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| Kale Hearthward | What comes before? What comes after? These are the greatest mysteries of our time, to be sure. There may not be answers, but then perhaps, we aren't sure we have the right questions, either. Countless philosophers have puzzled over the greatest of conundrums, coming to a single conclusion, a single absolute truth: The sum of the- "A moment." Oh, okay, sure, just interrupt the opening narration, whatever... There's Purple Mage, standing to one side of the door leading to Professor Orange's lab. "Green Mage has informed me that we are likely on the outs with Gold Pig. That he is a traitorous bastard who will probably backstab us. I find I agree." "It's my understanding that we are no longer enemies, but..." Their eyes sweep over the party. "We are not quite allies, either. So, I have a neutral amount of advice, befitting a neutral relationship." "... Professor Orange is tricky, and his subject matter as of late is the nature of reality. If I had to guess... I would be prepared to move quickly. Not... in terms of land speed, necessarily, but... in response time." Purple's eyes narrow a bit. "Sort of response time. Not... *your* response time, necessarily. Just be on the ball if you see a clock counting down, you should be ready to act before it finishes." "... That was probably more than a neutral amount of advice. My apologies. I will be sure to find a minor way to hinder you later on, so that we are once again even." They remain standing next to the door, not blocking your way but not intending to assist, either. Who *is* ready to assist is the Red Doll, who's moving to join you, with a purpose you've rarely seen from them during the entire expedition here. Frog said they couldn't defend themself without the arm, but - - Well, the Red Doll seems like they're going to try, regardless. The group's missing Kale, who was caught in a trap. Also the group is missing Future Kale, who was also caught in a trap - which is compelling albeit circumstantial evidence that he is the same person. If the trails of feathers are anything to go by, they're already both in there, subjected to who knows what. The door to Professor Orange's lab is unlocked, and there's laboratory noises coming through from the other side. Something's already going on in there - better be prepared for a fight! |
| Futaba Nuki | Taking a detour from her character sheet, Futaba is here to help find Kale in his time of presumed danger! And Future Kale, too, which has the tanuki speculating on how much could have really changed if he doesn't even have an eyepatch. Red Doll being there and seemingly ready to charge into the room alongside everyone gets a broader grin from Futaba, too, as she eagerly claps the doll on the shoulder. "Ready to show us what you're made of?" The missing arm clearly isn't enough of a reason for her to try and stop them. Purple's neutrality has her nodding, too, raising a hand confident self-thumb-pointing. "Don't you worry. We've got reflexes to spare! And if we do end up needing land speed to go with it, I've got just the thing." What that thing is does not get explained. Instead, Futaba just glances at her companions to make sure they're ready once she kicks that door open to loudly announce the group's arrival and run straight in. Naturally, the scarf billows, and there's a rush of wind as Futaba dashes straight ahead without heeding any obvious obstacles in her path. "That's enough, Professor Orange! Let those birds and body parts go, and we can do this the easy way!" |
| Madeleine Cadrasteia | Madeleine is a little jarred by the sudden change of plans, but begrudgingly agrees that it's important to rescue present and future Kales "before Professor Orange turns them into a two-headed bird-bird chimera, or whatever". When Futaba makes it clear she's employing the bold 'rush in one at a time' strategy by doing exactly that, Madeleine waits for another Elite or two to make their dramatic entrances before slipping in behind them and immediately breaking off from the group, trying to disappear among the tables and cabinets of laboratory equipment and circle around the lab to ambush Professor Orange once he's entangled with the rest of the group. |
| Angela | Angela supposes it makes sense to make your tabletop character and then let the 'Ritual Master' craft the proper scenario for said ritual. But even so she's thinking this is a lot of trouble for one arm when she could have given the Red Doll many arms over by now. "Frankly, my understanding is that some offices use prosthetics that even give them multiple arms at once, so really it is your own fault for sticking to two limbs and then falling asleep where anyone could just steal them, but I suppose being awake doesn't really stop you from losing legs either, so perhaps techniques in amputation have simple come a long way in this world." Angela says. She glances to Petra and adds, "I have learned that there is a benefit to collaberative storytelling, however, but I feel it is mostly in the design and outlining process so far of what I've seen, swapping from chapter to chapter seems like it could be disjointed but having someone review your thoughts, character, and story seems helpful both in avoiding pitfalls that one is blind to but also can help elevate the work by having multiple idea-threads coming together. Naturally, you would need someone who has some degree of relatability to you, not necessarily in the sense of living similar lives but being able to empathetically critique and encourage through various stages of the draft process." She looks to Cinder and says, "Cinder, please bust down the door and say something frustrating." She then looks to the two Mages and adds, "It seems you two are not inclined to be of assistance. This is acceptable, and expected, just do not get in our way. The promise to the musical frog has already been made." Cinder promptly kicks the door open and shouts, "Professor Orange!" She ignites Fourth Match Flame in her hands. "Prepare to get PEELED and ROASTED!" "Very good, Cinder. That is sure to be relatively infuriating." |
| Xion | "Well, you mostly just told us to pay attention to obvious countdowns, which is more observing some fairly standard conventions. If anything, it's neutral to understand *convention*." Xion reasons, standing up from her Keyblade lean-over when the Several Minutes // Several Weeks of waiting turn up with allies. "I think a tutorial is neutral, because *not* having a tutorial is maybe a little malicious? It's not on you if people ignore it, but if it's never given yet expected, wouldn't that be non-neutral?" Yawning, stretching, and pulling the Kingdom Key from its buried spot in the ground before Professor Orange's door, the noirette shoulders her weapon and heads in, looking around for clocks of digital and analog varieties while yawning and rubbing her eyes. How long had it been? Unclear! Joining Cinder on entry and standing besides in Player Two formation, Xion glances over at the grillmeistress. "You grill oranges? I've never, are they better than tomatoes? Mmm, the rind might get really good actually... But if you peel them, wouldn't that take away the best part to get cooked?" She's tired enough to take Cinder's infuriating lines entirely seriously. |
| Calvin Nash | Kale was caught in a trap. So too, was Future Kale, or rather, so too will he be. This means he'll need to be freed, which means the time spent here will necessarily be greater than it otherwise would. This is not ideal for Calvin, who, as aforementioned, finds that the undercooked nature of this place makes his skin itch--at least the 'ritual' took his mind off it with its quaint unfamiliarity. Frankly, my understanding is that some offices use prosthetics that even give them multiple arms at once, so really it is your own fault... "It's Blue's fault," Calvin asserts, looking up from businesslike, matter-of-fact tapping at his wrist-mounted keyboard. "For stealin' it, and Gold Pig's for eggin' 'em on with promises ain't gonna keep and shouldn'ta made in the first place even if he was. Blaming it on Red's don't do nothing but do that sumbitch Pig a favor." He returns his attention to Purple Mage, continuing his note entry. Notepad v. 1.0 developed by Jamie Molina Now editing file 'Everhood.txt' - prof. orange 'tricky' - researching 'nature of reality' - look out for countdown clocks? - look out for 'minor hindrens' Thus it was written. "Thanks much," says Calvin evenly to Purple Mage with a nod, flipping his bulky wrist-mounted computer closed--but before it clicks shut, his blue eyes flick with suspicion towards the door. Flipping the COMP back open, Calvin backs out of the note-taking program with a .save and a .exit--then enters .load roster. A list of his demons appears, with various abbreviated, abstracted values listed in green text on black monitor. .summon 1 A stream of half-legible numerals occluded by voxels spews from the COMP, swirling and green. It winds a serpentine tighter and tighter until nothing can be seen within its coils, rising like a waterspout and dissipating as quickly as it had appeared. Pabilsag--PB, for short, stands in the eye of the storm, so to speak, revealed as the stream of information dissipates beside Calvin. An elegant hunting bow is held in one of his inhuman, olive-green hands, the other resting at his side. The demon's death's head is always set in a rictus smile--you'd look like you were smiling, too, if you didn't have any lips and only pinprick white lanterns set in darkened sockets to suggest eyes. His scorpion stinger peers over one shoulder, held up and alert. "If it's gonna be a fight, cover me from the back line. I'll get in close, and we'll try 'n take the fight out of 'em." "I shall." Calvin rushes in alongside Futaba. "Cut the shit, egghead," he bluntly orders. In his right hand, a roiling orb of black miasma forms, with a baleful white core burning at its center. A similar kind of miasma gleams, shaped into the head of a smoky, barely distinct arrow nocked in PB's bow. |
