moment, the girl then broke out into a raucous laughter. "You have got to be kidding me! This place is amazing! Vi, check this out! This whole building is like some kind of fun house portal puzzle thing! Oh I wonder where this ceiling leads to then?" The girl continued to giggle as the idea of trashing a building that more and more defied common sense appealed to her. 

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Rubber Bullies

As soon as Sibyl resolved to start tearing up another ceiling of the place, a BANG! erupted from the kitchen, and the door splitting the two rooms flew off its hinges, went all the way across the room, and crashed into the wall on the opposite side. Standing in the now doorless doorway was Vi, her shoulders heaving with every breath, her parasol extended out in front of her like the thrust of a spear. When Vi walked into the room, it was with almost exaggerated stomps, each one punctuating a spoken word. “I. Am. Going. To. FUCKING. Annihilate. Whoever. The. Fuck. Did. That. To. The. Kitchen.” She reached the door and speared it again, this time enveloping it in her increasingly overwhelming aura before wheeling around to launch it back towards a corner where it collided with one of the treadmills, destroying both of them in the process.

The whole building settled a bit, both in the sense that the only thing heard in the aftermath was Vi’s huffed breathing, with even Adler, who had strolled in just now, standing there in stunned silence, and in the sense that things that probably should have been making noise, like the continued collapsing of the workshop just a room over (or floor, depending on how you looked at it) no longer were. They weren’t making noise because they’d stopped in their tracks.

Two things happened in quick succession: The first was a resounding “Fine!” which seemed to echo from all four walls and even the ceiling and floor of the recreation room. “Fine, you win, okay? I’ll stop. Just please, please don’t mess things up too bad for them.”

The second was a message buzzed in on all three of the Moray Clan members’ phones. Adler took the opportunity to read it aloud in a mocking impression of what the fates actually sounded like. “Heyyyy besties,” he said. “Good job today, they didn’t even kno what hit em. Anyway anyone not licking their wounds too hard might be headed ur way now so get out while the getting’s good, k?” Adler looked up from his phone. “Guess that means you’re in luck, uh, Babs, was it?” Then, to Vi and Sibyl, he said. “Anything else catch your eye that needs doing? And yes, I remembered the shopping trip. I may be lazy, but I’m the honorable sort of lazy.”

Soft Power

Caesar stared at Override as he received the new treaty as though he were trying to wring out all the possible implications of the latter’s pronunciation. “I feel as though I should yell at you,” he said. “I want you to know that, regardless of your intentions, I feel very disrespected right now, not just that, but all these things we have discussed today. However, because I recognize your intentions as misguided at worst, I will not subject you to some of my… darker impulses. I also just want to make things clear: I know the reason your boss sent you to me last.

“He’s a loose cannon. Caesar needs to be held in check.” He said it in falsetto, sounding nothing like Director Sekelsky, though intentionally so. He coughed a few times before his voice was back to normal. “It’s social pressure is what it is. I know what happens when too many lines are crossed. We’ve all heard the stories or seen the remnants of battlefields before the construction crews come in and build everything back up again. If even one of them -- Ophiuchus, who I respect, or The Fates, who I despise -- were not on this list, I probably wouldn’t on principle. But I’m playing by the rules here, you see?” He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a fountain pen.

He didn’t sign it yet, though. He thought better of it. “At the same time, you were the ones proposing payment, weren’t you? How about this: Legion?” He motioned with his free hand and Legion shut down the projector, turned the lights back on, and came over to his side. “You are going to carry some of Legion around, that’s all. Just give me a few extra eyes for a day or so, how does that sound?”

Caesar opened up a different drawer on his desk and replaced the pen with a pocket knife, with which he pricked Legion’s index finger and guided his hand across the remaining dotted line of the signatories section. “I’m offering this to you willingly,” he said. “This is my mark, take it as you will.”


OOC

Spoiler
Spoiler

Subtitles are songs by the band Tropical Fuck Storm

Moray Clan: Oh I guess that's just Skaia now. Well, the factions were a failed experiment, but the plot's nothing if not flexible. In any case, I already alluded to the fighting being almost over, so I'm trying to get both halves to an acceptable state of "done-ness." This one is a bit closer to that in that I'm not sure if Team G3 needs an extra debriefing round yet or not, but while I work that out, the last member of Gibbons Gang in the building is surrendering, so get your licks in on the building while you can and clear out. As The Fates said, good job.

G3: I want there to be an implied, "And then the heroes left" at the end of this decision, though Caesar is around if you want to debate the various forms of power (social, political, having a +8 racial bonus to listen skill checks) with him, I suppose. I'm generally available for more lines, of course, though for the same reasons listed above, I would like to return the signatures to the base. At the same time, I don't want to make it seem like there isn't a choice here. If you want to not take the Legion-influenced documents and just tell G3 that Caesar got weird, that's acceptable too.

Thanks for sticking around. Let me know if you have any questions,

-r

 

Edited by radio414

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Sibyl's call out to Vi was answered with a door exploding off of its hinges and the woman frustrated with whatever had happened in there. From the sounds of it, she had something like the building attack her too, which only made the demon girl more curious about this place. As the goth umbrella lady continued to destroy more or the place, it had seemed that their victory was pronounced by a disembodied voice. Sibyl wasn't quite sure who the voice was, it certainly didn't belong to the other two people they had met here before, and so she reasoned that it was either somebody's power to project their voice like this or the building itself was alive. Regardless of which it was, the girl frowned at this declaration of defeat saying, "aww, come on. We're just getting started here right?" It was then that Alder's voiced picked up, directing her to the text message the group had just received. Her disappointment grew as did her frown, looking annoyed at the whole situation. 

As Alder finished his reading of the Fates' message, the girl looked to the side and as if she were a child simply said, "I don't wanna." As he mentioned shopping, the girl then thought more about it. As much as she wanted to keep tearing up the place, now that her opponent had more or less surrendered and everyone seemed ready to leave, she didn't particularly feel like continuing either. But the whole thing left her feeling bitter and frustrated, the frustration seeming to grow more and more noticeable on her face. Then, letting out a yell of anger, the shadows around the girls arm came back, thicker than ever, and she brought her arm down to smash the foosball table, breaking it in half and grabbing one of the halves to then toss at the treadmill. With the brief instance of destruction done, let out a deep breath and said, "alright. Better. You're buying lunch though too," the girl said to Alder. 

Looking up at the ceiling the girl said, "well that was really fun, you've got or are a really cool place Babs! The way that wall looked was super cool, can't wait to see what you got next time." With a sudden smile on her face, innocent joy behind her foreboding words, the girl gave a wave goodbye as she exited the building. 

Edited by Skaia

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“I feel as though I should yell at you. I want you to know that, regardless of your intentions, I feel very disrespected right now, not just that, but all these things we have discussed today. However, because I recognize your intentions as misguided at worst, I will not subject you to some of my… darker impulses. I also just want to make things clear: I know the reason your boss sent you to me last. It’s social pressure is what it is. I know what happens when too many lines are crossed. We’ve all heard the stories or seen the remnants of battlefields before the construction crews come in and build everything back up again. If even one of them -- Ophiuchus, who I respect, or The Fates, who I despise -- were not on this list, I probably wouldn’t on principle. But I’m playing by the rules here, you see?”