| Petra Soroka | < Petra, we're at another door, and Professor Orange is inside. Can you bring everyone to the carnival, down the trap door near the race, and through the path to the laboratory? > "*Fuck*, dude! Seriously?" Petra, who is checking her phone while seated at the table for Green Mage's tabletop gaming, because like most women playing Medallion she was only roped into the activity by physical convenience and social pressure, swears and whines at the change of plans, but any excuse to stop roleplaying is a good one. After rejoining the party, Petra is ready to vent her feelings about having been dragged on a boring waste of time at the whims of barely contextually-revlevant losers by doing violence to other inhabitants of this shitty fucked up trash heap of a world. In retrospect, maybe Petra's opinions about being bored by something as mundane as a nerd's roleplaying interests are intensified by the eroding aesthetic absence of the Everhood. "... That was probably more than a neutral amount of advice. My apologies. I will be sure to find a minor way to hinder you later on, so that we are once again even." "I don't fucking play that shit with neutrality, idiot. Hinder us and I'll escalate a thousand times worse than you can match." Petra huffs, rubbing at her eyes with the heel of her hand like the environment is giving her a headache. She gravitates between Cinder and Xion, with Angela on her back, to create a barrier of loved ones against the numb oblivion of a neighborhood that's kind of uninteresting. "Cinder, please bust down the door and say something frustrating." "Oh, shit, should I say something frustrating too? God, I don't think I have anything-- who the fuck even is this guy? We hate him, right?" Petra comes up with nothing, failing the mental ability roll to even say anything while trudging into the laboratory. Cinder's shout, at least, perks her up, and reminds her to pull out one of her ratbots-- still wearing cute custom plate armor, with a lance strapped to its adhesive hook underneath. "You know, he's *got* to have feelings about oranges, right? Like, the food? If his *name* is Professor Orange, he's got to at least have given it some thought, right? Or maybe my hopes are too high for these fucking braindead shells." |
| Kale Hearthward | > "I think a tutorial is neutral..." "... That is sound reasoning, I suppose. I will refrain from causing a minor inconvenience." Red Doll gives a slight nod at Futaba's encouragement. They seem receptive of it, at least. INSIDE: "Oh good you're here!" says Kale, who is strapped into a miniature particle accelerator. "Oh finally, you're here," says Kale, who is strapped into a miniature particle accelerator. "Nobody got hurt on the way here, right?" says Kale. "Took you long enough, what were you doing?" says Kale. Kale and Kale are strapped in among rows of control panels, monitors, and various laboratory paraphernalia. The laboratory itself is built inside a large cavern that stretches further on in. The oeuvre here feels a little more saturated than outside, though not by too much. "INTRUDERS!" Professor Orange appears on one of the monitors. He does indeed look like Dr. Robotnik if he lost some weight. > "Prepare to get PEELED and ROASTED!" "Oh good, name humor. I see that is the caliber of intellect I'm dealing with." Professor Orange peers through his own monitor. "And put that away - an open flame doesn't belong in a laboratory. You could melt something important or injure someone." "Actually I kind of agree with the sociopathic doctor here," says one of the Kales, testing the straps that are holding him in place. Meanwhile Kale just stares at the Fourth Match Flame with wide open eyes. "I do not know how you managed to get into my lab, without having the key I cleverly hid elsewhere, but - you're too late! I have captured both of your twin bird people, and my experiments shall proceed unhindered. GRUNDALL!" Grundall appears. He looks exactly like how you would imagine a Grundall. "Grundall! Make yourself useful, and expel these intruders!" "Gruuuuhhh..." says Grundall, dragging his oversized arms along as he approaches the group. "Or better yet - capture them! We always need more test subjects, and they look like a... colorful bunch." "Gruaaauuuhhh..." complains Grundall, still approaching. As he does, he starts moving his feet oddly... ... Oh, he's dancing. Oh no, he's dancing. Madeleine's attempts at stealth let her get off a little easier and she only has to deal with splash damage, but everyone else gets waves of colored oeuvre flying at them, fueled by Grundall's stomp-dance assault! |
| Madeleine Cadrasteia | "Grundall...?" Madeleine mutters to herself as she creeps among the lab equipment. "What kind of off-brand Beowulf motherfucker..." Then the dancing starts. You'd think she'd be ready for it by now, but the hulking assistant's moves catch the huntress off-guard, sweeping her off her feet. She slows her fall with a hand outstretched to the floor, softening the impact enough to *probably* not blow her cover immediately. Staying low to the floor (and playing a little hopscotch to avoid the incoming waves of stray oeuvre), she scurries deeper into the cave-laboratory, approaching the two Kales and the sinister devices they're attached to. When she arrives at one of the Kales - doesn't matter to her which is which, in the moment - she pauses to contemplate the machinery with its intricate controls. After a long moment she shrugs, draws her knife, and begins sawing away at the straps, hoping to free at least one of the birdmen before these devices activate... |
| Petra Soroka | "Oh good you're here!" "Took you long enough, what were you doing?" "Hey, Kale, why are you being an asshole?" From many, many experiences with being one of two Petras in the room, and always being mocked for it, Petra's immediate instinct upon seeing Kale and Future Kale for the first time is to be rude. She directs her question to the nice Kale, while blaming him for the actions of the snotty Kale. This is, in her experience, the correct way for doubles to be treated. "And after falling for a trap and getting kidnapped like that, by some second-rate villain. Are you trying to take after Hibiki more? If your plan's to play up being airheaded and clumsy like that, you should at least have the dignity to look more pathetic about it." It's not until after getting all that out that she notices-- "Doctor--?!" Oh, no, it's a lamer copy of him, of course he wouldn't be here. "Oh, ew-- name humor's pretty basic, but it's not like we knew that you looked like a freaky little goblin until right now, right? Cut us some slack. If we'd seen a picture beforehand, we probably would've made fun of your oversized ears, or your totally tasteless color palette, or your giant bald forehead. Or maybe the fucking half-rate construction of those particle accelerators you've got the Kales strapped to." The ouevre in here *is* enhanced, to Petra, but it's not just because there's actual villainous decor in the environment. It's *also* because, vampirically, Petra regains interest in her surroundings by insulting everyone she isn't immediately bonded to! "I do not know how you managed to get into my lab, without having the key I cleverly hid elsewhere, but - you're too late!" As Grundall trundles out, Petra mumbles under her breath, like she's possessed by the urge to say it but can't bring herself to announce it like Cinder did, "But orange you glad it's not Gold Pig?" Before getting beamed by Grundall's dance. In return, Petra pulls her guitar off of the side of the Eggpack, holding it ready and carefully adjusting her grip on the beloved object, before... "Ugh. Wow. The mood isn't right at *all*. Hold on, I'm just going to follow Cinder's lead and use some fire." Petra plucks her armored ratbot out of the air, and gently detatches the lance from its grip. In its place, she gives it a small remote explosive, then directs it to hover above Grundall and drop the bomb onto his head. |
| Angela | Angela's own opinions seem relatively dire but she hasn't started openly complaining (as much). She's more at the state of 'making do'. She does smile when Petra rails against neutrality. Angela has never been a fan of neutrality either. With an enemy you know where they stand, but with a neutral--they could be anything. This bit is unironically how Angela sees it. She'll never let someone she thinks is a friend betray her ever again simply because it didn't turn out to be true. She has numerous safeguards on this. ''Should I say something frustrating too?-- who the fuck even is this guy? We hate him, right?'' "I believe so? I think he works for the man who stole Red's arm." She frowns. "...Admittedly, unsure why we care about ''that'' but I suppose a deal is a deal even if I admittedly underestimated the amount of trouble one arm could bring us." Should she anything too, though? "He probably does have opinions on oranges?" She suggests. ''You grill oranges?'' "Oh yeah they're actually really tasty. I can make some for you next time you drop by." ''Cut the shit, egghead.'' "Yeah that's a great one." Cinder agrees. ''caliber of intellect and whatnot'' "Heh...Impressed?" Cinder says, not smart enough to realize he was being sarcastic or perhaps smart enough to pretend he wasn't be to get on his nerves more. ''Doctor--?!'' "Mm. That is a good point. He is even named after a spherical object not unlike an egg--Perhaps he is an alternate knockoff--" She draws out the FrogBAnjo and strums back even as Cinder jumps back, nearly poking Red Doll with the Fourth Match Flame in the process, to avoid the flying color blocks. Angela retaliates with colored blocks of her own, intending to smash GRundall's so others can ouvere him into submission. Angela is starting to lose track of what the word ouvere means now that it has become an instrument (heh) of violence. |
| Futaba Nuki | "It's Blue's fault," "For stealin' it, and Gold Pig's for eggin' 'em on . . ." "Ain't that the truth. Even if Red could've done a couple of things better, we're looking at a major branch of all this stuff going on. Might as well trim this orange bush that's right in front of us!" Leaving Madeleine to handle the more secretive side of things, Futaba keeps herself busy with parsing both the threats and insults thrown the Professor's way and also looking for the Kales. "I've had some pretty good candy made outta orange peels! And drinks, too, although there's so much sugar in 'em that I get way too wired, and then I start really hankerin' for the stuff, and then-" Before she can start rambling way too long to Cinder and Xion about all sorts of snacks she's had involving orange peels, she spots Kale, and her game face comes right back. She purses her lips slightly as he tells Cinder to put her EGO weapon away, stroking her chin lightly in deeper thought. "A flaming backdrop would make for a pretty awesome... Uh. Backdrop for our big rescue, though." She looks towards the Kales, holding her fingers out like she's framing a photo. "A bit of fire in the front, then us burstin' through it all to yank 'em both to safety... Come on, Mister Hearthwards. You know that'd be cool!" The Grundall's appearance just has the ninja looking even more excited. "And that dude comin' right on through it all! Like a... Like a jump scare! Maybe even pickin' up some of it in his palm and throwing it around or something!" She rambles on, not realizing he's starting to dance until the waves start flying all over. Caught off guard, Futaba yelps lightly as she's thrown off balance by the first wave and fumbles the next few. "Already?! Alright, big guy.. Let's see how you like some of... This!" Springing back to her feet with her hands, Futaba starts dancing right back at the grundall, waving her arms around herself at quick, yet steady clip. Her sleeves transform a few seconds in, going from their usual track jacket brown to more elegantly flowing sleeves that would belong on a ceremonial garb, silk-like in appearance with a golden leaf-patterned trim. As she steps around the green giant, she keeps her upper body fairly still, almost giving off the feeling that she's gliding around him instead of just dancing around him with precise footwork and upper body control. Even her giant raccoon tail goes along with her dance, flicking every now and then like she's trying to keep the grundall's attention on her and not the colored blocks she's directing to batter him in return. |
| Calvin Nash | Calvin isn't a great dancer--whenever there's a party, he's usually putting his energy into socializing and keeping the vibes going. He is a competent fighter. If he thinks less about the oncoming waves of oeuvre in terms of a call awaiting a response, and more in terms of a fight... Then he can get one fist up and out to protect his face, with the bulky COMP held close, to protect his midsection, get his feet to working, bouncing--he's pretty agile in those cowboy boots. Bouncing to the beat without realizing it, he adjusts his angle as the rear foot touches the ground, pivoting his stance to turn a direct hit into a near miss. Gritting his teeth through the head-spinning disorientation, Calvin taps in a command while the miasma burns at the end of his COMP-hand, black tendrils creeping between the fingers of his clenched fists... .load analyze A green scan line, like the refresh of an old CRT, sweeps up Grundall's physical form, followed by a reedy 'bleep' from the crude soundboard in Calvin's COMP. Maintaining his stance, his eyes flick down to speedread: Analyze v. 2.3.2 developed by Trina McElwain 'Grundall' Affinity: Lightning Threat: Common No notable techniques found. Excessive offensive focus. "He's all engine, no gas! Wear 'im out, y'all! Dorma!" Calvin calls out, hurling his spell with a powerful hook--the tendrils seep through his closed fist and congeal into an orb that races for Grundall across the laboratory. Behind him, PB looses a rapid-fire spread of arrows, formed of that same white-core, black-mist miasma, zipping angrily across the impromptu dance floor. The attacks aren't properly damaging in and of themselves--even the arrows. Rather, they're status ailments, meant to exhaust Grundall and put him to sleep! |
| Xion | Xion, asked how she got into a door to be so intruding, raises her enormous key. "I've got a key right here! Just because you hid one doesn't mean a door is anything more than something to slow people down! Do you really think you can just abduct Kale twice and lock a *door* to stop us?!" Xion's levelled accusation comes with a Kingdom Key-tip pointed at one Kale, and then the other, and... Then she gives up and points at the monitor with her raised blade. "Experimenting on people who you capture isn't a protected activity! Actually it's pretty rude! So release our birds, now!" Xion challenges, and the screen shakes with footsteps instead. Closing her eyes and lowering her blade, Xion slowly shifts her neck left and then right, hitching in the moment before the tension-pop releases. Rolling her shoulders and bringing Keyblade to bear in a two-handed grip, Xion squares down against the suddenly dancing Grundall. "I'm not going to dance for you. I'm just forcing my way through -- because I'm looking forward to grilled oranges!!" Hopping over the ground waves of Ouvere while the rest of it washes over her blocks bashing against her blade-guard, Xion rolls as she lands and comes up in a running slash, disjointing in an implosive jump to reappear mid-rising attack ending in a chopping-down overhead that scatters pale stars on impact that roll on landing and lose themselves in corners and machinery. |