Override was silent, seeming to have already upset Caesar with his pronunciation...least he assumed that was the exact reason he was so uptight there. He found it strange, as someone who used this ancient title, he figured that he'd want it said the correct way and manner. But then again, he did only hear those here say it like he did...everyone else used the normal English pronunciation. There might've been something to that...so he'd have to keep that in mind.

“At the same time, you were the ones proposing payment, weren’t you? How about this: Legion? You are going to carry some of Legion around, that’s all. Just give me a few extra eyes for a day or so, how does that sound? I’m offering this to you willingly. This is my mark, take it as you will.”

Now the armored hero was a bit hesitant on this, to which P.I.X.E.L. noticed this and took initiative for his user. A direct line was sent from him to the Director back at the G3 Organization Headquarters. Luckily, both P.I.X.E.L. and Override were smart...they made sure to only have it audio only, no visual...along being the only two to hear this. The line went as followed: "Director, we've successfully made contact with Caesar of the Gibbons, however they insist on us taking Legion with them. What would you have us do?"

It was a few moments of silence, then there was an audible sigh, then, "Yeah, he does this every so often because he thinks nobody has figured out Legion's superpower. There are quarantines we can set up. I'll set things in motion for when you get back."

"Very well." Override spoke up finally, in regards to both the Director as well as towards Caesar. "We'll parley on this and accept. And on a second note, namely for you..." he said, putting his hands on the signed paperwork, his gaze and head directed towards Caesar. "I simply used the Latin pronunciation rather than those who use the English pronunciation. It's more authentic when referring to someone as yourself, isn't it?"

"Is that so?" Caesar said. "A little advice, then: don't push your luck with that. You don't want people thinking you're something you're not."

Yeah...it was definitely the pronunciation that pissed him off before. he thought, nodding as he got up. "If that's what you wish." Override shrugged, taking the signed paperwork. "If that's all, I believe we should be on our way back to G3. We'll be in touch, Caesar" -- he pronounced it ˈsi zər this time --.

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A Return to Normalcy

When Override returned to G3’s headquarters, he was met at the front door by Director Sekelsky, Bard, and a third person who, unless Override had been poking around in G3’s employee database, he probably wouldn’t recognize. That person’s name was Chet, a new paralegal hire, and he looked exceedingly uncomfortable standing around next to G3’s highest position and one of its premier heroes.

The first thing Director Sekelsky said was, “Where’s Aeon?” At some point, she had run off, leaving Override to complete the task they had been assigned alone.

“She wanted to go get food,” Bard said, already cringing at the director’s inevitable response.

“She wanted to go get food,” Director Sekelsky repeated in a mocking tone, the kind that probably could have been represented with some good old-fashioned camel case. “Sweet Zorro. Okay. First thing’s first: quarantine.” He leaned in and spoke directly into the side of Override’s ear. “You hear that? Stop mutilating your henchman trying to be sneaky and or creepy. You’re not.”

“It’d probably be best not to antagonize him,” Bard said. “You are going to be seeing him in a week now.”

“Probably,” the director said, straightening himself back up and readjusting his suit. “But I wouldn’t be able to say that to his face even if I wanted to.” He turned to Chet, who straightened up as well but in a stiffening sort of way. “You understand the nature of what you are accepting here? Who you’re going to be sharing your senses with?”

“I do,” Chet said.

Director Sekelsky motioned for him to take the signed papers -- all three of them, not just the one with Legion’s blood on it -- and Chet did so before scampering off. The quarantine was simple. G3 had a pretty good, though still imperfect, idea of how long Legion’s power lasted. Chet already had a minimal security clearance inside the building, and would likely be accompanied by guards even if he did encounter something he shouldn’t. In the meantime, he could do busywork or read or just listen to music.

Bard and Sekelsky watched to make sure he made it through the doors to be collected by his chaperone, before returning their attention to Override. “We’re going in too,” Sekelsky said. “Debriefing and all that. Caesar being snooty can’t be the only thing that happened to you. You’re going to tell me everything. This was your first time meeting Scarlet City’s three gang leaders, right? What are your first impressions? Do you think a longer truce is feasible?”

Where Money Flows Like Water

Scarlet City’s biggest mall, Easton, was actually not far from the warehouse Sibyl and the others had just attacked (though with Adler’s help, the physical distance didn’t really matter, did it?). It had a hybrid indoor-outdoor layout. There was a massive building in the center of it all, called “Easton Town Center” where most of the food options resided, though there were some outlets in there as well as one of those movie theaters with an actual kitchen and an actual service staff that would bring you actual food in the middle of a movie if you ordered it. Most of the outlets were outside the building, though, sprawling outwards offering any sort of mundane ware one might want.

Perhaps the most important feature of the mall was its status as a neutral ground despite its distance from the rest of the city. That was a big thing Easton’s management had pushed for prior to the foundation being laid however many countless years ago that was. Even capes registered as heroes or villains could see each other without issue here.

Adler and Vi hadn’t been hungry just yet, so Adler tossed Sibyl a couple of crumpled bills so she could buy an overpriced burger or rice bowl or whatever else her heart might have desired before they went to the Hot Topic on the Town Center’s second floor. “You can gouge yourself on cookies and ice cream for all I care,” Adler said. “Toodles.”

So Sibyl was alone. She wasn’t alone for long, though. As Adler and Vi disappeared into the Hot Topic never to be seen again, Sibyl got a text on her phone: Behind you lmao.

It was Lachesis, a singular Fate without her sisters, though she didn’t seem too concerned by their absence. “Just wanted to catch up eye-arr-ell after all that mess,” she said. She looked Sibyl up and down. “You didn’t get too hurt, right? Just gonna be sore tomorrow or even better than that or- Oh, I know this person hang on. Hey! Hey Aeon!”

Lachesis tried to wave the immortal hero over, and if that didn’t work she jogged over to Thessa, who had also entered the Town Center. “How’s tricks? Told you Caesar’s shorter in person than all those descriptions about him, right? You wanna hang out? Of course you do, come on.” She didn’t guide Thessa by the wrist again, but she did make sure the hero followed her back to where Sibyl was still standing.

“Sibyl, this is Aeon, Aeon, Sibyl,” Lachesis said. “You’ve probably heard of each other? Or you’ve seen Sibyl’s art around town and Aeon, well, she speaks for herself. But we’re going to probably be officially working together soon so might as well get cordial now.”


OOC

Spoiler
Spoiler

Easton Town Center -- Easton Fountain

Subtitles are songs from the Skullgirls OST. I guess G3 and Moray as section distinctions are breaking down with only three people in the RP, and I moved a hero over to hang out with some villains by request, so I guess I'll go by location now.

G3 (wait...): A more official denouement for the day as opposed to what's going on on the other end. This is your chance to give any specific reactions you might want and also progress any sidequests. Pretty self-explanatory besides that. Obviously, I'll be available for lines if you deem it necessary.

Easton: Mostly set dressing and writing the two characters away from the story, but the two characters meeting up is hopefully interesting? You're both welcome to get lunch and explore the mall at your leisure. If you do need something specific to do, let me know and I can seed a few ideas.

Thanks for sticking around. If you have any other questions, you know where to find me.