| Kale Hearthward | > "Hey, Kale, why are you being an asshole?" "Oh - Petra. You're looking well," says Nice(?) Kale. That's also the one that Madeleine has started freeing. > "But orange you glad it's not Gold Pig?" Nice Kale laughs, while the other Kale rolls his eyes. Petra uses fire. Fire bad! Angela backs her up with the colored blasts. Grundall staggers back with each hit, and the oversized arms try in vain to pat out the flames. Grundall doesn't seem to be... very well put together? Literally?? Futaba comes in and starts batting around the oeuvre blasts. This gets Red Doll's attention briefly, and for a few moments she's the entirety of their focus - until they get back to the fight. Red Doll doesn't seem to be able to attack, but they're also working to distract Grundall or whatever other hazards come the group's way. Calvin's tactics layer on effect after effect - and it doesn't take much to start seeing the results. Grundall is reacting a bit less quickly, starting to slow down, his attacks are becoming less directed and more haphazardly aimed... ... and every few seconds, lightning starts sparking from his head, as if he's overloading... ... And then, after one more well-aimed sleep spell, Grundall stops moving, and falls over backwards, head sparking. "... Useless, I should have broken you down for spare parts..." And then Orange notices that Madeleine is working on freeing one of the Kales. "Ah ah ah - no disrupting the experiments or freeing the test subjects. Don't you know not to touch other peoples' toys?" A pair of giant claws descend from the ceiling, hook onto the particle accelerators, wrench them out of the floor, and start carrying them towards the back of the cavern - Kales and all, and possibly with Madeleine along for the ride if she's hanging on. Meanwhile, other defenses in the lab activate - ray gun turrets, tesla pylons, and dispensers that fire quantized globules of weird goo. You know, the typical mad science defenses. Petra might feel right at home here! |
| Futaba Nuki | The Grundall goes down far faster than expected, and Futaba lets out a little satisfied huff as she pats herself down with her unnecessarily flowing sleeves. "Huh. Good work, everyone1 Kind of fast, though.. You sure you ain't holdin' out on us, Professor?" She looks up as she asks that question, looking up and over at the rest of the lab as she tries to puzzle out what else might show up in this direct attack on Orange's lab. Her easygoing attitude towards all this does taper off, however, the moment he speaks ill of the Grundall. "Oi. You're the one that built him." She snaps in open irritation, moving over to the sparking machine and patting him on the head with a strange sort of reverence. "If you made something that's not meant for fighting, maybe don't send him out for a fight. Let him do what he's good at!" Futaba sighs lightly as the defenses in the lab start turning on, almost looking relieved even as they start bearing down on everyone with all manner of lasers and electric arcs. "See, that's more like it!" She still doesn't sound particularly happy, though, especially as she starts getting zapped and goo'd up from multiple directions at once. It's not for a lack of trying to avoid any of it, of course, but electricity is unpredictable enough that Futaba's usual bevy of flips and rolls won't help her out quite so much. After the first couple of zaps leave her sizzling, Futaba goes on the counterattack, transforming her arms to stone and covering her advance with them. She throws wild haymakers at the pylons, maintaining her balance by carefully transforming her tail to stop her from skidding out of control. If she can rip one of those defensive installations loose, she'll even throw it at another and try to start a chain of grabbing and throwing things to loosen and throw other turrets! |
| Madeleine Cadrasteia | Is Madeleine coming along for the ride when giant metallic claws descend from the ceiling to steal away the Kales? Of *course* she is. "You *can* fly, right?" she asks (apparently) Nice Kale, dangling from a particle accelerator tube as she continues to hack at the straps holding him against the machine. "Come on, come on..." These straps are *tough*! And it's harder to do this with only one hand. "Would you mind if I used the spear?" After some complaining, however, the huntress finally saws through the last strap, leaving Nice Kale free to figure out his own thing on the long fall down to the floor. With one Kale free, Madeleine turns her attention to the Professor, or more specifically, the Professor's means of keeping an eye on events inside his facility. Clambering up onto the particle accelerator and steadying herself with a hand on the claw arm, she scans around the room for whatever cameras or other spying devices the Professor may be relying on to coordinate the lab defenses. It's only when she spots them that she remembers she'll need both hands free to use her bow. She sighs. And then she slides down onto the particle accelerator, hooks her legs around the central tube, and flips to hang upside-down as she pulls Drogrung from her back. She nearly loses all her arrows when she opens the quiver on her belt, but thinks to spin it around as well so its opening faces upwards. Her weapon's poisons will be of little use against non-living machines, but with one well-placed arrow after another she sets to work blinding the Professor's eyes in the sky... |
| Calvin Nash | Don't you know not to touch other peoples' toys? That especially seems to irk Calvin, his mouth twitching downwards in a sneer. "Boy," he says to the grown man with the Robotnik-esque 'stache, "Your mouth is writin' checks your ass can't cash." "By grandaddies, you let him outta that cage--" He takes a step forward, one fist still held up to protect his face, the other holding the index extended to point accusingly at Orange-- But the advance of his cowboy boots on laboratory floor, and the likewise advance of PB, is cut off by the sudden emergence of ray gun turrets, which has him uttering a home-grown "SHIT!" and diving behind a sturdy metal cabinet for cover, sliding across the ground and tapping .load inv into his COMP as he comes to a halt behind cover. PB takes off--but his humanoid legs are the slower of his two sets. He drops to the floor and scuttles with alarming, unsettling rapidity, getting clear of a tesla coil just as its lightning arcs scrape and score his chitinous armor. "PB, get them damn goo-guns! Xion, good shit comin' atcha--" Peeking out from around the corner, Calvin pantomimes a gun with his index, middle and thumb. "Tarukaja!" One-two-three-four times his hand bucks, sending four glimmering red orbs after Xion to swirl around her. They make 'impact' to the tune of not so much a physical sensation, but a feeling of rock-solid certainty in her ability to physically affect the world. Her swings with her weapon will hit notably harder! PB, meanwhile, remains a frustratingly quick target to lock down, his hunting bow firing with speed more comparable to a semi-automatic pistol than a weapon of antiquity. Magical arrows of burning white light race upwards as the demon scuttles across the floor, weaving in between Orange's equipment to confuse the turrets' tracking and risk extra collateral. "I'd ask if *you* know not to kidnap people," Calvin protests from behind cover as he hurriedly loads engraved shells into the breech of his shotgun. "But you and that damn Pig boss of yours ain't got a lick of sense between you!" |
| Petra Soroka | "Oh, he's already down. Kind of just a hack-job low tier Frankenstein, right? He doesn't even talk." Petra looks disappointed at Grundall's rapid decay into sleepytime, calling her ratbot back to her hand to exchange it with her morphmetal bottle in Qetra's hand. "I don't wanna get your armor dinged up for something so stupid, so stay safe in there, alright?" Petra considers the fact that she might want to have sympathy for the beaten-up green lug later, after she's already walked past his collapsed form. "No, that's stupid," she says out loud without any context, while bouncing on the balls of her feet in anticipation of charging through a tesla coil's area once it's powered down. "This is all just dumb bullshit nonsense made by hollow people. Who knows if that thing was a person at all?" "Don't you know not to touch other peoples' toys?" "Gross!!!! That's too hasty!" Being christened a 'toy' is a very deeply meaningful and intimate thing, you know! Even when you're a supervillain! You can't just go around calling *Kale* that. "What's even your motivation? What are you doing tests *for*? There's nothing in this entire fucking world even worth bothering with, and apparently you agree, because it's been this lame for *centuries* and you're still here. What do you *want*?" "I'd ask if *you* know not to kidnap people," Petra's earlier thoughts on Grundall have vaguely tuned her mind in to the same condition that it was in during the road trip to the gnome's mountain, which makes her feel like she's supposed to be decent to Calvin. What that means, in addition to sending a blob of morphmetal to cybernetically overload a turret's targeting system so it shoots around randomly rather than aiming for Calvin, is that what she says next is sincerely meant to be enlightening. "Well, obviously he knows he's being evil. So that doesn't quite track." Petra squints up at Kale while he's being pulled away, miming out aiming a rifle she isn't holding to test the idea of just sniping away the straps holding him in. That's a bad idea, though, so she doesn't do that. "The real question is what do you *get* out of kidnapping someone. There's barely anyone here, right? There's such a small community. Pissing people off and tearing off their limbs, when, before us, it was just the same bunch of guys sitting in a room forever basically, is kind of a shitty game to play. Though the red one was new... was it all targeted on the red doll, actually?" |