-r

 

Edited by radio414

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Thessa didn't know what it was she wanted to eat. Just that it felt like time to get some food. Her first thought, due to her encounter with the Fates, was to get ice cream but ultimately the only thing she really had in mind was "something unhealthy".

Thus it was she found herself at the mall. Surely something would catch her eye, or her nose, and she'd know what it was she wanted.

“How’s tricks? Told you Caesar’s shorter in person than all those descriptions about him, right? You wanna hang out? Of course you do, come on.”

"Figured he'd be even shorter honestly, but yeah he's a real life Napoleon ain't he?" Thessa wasn't thrown off by the sudden shift in plans. She just followed along behind Lachesis, though she kept her eyes on the girl they were heading for.

She looked familiar, and not just because she stood out by towering over Thessa, and Lachesis's introduction brought the spark of recognition in her mind. "Oh yeah, graffiti's pretty nifty ya know? Shame people don't like to keep it up it's pretty fun seeing how different things look whenever I pass em by. Keep up the good work!"

A wide smile crossed Sibyls face as she said, “damn a hero who gets it! Well I enjoy my art as much as I enjoy my other hobbies so be on the look out.”

Thessa grinned back then looked over at Lachesis. She pointed at Sibyl and said, "she's adorable, I like this one."

"She's a keeper, all right," Lachesis agreed. "Creation and destruction in one package, but also, you know, a cool person besides that. We saw her art and just had to talk to her."

"Good way of choosing, lot less dull than other people I could mention." She looked to Sibyl. "Creation and destruction huh. Makes me wonder what'll be next for ya."

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The mission was successful...for the most part. And Override ended up finding himself returning to headquarters alone...Aeon wanted food...not like there wasn't a cafeteria here at G3, but he digressed. He decided to use the front door this time, to which he was met by the director, Bard and... He paused for a moment, seeing the third individual, not at first knowing who this was, but thankfully the facial recognition software he had that was connected to the employee database said it was: Chet, the paralegal. And surprisingly, he was okay with accepting the paperwork and sharing his senses with Legion...must have the workings of a Cape in him deep down.

Nevertheless, he watched Chet go off, as now he remained with the director and Bard. ...and of course Aeon would leave me here with these two...I wouldn't be surprised if she did it just to keep from having to give a full debriefing. he thought, sighing slightly.

“We’re going in too. Debriefing and all that. Caesar being snooty can’t be the only thing that happened to you. You’re going to tell me everything."

"Understood sir." Override nodded, deciding to remain in his suit until he was for certain Legion's influence and powers were null and void. He preferred to keep his identity a secret from individuals like that if he could absolutely help it.

"This was your first time meeting Scarlet City’s three gang leaders, right? What are your first impressions? Do you think a longer truce is feasible?”

Override crossed his arms slightly. "It was my first time officially meeting them, yes. Hearing about them and the endeavors they've done is a different thing all together. At the same time, it helped me get a feel and a read on these leaders of theirs." he began. "That said, my first initial impressions are as follows: each one takes their roles a bit...literal...with the Fates being the biggest example. They truly go into the fullness of the mythos of them, with both feet, finishing each other's sentences and everything. Luckily, you get them alone, you can at least have them converse like a normal human being. Aside from that, the facade they have is a terrifying one...I understand now why you all put 'don't fuck with them' as a caution."

He paused, going towards the idea of Zodiac and then the Gibbons. "Zodiac, they've done things differently and have always done things differently due to the ever changing factor of the Ophiuchus. From my viewpoint, while each one will adhere to the rules and regulations set in motion with the past leaders, each one tries to add to it...example being that they used to be about power and expansion but overtime, most likely due to the influence of the newer Ophiuchus, they've simply gone to maintain the status quo...and prefer to have knowledge above everything else. Myself and the current Ophiuchus actually are a lot alike in that regard."

"As for the Gibbons...if I'm honest...at first glance, it seems that Caesar simply has a hard time focusing on everything..." he said, minding his tongue...after all...his senses were still being shared. "Almost too much on his metaphorical plate if I'm honest. But, aside from that, he's about what I expected. Though the mutilation of his own just to keep tabs on people is a shock."

Once finished, Override pondered the director's last question. "If I may speak freely, director..."

"Not like you aren't already, sir."

"...thank you, P.I.X.E.L." he sighed. "In any case...if I'm honest, whether it's feasible or not, we have to attempt to make this work. After all, everyone is at risk here. If this was simply an issue where one party wasn't going to be screwed in the end, then this wouldn't be something that would need to be drawn attention to in order to have all hands on deck. Unfortunately, it's not the case...all hands have to be on deck for this...in order for us all to survive. They've agreed to play ball...so naturally, we have to believe them and put some level of trust in them, along with their terms."

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Sibyl found herself in a great mood. Sure, she was a disappointed with how the day at the warehouse ended and would've wanted to level the whole building and sure, her teammates that she were never to see again were a bit sticks in the mud. But at least the muddiest stick was convenient transportation and even gave her lunch money! So she could forgive him for not going for food. And in spite of that, she ended up finding good company anyway. 

Once the colorful hero gave her compliments to Sibyl, the girl let out a hearty laugh. "Hahaha, I like to think I blend the two together well too. Take a look at any news channel later and you might see what came earlier." Even if it were prematurely ended for her, she was still proud in the work she ended up doing today. Sibyl then looked towards the hero girl. She had definitely heard the name, "Aeon" before. In fact Sibyl had known that name from her childhood, even if only passingly and didn't even know much about the her to begin with. Even then she couldn't help but think that something wasn't matching up with her memory. After a bit of walking around, the girl then mumbled to herself, "Aeon...Aeon..." Then, looking at the hero with some degree of scrutiny as if trying to intensely remember something, squinted her eyes saying, "didn't you use to look different?"

"Probably! The color changed a few weeks ago." She grabbed her hair and lifted it, "been growing it out too."

"Ooooooh!" The girl's eyes lit up, cheerily saying, "so you're kind of an artist too. Looks good on you." Sibyl looked over to Lachesis and said, "I don't know where you met her, but I think I like your friend already Lock. Oh!" The girl then reached into her pocket and pulled out the money she had just got saying, "wanna join me for a bite? Alder's paying." 

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Brute

“I should have warned you Caesar does stuff like that,” Bard said. “It’s my fault. I was focused on other stuff, getting all three gangs collated together. Sorry.” He rushed on ahead and held the door open for both Override and Director Sekelsky as they returned to the sweatbox meeting room. “It’s not an excuse, but I’ve been dealing with a large influx of information, so I’ve also been dealing with some migraines. Nothing out of the ordinary, but still…” He winced and rubbed his forehead.

“You’re continued presence, as always, is appreciated,” Director Sekelsky said. He gestured for Override to sit before doing the same. “I’m glad we agree about the necessity of this truce. Six months is one of those gaps of time that’s long enough to be meaningful, but still short enough that it will creep up quicker than you think. Scarlet City needs all its resources at its disposal, even the… less savory ones, so petty squabbles would just get in the way of the greater good.”

“The greater good,” Bard echoed, having moved on to rubbing his temples.

Sekelsky shot him a look, before continuing. “I won’t keep you too long. We’ll have to get in touch with Aeon at some point for her debriefing, and someone will get in contact to get P.I.X.E.L.’s recording of the day, but you can go get food as well if you like. You’re dismissed.”

“There’s more,” Bard said. “More you should probably ask him now before he leaves.”

“Come again?”

Bard responded, but he looked at Override as he said it. “All the wheeling and dealing done to get those signatures. That’s something you should talk about now.”

Director Sekelsky looked like he wanted to throw his chair across the room, but this only manifested in clenching his fists to the point of whitening them. “Fucking… you’re right. Okay. Override, what have you promised them? What are they going to be dangling over my head when I meet them next week?”


Fawn

Lachesis laughed. “I’d say ixnay on the anclay stuff but you’re right,” she said. “She would find out sooner or later and probably not even from the news or anything. Full disclosure, Aeon currently works for G3. Of course, I say ‘currently,’ like, she used to work for the Zodiac, and probably has some other stints I don’t know about. I also say ‘currently,’ because, like…” She let that last sentence trail off with a cheeky grin.

“But no, you’re right, we should get food. There’s a real greasy burger place just up those stairs back there, and I’m pretty sure it’s open seating in front of it in case you want the weird rice bowl place or anything else.”

She was right. The variety of options was demonstrable. The greasy burger place took up the most space, and many locations (including a franchise sandwich shop with bread that barely qualified, legally, as bread) just had a stall with enough room for a singular worker, or maybe one plus a manager there to keep them off their phone, but they were all up there. The seating was placed so you could look down on everyone else navigating Easton Town Center’s ground floor; it was a prime people-watching spot if ever there was one.

Lachesis sat down across from Sibyl and Aeon with a burger, fries, and a soda all on a tray, some ketchup packets and napkins scattered around for good measure. “So,” she said. “I do want to be serious for a second, sorry. I’ve been reading this book called The Passage of Power. It’s structured like a biography, though its subject, a politician called Lyndon B. Johnson, is obviously a fictional character. It’s a sprawling work, like, I’m not even close to finishing it, but one quote stood out to me.”

She took a bite of her burger and washed it down with her soda. “I’m going to butcher this ‘cause I don’t have the book on me, but it’s something like, ‘Power doesn’t corrupt, power reveals. The more power you have, the more you’re able to do what you always wanted to do.’ With the election, with Caesar and the Gibbons acting out again, and, of course, the End Of The World, like, a lot of power’s about to get spent. And I’m just like, what would the people I know want to do with it if it was theirs?”

Another bite. “Aeon, I know we already kind of talked about this, but I’m interested in specifics. You want Skitty to change, and you have all the power in the world -- what would you change it to? Sibyl, you too. You too even more, actually since, you know, you work for us. Would be a bit rude if we didn’t listen to what you had to say.

“Oh, and help yourself to these fries,” Lachesis said. She shoved her tray to the middle of the table. “There’s no way I’m going to be able to eat all of these.”


OOC

Spoiler

Subtitles are from the new Katie Gately album that should be releasing, like, twenty-four hours after this post goes up you don't understand how hyped I am for this.

Not much to say for either of these, just continuing some conversation. Victor gets to talk about all the side quests he's picked up and Lachesis is continuing some conversation she had earlier in the day, but it's probably good for Sibyl to get in on some too. I hope, is that it's a helpful icebreaker, though if you're still stuck I've got a thing you can put in your post also. Just let me know.

-r

 

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"I should have warned you Caesar does stuff like that. It’s my fault. I was focused on other stuff, getting all three gangs collated together. Sorry. It’s not an excuse, but I’ve been dealing with a large influx of information, so I’ve also been dealing with some migraines. Nothing out of the ordinary, but still…”

Override held a hand up. "No need to worry about it, Bard. I anticipated some things like that type of information would be lost in the whole process." Once he entered the meeting room, his suit of armor began to slowly retract and the nanomachines returned into his watch, as he sat down. "Also, ibuprofen should clear that up if anything."

“I’m glad we agree about the necessity of this truce. Six months is one of those gaps of time that’s long enough to be meaningful, but still short enough that it will creep up quicker than you think. Scarlet City needs all its resources at its disposal, even the… less savory ones, so petty squabbles would just get in the way of the greater good.”

"The city is a giant machine so to speak…it needs every piece in play in order to function and work properly. So it's basically not rocket science to know that we need them all." Victor shrugged slightly.

“I won’t keep you too long. We’ll have to get in touch with Aeon at some point for her debriefing, and someone will get in contact to get P.I.X.E.L.’s recording of the day, but you can go get food as well if you like. You’re dismissed.”
"There's more. More you should probably ask him now before he leaves.”
“Come again?”
“All the wheeling and dealing done to get those signatures. That’s something you should talk about now.”
“Fucking… you’re right. Okay. Override, what have you promised them? What are they going to be dangling over my head when I meet them next week?”

Victor held up a finger towards the two. "First…I need a Cheeseburger…I'm starving. Cheeseburger first, then the rest of the debriefing." he glanced at his watch. "P.I.X.E.L., two things: get an order for me some lunch done real quick and also send a full copy of the video and a transcript of the day's events to the director's email."

"Aye sir!"


One Cheeseburger Order Later

Victor was in mid-chew, having his glasses on as he accessed a holo-pad from his watch, picking it up and enlarging it to where he could show both Bard and the director. "Now, P.I.X.E.L. will have everything sent to you in an encoded email, as we do still need to take precautions...but rest assured, it won't take long for you to decode the email in order to open it. It's a simple cipher, nothing more."

He took another bite of the burger, before continuing. "We'll work ourselves backwards on this...starting with Caesar." He proceeded to pull up the recording and played it for the both of them. Once it finished, Victor continued again. "As you can surmise, he basically wanted to simply spy on us with Legion. That was his caveat to playing ball with us. Needless to say, we're pretty good on this front then. P.I.X.E.L., let's get to the Zodiac side of things."

Director Sekelsky looked at Bard, who nodded. "He's not doing anything he hasn't done before," Bard said.

The information on the holo-pad began to change, showing the information and recordings from his meeting with Ophiuchus. "For Ophiuchus, he simply wished for information...or rather, an explanation. The reason last night happened, why then, why both Cassandra and those helping them were allowed/able to break one of the big truces to do so." he took the last bite of his burger, before crumpling up the wrapper and placing it beside him on the table. "I granted him this, as it's honestly one of the easiest things we can work with dealing with. When we know, he'll know."

"'We,' meaning you," the director said. "You're the one who promised to do this. I'm not going to give you special access to G3's resources for something so trivial in the scope of the time we have left. It's useful to know he's interested in it for next week's meeting, but still, this is on you."

"I was referring to the general 'We' there director, but I digress. Annnnnnnd that brings us to the triplets..." Victor sighed, pulling up the recording and information regarding that meeting...only to have it all cut off after the initial meeting. "...after the initial meeting, the three of us were split up and talked to...with this being part of their 'favors' as they liked to call it. I was partnered and spoke with Clotho."

"You offered them favors? The Fates wanted favors from you and you gave them?"

"Yes and no." Victor continued. Part of him wanted to say and divulge the full information of he and Clotho's conversation...but it didn't seem pertinent information to relay, so he decided to keep that to himself. "As I said, I spoke with Clotho privately. As you can see, this is the portion of the information where the video and recordings cut off. I had P.I.X.E.L. turn off due to Clotho's request to not have it recorded...in order to get the signatures as instructed, I did what I had to. The solo chats was the one of two favors...more of a favor of trust, in her own words. The secondary favor, according to Clotho, is yet to be determined."