| Xion | With the hiking up of rising slash ending in a stunning bonk, Xion manages to bounce over top of Gundall while the big Built-Like-a-Grundall drops to the combination attack and a nighty-night blast. Over the top and sliding down the supine back, Xion spots the science-style defenses pop out and spring to life, twirling her blade back to ready before her and light-stepping back onto the labfloor. It's a short lived twirl and victory fanfare, as lasers and goo slime the air and rake beams across Xion, a second implosion-shift disjointing the Nobody out of reality for another moment just after she's hit and skipping frames like a broken animation to slide out of the way of coat-smearing munitions and race the speed of light. 'Xion, good shit comin' atcha--' "A lot of bad stuff too!" Xion complains back mid-quip, not plucking expletives from Calvin's fine home garden for her own use. With the surging red power-up striking her with a suffusion of might, the noirette mirror-deflects away a red laser beam ceiling-ward with the silvered length of her key, flipping a red and yellow big turtle-lizard motifed medallion up in her free hand and catching it. Surging twice-over, the physical-powering magic feeding into a frame-enlargening flex that comes with black spiked bands around both hands and a glittering-gold crown with two beady eyes staring out atop her head, Xion's sudden transformation waves out the red energy in a glittery burst-- Then instead of running over to a bunch of turrets, the noirette draws in a big nasal breath, and exhales a fierce cone of flame breath, washing it across the defenses before her. |
| Angela | There's something off about invading a facility, a LAB, and having to deal with its defenses. Angela feels particularly off about that. And even fighting what seems to be some sort of Abnormality? It's hard to tell for certain because, frankly, half the people she's run to--particularly the soul eating vending machine--have been fairly Abnormality-esque. Frankly, a fair number of Elites feel Abnormality-esque at this point. It's really strained the definitions that LobCorp has historically used but fortunately the most important definition still stands. Abnormalities are entities held in the facility. ''What do you *want*?'' "Agreed." Angela says, barely refraining from saying 'Just tell us your life story already' because that makes her think of Alucard and also feels a little too forward, even with how rapidly more irritated she's becoming. "What is all this about?" She asks. "Since you're smart, you should know, yes?" She says instead, figuring that's way better. Cinder, meanwhile, gets gooed. "UCCK!! ACCK ANGELA HELP I'M MELTING--" She pauses. "w-wait, no, I'm just... It's just rapidly hardening and...agghh I can't move...!" She holds Fourth Match FLame baove her head and swings it wildly from side to side as she tries to waggle herself free. "Hm... I wonder if 'music' will work on defenses as well." Angela murmurs, performing an Arpeggio and directing it at the tesla guns. Angela glances down to Grundall. "..." She pokes him lghtly with one of the Eggpack's claws. "Mm." |
| Kale Hearthward | Futaba hammers away at the pylons. Fortunately stone doesn't conduct electricity that well, and the pylons don't know to aim for the horn. In short order Futaba's gotten one loose, and can start causing havoc with it. Xion's FIRE BREATH, and Cinder's FOURTH MATCH FLAME work to melt more of the defenses, while Angela begins her musical assault. "Hey, be careful with that," calls Nice Kale to Cinder, even though she's aiming nowhere near where he is. Madeleine goes for a ride, and focuses on getting a Kale free. "Hey, good to see you again," says Nice Kale, still clinging to the particle accelerator for a moment. "Can't fly, but I shouldn't have to worry about falling. I'd be more worried about-" "Why did you free the other one first!?" complains Kale. "- Uh, myself," says Nice Kale. Calvin's arrows can jam up the goo turrets pretty well. Some of them, with their delivery mechanisms destroyed or jammed, start overloading and explode messily as the goo backs up from the delivery mechanism and clogs up the rest of the machine. > She pokes him lightly with one of the Eggpack's claws. Grundall groans and stirs slightly. He doesn't seem inclined to get back up and take another beating, though. Whether reaching it by grabbing a ride with the giant claw (willingly or not) or fighting towards the end - Professor Orange himself can be found is standing atop a giant turret at the end of the cavern. It looks like a giant face. "Persistent! I'll enjoy dissecting you to see what makes you tick - only after I've gotten several lifetimes worth of experimental data out of you, though. > "I'd ask if *you* know not to kidnap people," "Mmmhmm, mmhmm... how else would one get fresh test subjects, though? The research I'm undertaking is innovative, groundbreaking! Truly a marvel of our timeless time!" "Perhaps you'd like to be my new assistant, though. Grundall's proven again how useless he is, so I could use someone like you. We'd need to make sure you're properly... enhanced first, of course." > "What's even your motivation?" "The secrets of the universe! Here, in this storyless world, the walls of reality are thin - here I can reach beyond the veil, and I have an immortal lifetime to do it in! So what if I have to use up a few test subjects, the ends justify the means!" "And already my experiments with your twin birds have proven fruitful! I have analyzed the boundary conditions of your universe, determined the rhythm and structure of what you consider a 'battle', and more importantly found the quantum signifiers of what constitutes an 'action'!" "It's a turn based paradigm, but one with a useful little command to turn up the heat..." Professor Orange taps out something on a nearby keyboard. He types: >clock 45 |
| Kale Hearthward | On several of the monitors throughout the lab, a countdown timer appears. It reads 45 minutes - plenty of time. But it's... not counting down smoothly, instead its going down in fits and bursts? It's not matching up to 45 minutes of real time. It's as if it's a timer not for you, but for someone else. ... For someone else? What? What are you talking about? There's nobody else here. Still, even if the timer's hard to impossible to figure out, it's probably best to continue your fight quickly. Something might happen when that timer runs out. In the meantime, the giant face-turret that Professor Orange is perched on starts belching fireballs and shooting eye-lasers! It's all a little hard to dodge! |
| Madeleine Cadrasteia | "And already my experiments with your twin birds have proven fruitful!" "Oh, well, if you've already got your data then, uh..." She looks at Other Kale as she rights herself on the claw arm. "Just hold on a minute, we'll get you out of there once this bastard's had his due." She shields herself from the Professor's line of fire by hiding behind the arm's bulk, and waits for the arm to pass close to the turret before leaping down to the gun emplacement's 'face'. There, Drogrung shifts back into a spear and the huntress lays into the Professor with everything she's got! It's too close quarters for the turret itself to hit Madeleine. The professor may have close-up defenses remaining yet, but with luck they won't hold long under a sustained assault. In a matter of moments the Professor may find himself at spear-point, or at the very least he'll have been distracted from firing the turret long enough for the other Elites to catch up... |