"You still owe them a favor?" Director Sekelsky brought a hand up to rub the bridge of his nose, which turned into a full covering of his face. "Sweet Zorro, dear Astra, give me the patience I need," he said into his palms. He took a deep breath, and tried to regain his composure.

"It's entirely possible we have some of the fault," Bard offered. "Another misstep passed over while briefing them."

"It's fine. It's fine," the director said. "They're really good at making these things seem innocuous. It might not seem like it matters. Maybe they put some conditionals on it that made it seem mundane. But The Fates have been active for what, a little over two years now? They make their favors matter when they come to collect. I assume they hold one over all three of you, then?"

"As far as I'm aware of, yes." Victor nodded, shrinking the holo-pad and having it de-materialize. "And I'm aware of how long they've been active. Yes, the fact that myself and the other two owe them a favor isn't the greatest...but in this situation, our orders were...if I'm not mistaken...to get these signatures. And given the gravity of the situation, it had to be done."

"We know," Bard said. "Just... try to haggle a bit next time."

"Without the legal department to assist? I think I'll take my chances with the favors." Victor crossed his arms, shaking his head with a small smirk. "In any case, the full details of the report, debriefing and recordings with the information given will be sent to you as promised, director. That's generally my full report."

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Thessa of course knew where Lachesis was going with her cheeky statement. She hopes that Thessa will join up with them next. "Dunno if I like calling it working for but guess that's best way to say it."

It seemed that Sibyl was going to be eating on someone else's dime, and Lachesis wanted all three of them to get burgers. "I hadn't decided what to get, guess that works."

Once seated with said food, Thessa began examining the burger. It didn't seem anything special though it was as Lachesis said quite greasy. She had been hoping for something unhealthy and she sure got it. As Thessa added several different condiments to the burger she listened to what Lachesis was saying.

The more power you had, was it? She had to wonder about that. After all with all her power, there was probably something pretty big that Thessa wanted but couldn't do. Sure she could take most of what she wanted, and had on a few occasions, but with her kind of power she'd think she could get much more if this Johnson guy was right.

“Aeon, I know we already kind of talked about this, but I’m interested in specifics. You want Skitty to change, and you have all the power in the world -- what would you change it to?"

"First, Lyndon is a dumb name, I wouldn't wanna read something with a main character named Lyndon, wonder why they went with that." Before answering she took some of the offered fries. And, after thinking a moment, put them under the bun of the burger. She took a bite and chewed on it. Instead of looking at either of them Thessa stared off towards the ceiling. Thinking more.

Just for a short time though and after she swallowed she began to speak. "It's not really about what the change is. Just that it changes." She took another bite. "It's gotta be different. Super different. Like, something that most people wouldn't even imagine different." She put an elbow on the table, put her chin in one hand, and tilted her head to the side as she looked across at Lachesis. "Maybe something like the end of the world, but, ya know, without it actually ending."

Lachesis laughed. "I can see why you're so mercenary, then," she said. "But follow-up question, then: is the one change enough, or does it have to keep changing? If Scarlet City became a utopia, but that utopia was the status quo, would you ruin that for everyone else?"

Thessa answered almost immediately. As though she had expected the question. "Yeah, obviously." It was such a simple answer yet one that no normal person would jump to immediately. "What kind of utopia would it be if things stayed the same?" She looked around, at the people milling about, and pointed them out. "Some of them probably think how things are is the best it could be. Changing that would be ruining someone's idea of utopia anyway wouldn't it?"

Lachesis took a sort of wry grin. "Well, it's like you said, some people don't know what they want."

"Whatever they want, you asked me what I wanted. And I want tomorrow to be different than today, and the next, and the next tomorrow after that. And why shouldn't it be? Isn't that much more fun? A big change just means it'll be different for longer."

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Sibyl was pleased with the choice of restaurant for food, evident by the two large burgers the girl had purchased. As the girl happily got to eating her food, Lachesis began to ask the two about power and changing the world if they had it. Sibyl began picking at the fries at the center of the table, listening to Aeon give her answer about the whole thing Sibyl said, "ooooh, that's pretty big." Swallowing the food already in her mouth the girl commented, "well, I'm a pretty good artist but even I can't paint a picture I don't have in my head yet." Smiling then she said, "but it sounds like a pretty fun time if you can actually cause that to happen, so I'm rooting for ya."

Reclining back in her chair, taking a handful of fries, she just started to think about the question saying, "can't really say I have much of an idea of what I'd do with all that power." Taking a few more bites of her fries the girl said, "yeah, I've never really given much care to the world or the status quo or any kind of stuff like that. I just kind of live life by the day and do whatever I please. I guess I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the friction of going against the grain, but like, that's more because of the individuals you meet then the act itself ya know?" Tapping a fry to her chin, seemingly thinking hard on how best to word it she said, "so I guess, if I had that kind of power I wouldn't really change Skitty, so much as I'd become someone Skitty has to change itself around. Or something like that?"   

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Intermission: Mayor Sam Gladwell

When he had gone to bed Halloween evening, Scarlet City’s mayor, one Samuel Gladwell, had done so at a reasonable hour. That was a word that he hoped people associated with him -- with his political career, with his friends, with himself as a person. Mayor Sam Gladwell was one reasonable human being. As that was the sort of person he was, he had assumed that nothing would wake him up until the reasonable time that his alarm went off. Instead, he had been awake since about one in the morning dealing with crisis after crisis. It was approaching one am again now, and he still wasn’t home. He was currently running on three cups of coffee, a hastily-eaten sandwich, and a fifteen-minute power nap someone had afforded him twelve hours ago now.

Perhaps it had just been one constant crisis -- the riots, two of the three major gangs of the city deciding that now of all times was the perfect time to get back at each other, coordinating a massive memo chain between the mayor’s office and the Peacekeepers, not to mention responding to the press, especially so close to election day. This could easily be his legacy. If the situation was handled poorly, it would be all anyone would remember of him. Well, that, and the world would end. But as it all crumbled and fell apart, they would blame him then.

Things were finally quieting down though. Most of the lower-level staff had been dismissed at five, anyone else deemed non-essential had left a few hours later, and coordinators like Director Sekelsky were foreseeing no more immediate issues. He’d even dismissed his bodyguards. He was alone now, with a single light to keep him company. He looked up. That single light was enough to illuminate his desk, yes, but he could see even outside the light’s expected radius. It didn’t just go away. Even when he closed his eyes, the light was still there.

Mayor Gladwell turned the light off and allowed his thoughts to wander a bit more. The election was on his mind. His opponent was a businessman named John Fipp. There was a moment in the town hall mayoral debate where, after a spirited back-and-forth about the minutiae of various policies (and a little bit of name-calling -- Sam was willing to admit some of the blame on that front even if “That’s such a lie, they should call you ‘John Fib’” was a very strong line), a middle-aged gentleman stepped up to the microphone and asked the candidates to say one thing they liked about each other. It was a common enough question, one Mayor Gladwell and his debate team had even prepared for. He’d stayed on script for that one, pushing Fipp’s qualities as a businessman and how he clearly cared for Scarlet City. Fipp responded by reiterating the actual substance of the debate to that point. “They say, ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff,’ because that’s the mayor’s job. If I am elected, do you think I’ll suddenly push sweeping changes and make everything worse? Of course not. Nothing is going to fundamentally change. I respect Mayor Gladwell and I respect the time he has spent leading our city, I just think it’s time for someone new.”

John Fipp had left weaknesses abound for him. He could point out how he was minimizing the importance of the role. The mayor was the elected leader of the entire world! How dare he casually presume his mayorship would be no big deal. Not to mention, if the candidates were similar enough, why choose anything other than the status quo to begin with? Mayor Gladwell could have said any of those things. But when the moderator prompted him for a rebuttal, he simply smiled. “John, let’s just admit that we like each other,” he said, walked over to his opponent’s podium, and hugged him. Later, his team asked him why he did that, and he admitted that he felt forced to. “I couldn’t let him have the last word on civility,” he’d say.

But that was a lie. He felt forced to, yes, but the other sort of way. For a brief moment, he saw the story of the debate stretching out in front of him, and the path between him and John Fipp’s podium was already laid out. There was nothing to do but follow it. As he reminisced further, he saw his path stretch out once more. He was moving again, smiling warmly and walking away.

The idle thoughts had turned into dreams, ones that were only interrupted when his phone buzzed with a text from his wife. I know I promised I’d wait up for you but I don’t know how much longer I can last. Are you coming home soon?

Mayor Gladwell smiled warmly and sent her a reassuring message. He stood up, put his jacket on, and began his journey home. Hopefully, he thought, the next important events would be a full week away. At least that would give him time to prepare.


Walpurgisnacht_Banner.jpg

MONDAY NOVEMBER 07
174 DAYS REMAIN

“They will wage war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will triumph over them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings—and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers.”
-Revelations 17:14 (NIV)


Even It Out

“Where’s DEUS?”

Director Sekelsky and Bard were en route to Goodale Park for the truce negotiations, which left Victor’s second-in-command, Roy “Roggy” Biff, in charge of the day’s briefing. Like Bard, Roy was a thinker, though his power was a bit more well-defined. Bard just “knew” things. Bard’s power gave him information from a source nobody could pin down. Roy’s was more synaesthetic -- he associated situations with various colors and could use that information to his advantage. Also in the room was his second, Sarah N., and she was the one Roy had addressed the question to. “DEUS was last seen at the intersection of Summit and Fifth directing traffic,” she said. “He’s likely to be there until either rush hour ends or the construction crews get that light fixed.”

Roy rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Green, I guess. Lime.”

Sarah made a note in a little notebook she had in front of her on the table. “For whatever it’s worth,” she said, “construction has been playing rather nice lately. I’m sure that was factored into your calculations -”

“It was.”

“- but I felt like it would be good to restate the reason for optimism in this case. Even if something does go wrong -”

“It won’t.”

“- you can rest assured your plight has a decent chance of being answered.”

“It won’t,” Roy said again. He straightened his clothes before actually starting to address the two heroes in the room. Override and Aeon had been assigned to work together again, though at least there was a better reason than “they were the only ones left” this time. “Alright,” he said, and he began his briefing:

“Because you two were the ones who volunteered to relay as much information as you could find regarding the end of- regarding Cassandra’s prophecy,” Roy said, still dodging the role specific G3 members played in the events of just about one week ago, “you’re being assigned to formally pay that debt. We’ve been running our end-of-the-world simulations this past week, but we need to explore every option available to us. If it’s an end of the world somebody has thought of, it’s one we can try to prepare for. We’ve arranged a meeting with the Archangel, the spiritual leader of Scarlet City’s largest religion, and you two lucky ducks get to go talk to her.”

“There’s a list of potential topics to bring up in your briefing packet,” Sarah chimed in, producing a pair of them and sliding them across the meeting room table, “but obviously the big important one is Zorrastran’s apocalypse story and how much of that the church teaches as metaphor, and which they take at face value. I mean, some of this stuff… The sky literally comes crashing down at one point.”

“Thank you, Sarah,” Roy said, taking control of the briefing back. “We’d like you to also, you know, gently encourage the church to take the stance that this is not the end of days. Even if it turns out to be the case, we don’t need people believing it. Knowing your days are numbered does strange things to a person.” He paused, then frowned. “Beige.”

Sarah made another note and kept silent this time.

“Guess that means you better get going before things get worse,” Roy said. “Make sure to thank Catty Key for arranging this meeting on such short notice again, of course. Oh, and Aeon? Don’t disappear to go get food this time, hm?

Meanwhile, miles away, Sibyl had been summoned to the Moray Clan lair, where two of the three Fates, Clotho and Atropos, awaited her. Lachesis, they explained, had gone on ahead to scope out the preparations for the meeting -- they’d be joining their sister soon.

“But we do have a job for you,” Atropos said. “Very simple, one you’ve probably done a hundred times before at this point.”

“The Archangel Lailah owes us a favor,” Clotho said. “And now’s the time to collect.”

“Gotta sermon she needs to give next Saturday.” Atropos already had the papers in her hand and handed them over to Sibyl. They had right-aligned paragraphs and everything. “Don’t really need to say what happens if she refuses, do we?”

“That being said, while you should be the most intimidating self we know you can be -”

“Creation and destruction in one package, right?” Atropos winked.

“- keep a good head on your shoulders. Lailah’s likely to have some people from the church with her, and that’s discounting her actual superpower. The Stanley Principle doesn’t work if you’re just being an idiot, right? She can suffer the consequences another day if she wants.”

“You just gotta make them think you could kick their asses even if you can’t. Simple, right?”

 


OOC

Spoiler
Spoiler

Roy "Roggy" Biff -- Sarah N.

Subtitle is a Fever Ray song

I didn't split them up into proper sections because you're going to be converging on the same location soon and also I just spent like a thousand words on flavor so I didn't want to break things up further. This is a chance to think about what your character did this past week if you have any interesting thoughts on that and ask questions about the assignment that's been presented to you. If you have any more questions, feel free to let me know.

Happy posting,

-r

 

Edited by radio414

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Thessa's week had been an unorthodox one. Instead of taking in what was going on with the city she decided to check out the edges of it instead. Specifically the Shimmer. Taking a backpack of supplies she set out to walk the entirety of the thing, a several day long endeavor, and see what she could see.

The Shimmer itself was unchanged, she was curious if there might be something wrong with it which would lead to said world ending, which she supposed should have been a good thing. It was a strange entity. The Shimmer had been there since even before Thessa was alive, an uncomfortable thought for the quasi-immortal hero, and as far as anyone knew it was always there. What it was there for wasn't something most seemed willing to think about but Thessa couldn't help but wonder now and then what lay beyond.

Despite the vast mystery there were a few things that Thessa came across on this side of the wall that managed to catch her interest.

The warehouse that, from what Thessa pieced together, Sibyl had so proudly broke seemed fixed again. Thessa sent a picture to Lachesis to share her disappointment in the fact it was back to normal so soon.

Some overgrowth of a strange kind of plant, the leftovers of a fight with a villain called Chlorophyll, still stood unyielding. It was a shame the villain had died, their corpse likely in said overgrowth, since they had often created new plant-life that brought a bit of a unique flare to wherever they plotted their plots. Perhaps given time they would have created something truly incredible. But as they are gone and as the overgrowth had remained for a long time now it had simply become another "usual" in the city and it didn't keep her attention long.