| Angela | Kill him, Angela is starting to think on the matter of Orange. No, She tells herself a moment after. You won't get any joy out of it. He's immortal. You have to test the theory on one who won't simply survive being urdered. Angela narrows her eyes. "Carelessly, you have created a ''second Kale''? This is unethical." ''Hey, be careful with that.'' "W--why?? Is there a gas leak or something???" ''GRundall groans and stirs slightly.'' For some reason, Angela feels a small measure of relief that he isn't actually deceased. But she doesn't poke him again, electing that he can just enjoy his nap. This has less to do with sympathy for Grundall's condition and situation and more to do with the growing realization that she will be free soon and she'd rather avoid adding on to her baggage for post-escape. How tough can HOKMA be to deal with? Relative to Binah and Gebura? Yeah, she's pretty confident. ''It's a turn based paradigm--'' "Rggh....What is he...talking about?" Cinder asks, finally snapping herself free. "Never you mind. He is just attempting to beguile you." Angela says, despite knowing full well that some Abnormalities sometimes see the world through, lets say, more ''meta'' lenses. The way to handle it is the same. "Just ignore hm and keep swinging your EGO around." "Yes ma'am!" Cinder says, going to town on the equipment and completely heedless of Kale's advice. "Should I wait until the timer is done before swinging a second time?" Cinder calls back to Angela. "No of course not, swing as much as you'd like. What truly qualifies as ''action''? We can define it for ourselves and to our advantage." |
| Futaba Nuki | After tossing a pylon into a different pylon, Futaba brushes her rocky fists off before realizing she's just grinding her own hand-stuff down and stopping that quickly thereafter. She's looking a little less sore about Orange's treatment of Grundall, at least, as he goes into his motivations and his goals, even throwing out that line she's heard a few times before about ends and means. "Even if it does end up with crazy discoveries.. Using people's lives for those experiments without their say so is messed up. Get some money, then pay people to sign on!" Futaba bellows out, pausing as she realizes that that would more or less be what happened to Red and Blue. "... And pay 'em for real, in advance!" She narrows her eyes when he mentions his experiments' results, looking over at the monitors displaying the timer with a raised eyebrow. "That's... Kind of a long turn, ain't it?" She asks, blinking slowly at the odd jumps on the timer. She actually does try and figure it out, too, but there's not a lot of theories to even start with in her mind about all that. Also, there's even more fire. Between Xion and Cinder, there's already plenty of toastying up that's starting to get Futaba a little more excited, and when turrets start spewing flames as well... Actually, it's rather uncomfortable with how much flowing fabric and fuzzy tail Futaba has on her. Nevertheless, she reaches into her pouch, and out comes the flaming katana. "Well.. Let's turn up the heat and really get this finished before the timer runs down!" She boasts while spinning the katana overhead dramatically, snapping it back against her shoulder at the end of a big revolution before starting to run straight at a turret. She pushes right through the flames, letting them wash over her to look even more flaming than ever... Actually, she's looking pretty crispy by the halfway mark. It's only by transforming herself into a gooey, slimy form that she can even get all the way to the first turret, then starts whirling around with her enchanted weapon in a spinning maneuver all around to start slicing into it and so many others nearby in a splatter of gleaming slime and steel. She even pushes the katana through herself to slash and thrust that much sooner! |
| Xion | Within the compression of low-Ouvere life, the dark-pale expanse of infiniteness without a script to determine when things might or should end there are endless possibilities for those with a pen to write. For example: If you're a jerk scientist, you can write rude garbage about the way the world works in relation to other people, and nobody will be around to call you out on it behind a locked door! Battling turrets by 'firing back' - literally, joining Cinder's application of the Fourth Match Flame with long furnace-breaths of heat - Xion roasts and melts the terrain with brilliant plumes of oh-so-colorful heat. Her roaring 'gwah!!'-s of expelling tire out something inside of her after a while, such applications of Neutral B running out an inner reserve that requires time to recharge, and Xion compensates by staying on the move, falling back to allow Cinder-and-Angela to one-two attack in tandem to scorch the laser and goop turrets before they gunk up everyone else. The Power Crown'ed Nobody's flame lizard rampage isn't cut short so much as frustrated by big chunky fireballs blasting her down in a fusillade of counter-flame that vibrantly detonates the flamespewing Nobody and flattens her onto her back. Groaning for a second, Xion smokes and coughs out a puff of dark char, oufing and rolling to her side. "You know..." She complains, and shifts to a knee. 'So what if I have to use up a few test subjects, the ends justify the means!' "I don't think you *get* it. *We* are the 'so what'. We're the 'come due'. We're the ones you messed up with, abducting someone we know to your little corner of literally nowhere. And you messed *up*, when you treated your tools badly, your assistants badly, the ones who might've been your friend." "You just didn't know. Just like you don't know -- that if you want to lock a door behind you, you *keep the key with you*!!" Xion shouts, teleporting from her crouch into a flying and fist-cocked back near-completion of one harrowing punch. The Crown-enhanced fist, smoking red with Calvin's buffs and the flames of the Koopa King, is swung out from her flying advance, drilled right into the center of the screen. "I'll burn this whole place down, and then go home to my friends that love me! That's my *so what*!" |
| Calvin Nash | Well, obviously he knows he's being evil. So that doesn't quite track. "I guess so," Calvin answers, emphasis on 'so' rather than 'guess'--her elucidation makes sense to him, though his slightly wistful tone implies he just would really prefer the professor weren't being evil at all, knowingly or otherwise. Petra's neutralization of the tesla coil earns her a thankful nod from Calvin, as he works the pump-action on his shotgun. From there, he moves, darting from cover to cover, working in tandem with PB--when the Demon Marshal moves, the scorpion-man's hunting bow sends spreads of arrows outwards like the spokes of a wheel. Likewise, when PB scuttles ahead, Calvin covers *his* advance with thunderous blasts from the shotgun. It's not pellets or slugs that race from the barrel of the old long gun, however--after the initial muzzle flash, pale, translucent ribbons of green stretch outwards and coil together. Winding into solid shapes as they travel, those shapes gain definition and speed, from ribbons to indistinct cloud to galloping horses that create gale-force winds in their wake, slamming into the professor's gadgets violently and then letting the howling winds clean up. With one shot left, Calvin finds himself with his back against a destroyed tesla coil and given an offer. Grundall's proven again how useless he is, so I could use someone like you. We'd need to make sure you're properly... enhanced first, of course. "Don't you talk about him like that. He went up against all of us, just on your say-so. You're one of the smartest guys I ever met," says Calvin. "But when it comes to people, you're dumber than a box of rocks. That fella there's probably one of the last people here that'll put up with your ass. Me, I've had just about all I can stand--" Click-click. The last shot is chambered. He just needs to wait for PB to get into position to use it. Across the room, behind the crashed remnants of a goo-turret, the scorpion-man scuttles up, his olive-green skull nodding as he presses himself flat against the floor. He's ready to draw fire, but-- It's a turn based paradigm, but one with a useful little command to turn up the heat... "Boy, it ain't gonna take 45 minutes to offload the grain silo of asswhip you just ordered--" He blinks as the timer moves erratically, far from the expected even pace. But this is Calvin, so naturally he can't be the one that's wrong in this situation. "All them lightning coils and goo shooters and whatnot, and you can't even make a damn egg timer. Dumbass." PB stands upright on his humanoid legs, opening fire with a volley of rapid-fire arrows to draw attention. A half second later, Calvin braces the shotgun against the cracked coil of the tesla tower and pulls the trigger. At first, there's only the 'click' of the hammer firing and the 'pow' of powder igniting. It seems like it might have been a dud, but for the white-knuckled grip Calvin keeps on the weapon. All at once, the lab is host to the sound of howling wind, like a storm was held captive and suddenly unleashed. Not unleashed--not left to run free. Directed. From the weapon's barrel, it's faintly visible, a shimmering green corona surrounding visibly distorted air, a concentrated pillar of pressurized wind screaming down the lab to pummel Orange's contraption. Stray rubble and detritus from the fight that edges too close to the 'beam' is shredded or else whipped up like an unsuspecting hare in the jaws of something heavy, fast and hungry. Calvin's biceps bulge, his lips pressed into a tight frown with the effort of controlling the concentrated beam as he angles it to bisect Orange's last weapon, before, after several seconds of sustained destruction, it dies out, his arms and his gun going slack as if no longer needing to hold a chain taut. |