She considered at one point stopping by the church that was located among ruins nearly touching the Shimmer. It triggered her imagination, the idea that there was something from so long before located here of all places, but she didn't feel like dealing with said church. It had way too many repetitive rituals and traditions which had caused her religious phase to phase out faster than most long ago.

Thessa was surprised to find, near the end of her journey, that someone else had decided to make a similar trip. She shared numbers with them, telling them to message if they stumbled across anything surprising, before moving on.

The last thing that caught her attention, and perhaps the thing that drove her to the most intense thinking, was the lighthouse. She had read stories with such things, buildings meant to help travelers crossing water to find land, but it was strange someone built one here of all places. After all travelers of that sort were a thing of fiction and there weren't large enough bodies of water to warrant it.

Still it made her think. Thoughts that started out full of wonder and excitement and then threatened to turn to despair. Imagining a world where you could cross a vast area of water and find yourself in an entirely new place. Something that simply could never happen in this world of theirs.

Before she let it overtake her Thessa tore herself from the place to go back home.

Surely there must be something new for her to do by now?


“Because you two were the ones who volunteered to relay as much information as you could find regarding the end of- regarding Cassandra’s prophecy,”

"Did I?" Thessa said, not intending to get an answer simply expressing a moment of confusion. She certainly didn't feel like she did anything like that. But, oh well, she couldn't be bothered to remember everything she said to someone.

It was a funny thing, having to go talk to the religious leader after avoiding a church earlier that week, and Thessa wondered if perhaps there was some sort of cosmic force that had an ironic sense of humor. Still, while she didn't care much about the religion, it would be good to see what they had to say.

"Oh, and Aeon? Don’t disappear to go get food this time, hm?"

It took a moment for Thessa to understand why he would say that. When she recalled what she did last time she nodded but then added, "Oh but what if I suddenly crave something? I gotta go get it then, you wouldn't not let me do that would you Roy boy?"

Roy's fists clenched. "Don't ask me to repeat myself," he said, "especially if it makes the situation worse."

"Why would I want you to repeat yourself if I already don't like the thing you said in the first place? You're a weird guy aren't ya?" She smiled at Sarah and shook her head, "I tell ya these boys really are wound up over silly things."

Sarah managed a grin but it disappeared as soon as Roy glanced her way.

Roy said, "Director Sekelsky is a lot more tolerant of chicanery. Which is good. It's why he's going to a meeting with three erratic gang leaders. But while I'm in his place, G3 operates under my rules. I don't have consequences in mind for if you break them yet, but I will find them, you can be assured of that."

There was a moment that Thessa's gaze shifted as she looked at the man. As though their color darkened while watching his reaction. But then she laughed and it was gone.

"Yeah Victor is a lot better at this, that's for sure. Well all I gotta do is figure out what they know about the end of the world, make sure they aren't involved, and keep em from making things worse right? I'm sure I'll figure it out and if anything goes wrong I'll just fix it up. And hey maybe we'll find out they're behind it and I can bust it up right off the bat, that'd make ya happy wouldn't it Roy?" She paused just a moment and added, as though it were an afterthought, "oh and some advice, consequences can go both ways so best to keep that in mind yeah?" She followed it with a wink.

"Glad we understand each other, then." Came the response.

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Back to the Lab Again

Once the day ended, for most of the time, Victor and P.I.X.E.L. remained recluse in the workshop below his day job. Things still didn't add up for the intellectual, but perhaps that was the intrigue about it. There was, for the first time in a long while, something that Victor couldn't explain nor replicate in anything...it was thrilling, sure, but if this wasn't the end of the world type of stuff, perhaps he could enjoy it a bit more?

"In six months, the world will end."

He found himself listening to Cassandra's final words again, trying to once again glean anything from this. Aside from this, he replayed and replayed the footage from this moment, trying his best to see if anything was seen...anything out of the ordinary...but no avail. He rubbed the bridge between his eyes, letting out a deep sigh. "We're missing something...we have to be." he muttered to no one. "...he wouldn't have had any issue finding the problem and would've isolated it immediately. What would I do if I were him? ...damnit..." Victor bit his thumb slightly, in the process of hyper-fixing his attention to this, his mind racing quite a bit as he began to think about...

"If I may, sir." the Scottish voice of P.I.X.E.L. broke through the silence. "Please try not to continue with this tonight. You'll only torment yourself further... Instead, set this on the back-burner for now."

Victor sighed again, before minimizing the footage. "Have it run in the background...I need to have every inch of the footage analyzed." he said, before opening another screen. "In the mean time...let's see what we can do about miss Penelope's machine, shall we? Seems like it might be a fried motherboard...heh, child's play if I'm honest. Alright, let's get to work then." It would cause him to be distracted, the good kind, for a while. Talking to machinery, rearranging their inner workings...it was what Victor lived for...it's what his heart and mind excelled in. There would be more time for him to become engrossed with this apocalypse...but for now...he needed focus...and that's what he did.


November 7th - Monday

“Because you two were the ones who volunteered to relay as much information as you could find regarding the end of- regarding Cassandra’s prophecy, you’re being assigned to formally pay that debt. We’ve been running our end-of-the-world simulations this past week, but we need to explore every option available to us. If it’s an end of the world somebody has thought of, it’s one we can try to prepare for. We’ve arranged a meeting with the Archangel, the spiritual leader of Scarlet City’s largest religion, and you two lucky ducks get to go talk to her.”

"Makes sense...start with the religious aspect of this and see if anything cross references what we're seeing..." Victor nodded. Now whether this was a religious prophecy or just something else, he didn't know, but it was best to cover all bases and go with what they could. A...type of troubleshooting in his eyes. There was a reason that Roy was the director's right-hand man.

"Oh, and Aeon? Don’t disappear to go get food this time, hm?"
Oh but what if I suddenly crave something? I gotta go get it then, you wouldn't not let me do that would you Roy boy?"
"Don't ask me to repeat myself, especially if it makes the situation worse."

This elicited a sigh that escaped Victor's lips, rubbing the bridge of his nose slightly. Once again, he found himself in a situation where Aeon was getting under someone's skin...but unfortunately, it was Roy. There was another reason why he was the director's right-hand man...he took no shit from anyone, period.

"Director Sekelsky is a lot more tolerant of chicanery. Which is good. It's why he's going to a meeting with three erratic gang leaders. But while I'm in his place, G3 operates under my rules. I don't have consequences in mind for if you break them yet, but I will find them, you can be assured of that."
"Yeah Victor is a lot better at this, that's for sure. Well all I gotta do is figure out what they know about the end of the world, make sure they aren't involved, and keep em from making things worse right? I'm sure I'll figure it out and if anything goes wrong I'll just fix it up. And hey maybe we'll find out they're behind it and I can bust it up right off the bat, that'd make ya happy wouldn't it Roy? oh and some advice, consequences can go both ways so best to keep that in mind yeah?"
"Glad we understand each other, then."

"In any case..." Victor spoke up, clearing his throat. "We'll make sure that we get the appropriate information from the Archangel and relay them back to you as instructed. Is there anything else we need to know before hand on meeting this individual? Dos or don'ts, for the long and short of it."