| Petra Soroka | "w-wait, no, I'm just... It's just rapidly hardening and...agghh I can't move...!" Metanarrative limitations placed temporally after the point in time that Cinder gets gooped, but before Petra can react to it, simplify her attempts to help Cinder considerably. Her options are: 1 Gun, 0 Water, 1 Pack of Cleaning Rags (along with emulsifying cleaning sprays!), 1 Cinderblock. Petra cycles through her options quickly before settling on using her gunblade to crack open the hardening goop and help Cinder free. "Perhaps you'd like to be my new assistant, though." "Huh?! What the fuck?!" Petra's journey to the end of the cavern is done in the most clumsy way possible, without bothering with area clearing like Xion, or hitching a ride on the machinery like Madeleine. Despite just slogging her way through the laboratory's hazards all in a row, though, her familiarity with the sort of tech and layout that an *evil lab* tends to use means that she makes good time. Not *unscathed* time, but quick, between the explosions of forcibly-jammed turrets and the whirring shutdown of tesla towers. "Excuse me, I'm *literally* a graduated supervillain's apprentice, to a supervillain *way* fucking smarter than you, by the way! *I'm* a better scientist than you! You should be on your fucking hands and knees begging *me* to be your assistant!" Petra points angrily at Professor Orange from her position on the ground, before remembering to add the last bit. "And I refuse, by the way! So choke on it!" "Carelessly, you have created a ''second Kale''? This is unethical." Petra nods in support of Angela, gesturing at Mean Kale. "We were doing so well with the original one too! And you've gone and fucked it up." "God, I've never been a fan of the whole 'big robot that looks like your face', thing." Petra grumbles to herself, while firing concussive beams of energy into the turret's eyes to short out the laser emitters that she *knows* are right behind them, "I know Doctor Eggman does it all the time. And so does every other big villain, it's gotta be a brand identity thing, but like-- can you even imagine me doing that? It's so lame. It's fucking *cringe*, actually." It's not matching up to 45 minutes of real time. "What the fuck's up with that clock, anyways?" Petra watches as it ticks down from 25 minutes to near zero in the span of just a couple minutes of her own time. "It's not even consistent. Like, the reason to display a timer like that is for consistently, fucking, mounting threat, not... whatever this is." |
| Kale Hearthward | Futaba comes in with her flaming slime katana attack. Madeleine slams home with her spear. Cinder uses more fire. (Nice Kale disapproves.) Calvin unleashes the storm. And it's Xion who, in a concerted attempt to respond to a 'so what', brings the turret all the way down, with one hyperbuffed punch. And Orange is down. Literally, down on the ground. "I think... I sprained something..." The timer's stopped, on about 10 minutes left. (It *definitely* hasn't been 35 minutes since it was started.) What it's supposed to count down to, no one will ever know. Professor Orange is rolling around on the ground in pain, defenseless. One of the Kales is free, and has made his way down to the ground, turning to address the group, all while the other Kale is still strung up inside a particle accelerator. "So - hi there! This wasn't really how I wanted to meet, but by the time I realized you made it here, well... ah ha ha. You know." Kale rubs the back of his head, and grins. "I fell into a trap. I remembered the first one, but the second one - I didn't know there was a second one. Hah." "... So! The Everhood. Kinda a terrible place, isn't it. There's only so many places that are thin enough to hop back in time like this, though, and I'm still working on getting the hang of doing it in normal-oeuvre space." "... It's really good to see you all, though. Thanks for coming to save me." Kale spreads his arms wide. "Group hug?" he asks. |
| Madeleine Cadrasteia | There's only so many places that are thin enough to hop back in time like this, though, and I'm still working on getting the hang of doing it in normal-oeuvre space. "Wait, so what happens when you do get the hang of it? There'll be two Kales everywhere, not just here? Is that wise?" "Thanks for coming to save me." "Woah, you're kinda jumping to a conclusion there. I mean, we came here to see future Kale, but for all we know you're present Kale. Er, I guess we did save you from the lab either way. So, you're welcome?" As the dust clears and the machinery falls silent, Madeleine looks up, at the Other Kale still stuck to a particle accelerator in a claw arm on the ceiling. "I, uh, didn't think about how I'd get back up there," she calls up to the bird-man. "It might be a while, let me just figure out how to work that arm..." She wanders over to the machinery, eager for an excuse to avoid Nice Kale's group hug. Then she snaps her fingers as she remembers something. "Right! Gravity. Oeuvre. Just a sec." The starlights in Madeleine's eyes flare as she exerts her nature as a being of Is-Not, and the space around her almost swims with anti-oeuvre. With gravity thoroughly suppressed in her personal space, she kicks off the ground and floats rapidly upward. After coming to an awkward stop against the ceiling she draws her knife again and sets to work freeing Other Kale from his restraints. |
| Futaba Nuki | With the self-blenderizing complete and only several burn wounds still lingering in her transformed state, Futaba breathes out a light sigh of relief (after cheering herself hoarse at Calvin's windy shooting spree and Xion's massive fist). While approaching the Kale stuck in the particle accelerator, she pauses to give Professor Orange a weary look. "Listen to Calvin here. Maybe Grundall doesn't have the eye for science stuff you've got, but he came out here, he threw down, and he danced like his life depended on it. If you're even half the man he is, show us your real moves next time. And... Uh." She looks over at Grundall, then nudges Orange with a slimy appendage that might be a foot. "See if he'll show you how to use those legs of yours." Turning to the free Kale, Futaba greets him with a wet clap on the shoulder. "Hey again! Or... Wait. You're the Kale from the future, right? Or..." She squints, trying to guess this Kale's age at a glance despite not really knowing how old he is to begin with. "Kind of surprised there's only two traps... Oh. Speaking of second. Did the present you get caught by the first trap? Or... A third one?" She laughs at Madeleine claiming she's not there to save him, moving over to her briefly to give her a light and damp pat on the shoulder as well. "Is he, though? I mean, we did ditch that game to get here first. Anyway." Something about this group hug might be a trap, but Futaba's never been one to avid obvious traps. Besides, the poor guy's been through a lot. "Aw, c'mere!" And so, the slimy Futaba goes right in for the hug, goopy arms stretching waaay out to try and get everyone else that's willing to draw near and then some. Afterwards, she goes to check on/pull Particle-Accelerator-Kale out of the fire. |
| Petra Soroka | Professor Orange is rolling around on the ground in pain, defenseless. Petra casually puts her transteam gun away and pulls out her revolver, thumbing a moon clip of rubber bullets into it. Aiming it at the defeated Professor Orange, she squeezes the trigger a couple times, just to give him a few extra bruises. Afterwards, she realizes, "Oh, we don't want to risk this guy getting up to more shit, do we? I have zip ties." "So - hi there! This wasn't really how I wanted to meet, but by the time I realized you made it here, well... ah ha ha. You know." "What the fuck?" Petra steps back, repulsed, even pulling her gun up to her chest defensively like she might be under some sort of attack. "Future Kale was the *nice* one? I thought you'd be evil! Wait--" Petra turns away from Nice Kale, to speak to the party as a whole. "Okay, that one's the fake one. You know, this was a laboratory, right? He totally just made an evil doppelganger of Kale to infiltrate our group. This one's bullshitting us, and I don't believe it for a second." Just as further proof, Petra wheels around and points at Future Kale, other hand still gripping her revolver. "Tell me something only the real Kale would know. Or I'll shoot." |
| Angela | ''Group hug?'' Angela frowns. "That is probably enough to fire." Cinder manages not to offer to set Kale ON fire despite how arson focused she is today. |
| Calvin Nash | I think... I sprained something... "I'm terribly sorry," says Calvin with flatness to suggest that he actually isn't at all. "You and me are 'bout to have a *talk* in a minute. 'Till then--" "PB," he says, looking over to the scorpion-man. The utterance of his nickname and a little up-nod from Calvin is enough to get a nod in response from the demon, seeing him scuttle over to keep his bow trained on the professor. No need to worry about lethal force or anything--he's just got another one of those sleep arrows nocked. Oh, we don't want to risk this guy getting up to more shit, do we? I have zip ties. "PETRA--" Calvin shouts it, before he realizes it was 'just' rubber bullets. Not that that's really fantastic, either. Several different chastisements compete for real estate such that none of them reach his mouth, a state of exasperation settling in as he pinches the bridge of his nose. "Sure. Tie 'im up. Thanks." "Marshal Nash is not alone in his puzzlement," says PB. "But I cannot argue with your suggestion, at least." Group hug? Calvin doesn't inch in for the hug, and feels justified in doing so when Futaba goopily obliges. What he does do is balance the shotgun on his shoulder so as to keep his finger away from the trigger and also not accidentally muzzle-flash anyone. "Dia." Another fingergun from his free hand sends a little, misty light-blue healing dart zipping Future-Kale's way. Madeleine gets to work freeing the other Kale, and Calvin moves over to join her, hitting *that* Kale with a healing dart, too. Tell me something only the real Kale would know. Or I'll shoot. "I beg your pardon, Petra," says PB, while Calvin is occupied with Present-Kale. "But what do you intend to do if they're both able to provide such an answer?" |
| Kale Hearthward | Professor Orange doesn't quite get knocked unconscious by a clip of rubber bullets being shot at him nearly point blank, but he's not doing too well afterwards. It's elementary to tie him up. Grundall starts getting back up to his feet around this time, and doesn't really make any move to do anything. > "Tell me something only the real Kale would know. Or I'll shoot." "Well, let's see... the first time we were on a train together, after we fought, I went to go find a campground and set up a campfire and some water for you. Pretty sure I haven't told anyone else all the details about that, and I imagine you didn't either because you lost the fight." > "That is probably enough to fire." "Ah ha ha..." Nice Kale's smile goes a little strained. "Good one, Angela." HUG COUNT: 1 "Ahh! You're all slimy! Now I need a bath..." Kale smirks at Futaba. "Never change, Nuki." > "Wait, so what happens when you do get the hang of it? There'll be two Kales everywhere, not just here? Is that wise?" "Maybe! And also maybe! Right now I don't have the advantages for it - er, I mean I'm not advantaged enough at it. It's tough, even if you know the right moves to pull it off." Madeleine floats up and starts freeing Original Recipe Kale. "I think I'm one of only two people in the room who can justifiably and literally say they hate themselves," he mutters as he's helped down to the ground. "Right, where's my gear..." |
| Xion | Xion drops to the floor again after springing off the screen from punch-blowback, cartwheeling backwards through the air before landing in a few steadying backsteps and a swing-out and down of her held Keyblade. Still-crowned, still-bangled, still smouldering from both nostrils, Xion snorts out a hot wash of ashes and releases her tight grip around the large hilted Kingdom Key. The weapon, dissipating into twinkling lights before hitting the ground, leaves the still-crowned Nobody a bit steamed for the more understandable reasons of of being literally hot under the collar. "Okay," Xion breathes out, trying to ratchet down but not quite getting there, simmering instead. "I still think I want to burn this place down..." But her eyes track to the other Kale in a particle accellerator. Thankfully -- Futaba and Madeleine are getting him out! This is a huge load off Xion's mind, and she gives the starry-eyed huntress and Tanuki-girl a thumbs up before looking over her bicep and Neutral B'ing a bank of consoles and research equipment with another spewing of 'blahhhh' firebreath, emptying herself out of aggression and flamelick displeasure once more. Then she heads over to Future Kale, past Petra's aimed gun, and gives Future Kale a one-armed hug to make it a 'group' hug. When she does, she leans up to whisper crackling-hot in the bird's ear. "If this is a trap, I'm lighting you on fire too." Before finishing the hug and stepping back. "Okay, uh, once the other Kale's free, I think Cinder and I are going to make sure nobody gets any extra-bright ideas about studying time travel the *stupid* way again." |
| Kale Hearthward | Things burn satisfyingly. Behind one of the rows of monitors, there's a chunk of blue door that someone will want to retrieve before it too goes up in flames, but otherwise there's nothing here that will be missed or that the world wouldn't be better off without. HUG COUNT: 2 > ("If this is a trap, I'm lighting you on fire too.") Nice Kale's smile goes a little more forced again. "Ah ha ha... noted..." he says, weakly. He believes it. |
| Madeleine Cadrasteia | Madeleine kicks off again toward the floor, lands upside-down, and lets gravity resume to crumple her into a huntress heap. Picking herself up and shaking off the ash from Xion's flames, she looks over to Grundall and frowns. She walks up to where the immense assistant is slowly staggering to his feet, and offers him a hand (for whatever that's worth, given her stature). "C'mon big guy, let's get you outta here. Lecturer Lemon over there's not gonna boss you around anymore." If she can, she'll lead him as far as the pub and get the poor fellow a drink from Sarracenia's supply. |
| Xion | Around the burning of the area, Xion and Cinder rather happily getting around to turning the Low Ouevere area into a cheery blaze, Xion looks to Madeleine retrieving the big Grundall, and offers Mads a second thumbs up. "Hey, thanks for that! Everyone deserves a hand up now and then, and that one probably deserves quite a few in a row." Orange is not so ceremoniously expected to be retrieved neatly, but Xion trusts Marshal Nash on contact to make sure a jackass still doesn't die to a burning building. He just seems the sort. Which just leaves Xion, Cinder, and some Kales. Particularly, Nice Kale. As her Neutral B power recharges within her, Xion pauses again by Nice Kale, rubbing the side of her neck with hand highlit by spiked band about wrist. "... If you've learned a lesson and I jumped you anyway about it, I really am sorry. It's... Not an excuse, that it takes some time to change to fit other people's decisions. It's something that's hard, to consistently do. And, I don't know if I think of you as a hugger yet." Another snort, ashen-hot, and the crowned noirette's hand drops, to pat Nice Kale on the shoulder. "But I'm willing to work with a nicer Kale. I don't think I'd mind that much. If it's a decision you made, keep it up, even if it's hard at first. Eventually, people will get it. Eventually, it just becomes Normal Kale, and that's something to look forward to, isn't it? So..." Xion nods, turning to get back to the burning. "Don't lose heart because I was rude to you and didn't know, Kale. I think being nicer becomes its own reward, as long as you don't mind doing it for yourself." |
| Kale Hearthward | @emit "Hey, I get it, and I know going in I might get the evil doppelganger treatment. I mean, *I'm* giving *myself* the cold shoulder." Present Kale is giving Nice Kale a wide berth. "So no apology needed. Really. And, uh, I need to be honest." Nice Kale goes to a whisper. "Honestly, even after everything, I still kinda *do* want to ambush you and fight you again?" he admits to Xion, giving his best embarrassed smile. And so the group lights the lab on fire, which is probably the best outcome. THE GROUP ACQUIRES: 1x BLUE DOOR CHUNK ... ... ... ... GRUNDALL ACQUIRES: 1x DRINK ALSO: 1x FRIEND "Grundall wanted learn science. Approached Professor. Instead ended up as science experiment." "Grundall done with that now. Grundall..." Grundall pauses in thought, and finishes his beer. "Grundall become bartender," he decides, squeezing around behind the empty bar. |