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Over the course of the week, Sibyl had found herself with a plethora of free time and not much currently on her agenda to take of. Not like the demon girl had ever been one for keeping such a detailed plan for day to day activities. Naturally when she was bored and had nothing to pass the time with, Sibyl elected to go find some place to paint over. However, quite as she had stated the day prior, she couldn't draw a picture without an idea of it in her head. Similarly she couldn't do so without a canvas either. And so, she spent the following days looking for both a wall and inspiration. And so she went to all kinds of places. 

First was the sights of other graffiti artists, more to evaluate what they had done more then actually draw inspiration from them. She had gone to places she had spray painted before, seeing them now all cleaned and tidy making her only feel the urge to go over it again. Of course, areas that were so readily cleaned were always a bit of a pain to get painted in the first place and without an image in mind yet she didn't want to make such a fuss. And so she visited any place she could that she could think of with some kind of artistic flair to it. Music shops, libraries, the tops of buildings to get a bird's eye view of the city. Even simply sitting at a cafe and watching people pass by. She had been relatively docile and lowkey for how usually bombastic her personality was, though this was starting to get her nowhere fast. Feeling like the city wasn't giving her much inspiration she suddenly remembered the warehouse that she had been to not too long ago. And so, with the idea in her head she went on a bit of a night time tear that very night. 

The next morning injured officers could be found resting against a previously spotless wall, now sporting the image of a dilapidated concrete building. The furniture was all over the place and it looked as though nature were over taking the structure, vines and plants growing out of every surface that was represented on the picture. Such a scene naturally grew a crowd, and of course it was easily noticeable online. People who had found the image intriguing, trying to figure out the symbolism of every part of it, trying to figure out the artist's intents and what they were trying to say to the public. Of course, Sibyl just thought Baba Yaga was cool. 


 

"Oooh. Well, if she doesn't give me a reason to I won't go smashing up the place. It might even be fun to talk to her type." Sibyl grabbed the papers from the Fate. "But," the girl started to chuckle, "you got some sense of humor sending me to her." The girl gave a flick to one of her horns. 

It took a second, but they both started laughing too. "I think we completely forgot about that," Clotho said. "We see you so often, I dunno, just stopped parsing them. But no, that's cool."

"Probably adds to the effect we're going for," Atropos said.

"Yeah, and if it doesn't, well, it's too funny not to now."

Smiling like an idiot Sibyl said, "gotcha! I'll see if a demon can't have fun at church. And by the end of it she'll probably either leave with a black eye or a burger in hand...I wonder if she's allowed to eat burgers." The girl mused aloud. "Well, whatever. Bye bye!" Sibyl left the headquarters, beginning her trek to where Archangel was. 

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Anchor

Roy Biff, face all red and hands clenched tight around the back of the chair he was leaning on, looked to the world like he was about to throw something -- hands, Sarah, the chair, whatever. Still, he managed to take a few deep breaths before responding to Override’s question. “Not an apostle, then?” he said. “That’s fine. But Lailah’s like every other holy leader Scarlet City has had, so I would have assumed you’d have been able to make some extrapolations.”

“She is different,” Sarah chimed in. “She’s quieter than most. And -”

“Thank you, Sarah,” Roy said. “It’s true that she’s quiet, but she’s quiet in that ‘wisdom’ sort of way, not in the ‘shy’ sort of way. And she’s not a gang leader. She’s not going to bite your head off if you look at her funny. Here, you want an itemized list of instructions? Do: keep Aeon in check because I worry she’s going to take that last as a challenge -- don’t look at me like that Aeon, you know you are.” He gave the hero in question a wry grin. “Do: be on your guard in case this big meeting goes pear-shaped. Lailah’s current church isn’t that far from Goodale Park so we might need you elsewhere to assist. And don’t, under any circumstances -”

He paused, and frowned. “Mustard,” he said.

“French or Dijon?” Sarah asked.

Roy wheeled around to face Sarah and made a wordless gesture that could only mean, “Does it really matter?” to which Sarah just shrugged and exaggeratedly drew a question mark in her notes. When Roy returned his focus to the actual briefing he’d clearly lost his train of thought and had to move on. “You had better get going,” he said, “before the situation gets even worse.”


We Live on a Fucking Planet Baby That’s The Sun

One of the central tenets of the Zorrastran faith was that no one church was more important than any other. Whether it was smack dab in the middle of Scarlet City or out in the ruins with a wall practically aligning with the Shimmer, they each had unique quirks that made them stand out. To ascribe value to any one such quality of a church would be to diminish the other qualities, that was the teaching. To that end, no one church could house the Archangel for any significant length of time. Lailah lived the life of a nomad, a wanderer going between churches as she saw fit. They were obligated to house her, of course -- though they would have even without the laws of the church dictating as such -- and she presided over the weekend ceremonies, giving a few remarks if asked before moving on a week or two later.

The church she’d ended up at for the first week of November was just outside the Short North area called the Church of the Sacred Harp. The lot used to contain a school building, but that had been torn down decades, if not centuries ago to make room for the large X-shaped building, one with an altar in the middle and rows of pews extending outward in each cardinal direction. At the end of each arm of the X was a scene depicted in stained glass telling the story of Zorro and Astra’s battle with Nil. The door under the scene showing the two, victorious, banishing Nil from the city, and yet with Nil’s final machinations looming overhead, was unlocked as Sibyl arrived, though before she could get a chance to take in too much more of the scenery, she was approached by the church’s pastor. “Welcome,” they said. “You’re a bit earlier than we were expecting but the Archangel Lailah is upstairs and should be ready for your appointment.” A pause. “Although, weren’t there supposed to be two of you? It doesn’t matter, I suppose. If you would just follow me.”

The upstairs had a few more pews to view any sort of church service, but was mostly an office space, where the church took care of the various administrative tasks required of it. It was an open office, without walls or cubicles separating the two computers, refrigerator, or, yes, the cot where the Archangel Lailah lay, looking up at the ceiling.

At the ceiling? No. In fact, Lailah’s eyes followed two globules of light, each no bigger than an apple, as they danced weightlessly around in the air. It took a prod or two from the pastor for her to even notice Sibyl’s entrance, and the woman scrambled up to a sitting position on the cot, brushing down her costume to something expected of her station. The orbs of light shifted their position as well -- they now flanked Lailah on her left and right. Her eyes fell on Sibyl and she smiled warmly. “Ah, my friend,” she said, revealing herself as someone who called everyone her friend whether she knew them or not, “how are you? Welcome. How may I be of service?” To the pastor, she added, “Thank you, you may leave us now.”


OOC

Spoiler

The Archangel Lailah

Subtitles are songs from the new ALL HANDS_MAKE LIGHT album.

Bit of a transitionary post here. Sibyl got there first because she finished her briefing first, though I'm sure the heroes can arrive in time to clear up any misunderstandings before they get too awkward, though. Basic knowledge of the Apostles of the Sun/Zorrastranism would be considered common knowledge so let me know if you have any questions about that. It's got Christianity draws mostly because there are a lot of churches in Columbus, and the building you're in is where a church is in real life even if it's got entirely different architecture. I guess the same could be said for the religion as a whole.

Let me know if you have any other questions too, or need me for lines.

-r

 

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